THE WISDOM OF CREATION
The Quran states: “O Mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from a single soul. He created its mate from it, and from the two of them, countless men and women (throughout the earth) spread. Fear God in whose name you appeal to one another, and be mindful of your obligations with respect to ties of kinship. God is always watching over you.” (4:1)
Fear of God and honouring of one’s fellow men—this is the twin foundation of Islam laid down in the Quran in the above verse. According to most commentators who have penetrated the meaning of the Quran, ‘it’ in the above verse refers to ‘species.’ Eve was created not from Adam himself—but from the same species as Adam.
In several other verses from the Quran, the word ‘soul’ has been used to mean ’species’—for example “God has created for you spouses of your kind.” (16:72)
Another of His signs is that He created for you from among yourselves spouses so that you might find repose in them, and He created affection and kindness between you. (30:21)
Thus, women and men are from the same species. Biologically speaking, women have not been extracted from the bodies of their male counterparts. God fashioned them according to His Will, just as He fashioned men by His Will and Power.
Modern research has presented the facts on a purely academic level, that fundamental, inborn differences do exist between men and women. A detailed article on the ‘Status of Women’ in the Encyclopaedia Britannica includes a section on Scientific Studies of Male-Female differences. Here, the author points out physical differences in the respective constitutions of male and female forms of the human species. “Concerning personality traits,” he writes, “men are characterized by greater aggressiveness, dominance, achievement and motivation, women by greater dependency, a stronger social orientation and the tendency to be more easily discouraged by failure than men. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 19, p. 907)
And there are many latter-day scientific experiments to back this up. Child specialists say that male-female differences are entirely genetic in nature. The delicateness found in women is due to the particular nature of the female hormone. Differences between male and female hormones exist from birth; they are not acquired later, as would be the case if they stemmed from environmental differences.
The tenets of Islam are based wholly on nature. This is because Islam is the religion of nature. The laws Islam requires us to follow are our instinctive human requirements expressed in legal terms. And the teachings of Islam concerning women are no exception. They, too, are based on nature. Modern psychological, biological, and anatomical research proves women to have a more delicate constitution than men. This is the way their Maker has fashioned them. The nature of their womanhood and the particular part they have to play in society demand that they should be just as they have been made—that is relatively delicate compared to men.
It is this fact of nature on which Islamic teachings have been based. Because of women’s delicate constitution, Islam teaches men to be gentle with them. That way, they will not lose heart or become too despondent to perform their special duties in life. Women are not like iron and steel, immune to rough treatment. They are fragile and delicate. It is best to let them be in their natural state.
In various traditions, the Prophet of Islam advised that people should be gentle with women. A tradition of the Prophet states:
“The best among you is he who gives the best treatment to his womenfolk.” (Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith No. 1978)
The Prophet himself followed this principle in life. During the time of the Prophet, women attended the night prayer. Sometimes, they used to take their small children along with them. The Prophet used to pay special attention to strict and full observance of prayer. Yet so great was his consideration for women that sometimes, when he heard babies crying, he would cut short the prayer. He said, "Sometimes I stand up for prayer, intending to do a long one. Then I heard a baby cry, so I cut short the prayer, not wanting to make things difficult for the child’s mother. (Sahih aI-Bukhari, Hadith No. 707)
Thus, when God says that He created man’s mate from the same soul, He means that women are of the same species as men. God made them that way, so there should be harmony between the two sexes so that there may be peace and harmony in family life. In this way, together, they may be able to build a better society and the world.
