The spiritual equality of man and woman in the Holy Quran

Contrary to the modern world views which focus on quantitative equality of men and women, as if there are no differences between them; Islam considers the two genders as complementary creatures. It means male and female differ from each other regarding that females are psychologically more sensitive and emotional, whereas, the males are rather rigid, strict and obdurate compared to the females. Due to a number of mental as well as physical differences, Islamic rules are diverse with respect to the men and women. But, Islam considers them equal in their ultimate sense of being human, and capable of going to the paradise where they both enjoy an eternal life.

According to the Arabic and Quranic terms “insan or bashar”, which equally refer to both men and women, all the Quranic injunctions and Allah’s commandments are equally addressing men and women, therefor, most of the Islamic rites are the same for both of them. For example, the following verse of the Holy Quran equally addresses both sexes:

\"Lo! Men who surrender unto Allah, and women who surrender, and men who believe and women who believe, and men who are devout and women who are devout” (XXXIII: 35).

This verse makes it clear, that all the promises and threats of the afterlife are similarly for both the male and the female, since women have the same immortal soul as the as men, they will be rewarded or punished for the sake of their good or bad deeds correspondingly. Hence, men and women are equal before God, as per Islam, both of them have the same opportunity for salvation, the same moral and spiritual responsibility and ultimately the same freedom and rights in the spiritual and religious sense.

But Islamically talking, the main question that may arise here is, as to whether men and women are socially, economically and politically the same to each other or different. According to the current west fashions, the males and the females should be regarded equal, with respect to economic and social affairs. However, it is another challenging issue that why Muslim societies should accept these changing modes in the West, as criteria for judging or establishing the role of women in the Islamic societies. Because the west in 2015, for instance, is absolutely different from the west in 1915, similarly, the future West might be again different than what we see now.

Based on the basic Islamic teachings in relation to the social norms, women do not have the same economic or social rights on a certain level. But it neither means that they have no economic rights, because, the first wife of the Prophet himself, that is, the great Khadljah (S), was a merchant; nor does it mean that Islam forbids any kinds of social activities and closes all the doors even on learning among women. Due to the fact that some of the early transmitters of hadiths were women and also there have also been several great female Muslim scholars over the centuries.

Finally it must be noted that the main philosophy behind different economic position of men and women in Islam is due to the importance of family and the crucial role of women in upbringing the children. Actually Islam emphasizes so much the structure of the family to preserve the essential significance of family life. According to Islamic doctrines, both men and women’s main duty and responsibility is to bring up faithful, loyal, conscientious and dutiful generations, but due to the different physical and mental features of the two sexes they are not completely equal rather they are complementary.  So, Islam did put the great emphasis upon the significance of women in Islamic society, but not exactly the same as western schools of thoughts did, rather Islam considered the importance of women’s role differently according to its own principles.

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