Women In Islam : Fairness or equality? ( Part 3 )

When some people claim that Islamic treatments for women are unfair, they must have their own reasons, but we have to question, first of all, what is meant by 'fairness' since different view for one word might yield the different outcome for the whole issue.

If they consider fairness to be the equality, it means that we are not in similar perspective. In Islam, the absolute definition for this word is to place things in their rightful place. As the result, the equality might be a part of the fair, but it is not necessarily equality means fairness.

In particular issue, the differences between men and women are not only in physical, but also in emotion. In fact, most of the women are influenced by their emotional rather than their rational and vice versa. Therefore, there are a few roles or tasks that played by men should be unalike than their spouses. It is not determined by religion, but the nature itself.

Thus, Islam is a true natural religion has chosen to say both men and women complete each other in their life rather than say they are equal.

Women and the right to divorce

The divorce issue in Islam might be considered the main argument to prove that Islam doesn't provide the justice for genders. In fact, it is true that only husband own the decision to divorce her wife, but In Islam divorce is not the only way to break the husband-wife relationship. Apart from Talak (divorce), there are khulu’ and  fasakh that also be given to female if she want to end her married status.

What makes Talak different than others is it is prompt decision to break the relationship and only involve between Men and their spouse compared to others that need the judgment from the court. In a few cases, Talak is an amicable way to settle inner problem without involve many parties.

It is obvious that men are less influential compared to women. Thus, the power of talak should be held by him as Islam considered men to be the leader of the family. In fact, the journey of husband-wife relationship full with various challenges and could not avoid from emotional influence. So, not surprisingly, talak is on men’s hand since they are stronger impatient to handle the problem.

Men are leader for women

Another misunderstanding would be on the versus “Men are leader of women”. Most of the people even Muslim understand this versus means that men are always top on women. In other words, no wonder how much stronger or talent of the women, at the end they have to be under men's power.

In fact, it is true that in some situations we could not deny that women are more talent, more responsible and have better character than their counterparts and Islam is not against it. Based on this versus, the problem are not from it, but from those who are trying to interpret it without enough knowledge in Arabic language principal, coupled with bad intention.

The versus have to be read completely as follows

“ Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend ( for maintenance) from their wealth”. ( An-Nisa’ : 34 )

According to the whole phrase in the versus, Quran describe the word ‘men’ as those who are better than women, means if men want to be the leader of the women they have to prove themselves better than their partners. Moreover, the second condition for qualifying them to be the leader is they have to spend their property for the support of women.

Meanwhile, based on grammatical Arab, the word ar-rijal ( men ) consist with ‘alif lam’, In Arabic, ‘alif lam’ show that the word is specific. Therefore, when Allah said ar-rijal, it not means men in general, but it refers to men who are the leader for their wives.