1 See: Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (London: Heinemann, 1974); Rovert L. Heilbroner, "The Human Prospect", The New York Review of Books, January24, 1974; and Pitrim A. Sorokin, Social Philosophies of an Age of Crisis, (London; Adam & Charles Black, 1950).
2 This is born out by the explosion of sex outside marriage, by the exponential rise in divorce and desertion rates, in broken homes, in abortions and illegitimate births and in juvenile delinquency, and by the plight of the aged. See J. Dominian, 'The Marriage Relationship Today", (London: The Mothers' Union, 1974); Vance Packard, The Sexual Wilderness, (New York: David McKay Co., 1968); Majorie Rittwagen, Sins of Their Fathers, (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1958).
3 See: al-Quran, 3:2; 3:84; 42:13. See also Khurshid Ahmad, Islam: Basic principles and characteristics, (Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1974).
4 If this fact had been kept in view, many a writer would have spared himself the trouble of theorizing about 'religious plagiarism' and borrowings' from this or that source, a favorite theme with some of the orientialists.
5 The story has been narrated in the Quran in seven places. See Al-Quran 2:122-123; 7:11-24;15: 26-42;17:61.65' 18: 50-53; 20:122-123; 38: 71-83. See also Muhammad lqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious thought in Islam, (Lahore: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1971) pp.82.88 and Abdul A'la Mawdudi, Tafhim al-Qur'an (Lahore, Maktaba Ta'mir-e-lnsaniyyat, 1973), Vol.1, pp.61-70 and Vol.11, pp.10-20
6 AI-Qur'an: 95: 4
7 ibid., 95: 5-6; 103: 2-3
8 ibid. 6: 165
9 ibid. 16: 71-72
10 ibid. 16: 98
11 ibid. 2: 208
12 ibid. 2: 208
13 This approach to life is very beautifully summed up in the prayer which ha been taught in the Qur'an and is one of the most commonly used prayers in Islam. "Our Lord Give us the good in this world end the good in' the hereafter' (al-Our in 2: 201). The Prophet has said: "Scent and women have been made dear to me, and the contentment of my eyes is in the payer." The narrow concept of religion tried to drive a wedge between the two categories represented by fragrance and woman on the one side and prayer and communication with God on the other. The Prophet re-integrated them and established the sovereignty of God over the whole realm. As such, 'prayer' end 'worldly progress' do not represent two different categories in Islam. They hove been fused into one. Prayer is a stepping stone to social progress and progress without prayer is a form of retrogression.
14 Al-Quran 4:1. It may be noted that in this verse, the institution of the family-the first family of Adam and Eve - is projected as the mainspring of the human race. It is also significant that one verb wettaqu (be conscious of your duty to) has been used in the verse for reverence to Allah and to al-Arham (the womb; the relations of kinship).
15 ibid. 30: 21
16 ibid. 13: 38. "We indeed send messengers before you (O Muhammad) and We assigned them wives and children."
17 Ibn Majah, Sunan, Book of Nikäh.
18 See Raghib al lsphahani, Mufradat al-Quran.
19 Al-Quran, 4: 21
20 ibid. 4: 19. "O you who believe! You ore forbidden to inherit (as chattels) the women against.their will."
21 See Bukhari, Book of Nikah: See also al-Quran 2: 232
22 See al-Quran 2: 221. The only exception is that a Muslim male can marry a Jewish or Christian woman, on the grounds that the Muslim, Christians and Jews believe in revealed books and as such share, to a certain extent, a common outlook on life. This permission is only in cases where the husband, the head of the family, is a Muslim. A Muslim woman is not permitted to marry a Christian or Jewish husband except when he embraces Islam.
23 ibid. 24: 26. The Prophet has said: "A woman may be married for four reasons: for her property, for her rank, for her beauty and for her religion (and character). So marry the one who is best in religion and character, and prosper. 'Vide Bukhari and Muslim. See Mishkat aI-Masahib, (Tr. J. Robson, Lahore: S.M. Ashraf 1963) Vol. II, p.658. He has also said: 'The whole World is provision and the best object of benefit of the world is the pious wife."' Muslim Sahih, Hadith, No.3465, p.752.
24 Ibid. 24:3
25 These instances do not mean that the Shar'iah does not prescribe rights and obligations even in such cases. A non-Muslim father has certain rights as has a wife -who changes faith. But that is a different issue. Here we are only trying to bring home the crucial role of faith in the institution of family as such.
26 The position is not that marriage is only permitted or tolerated as unavoidable. It has been positively enjoined. See the Quran 24: 3 and Hadith op. cit. lbn Majah, Book of Nikah. See also Bulugh al-Maram. See Book of Nikah Hadiths nos. 993-95.
27 The sharers (Dhawi'l-Furud) the first line of inheritors include father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brothers, sisters or half-sisters widower or widows, sons, daughters and granddaughters in certain cases, See Syed Amir Ali. Mohammedan law Lahore. All Pakistan Legal Decisions. 1965 Vol. II pp44-48
28 The question of equality or inequality of men and woman raised in this context is simply irrelevant. Different roles of functions do not mean difference in basic status as human beings. Rose and jasmine, daffodil and tulip are different, but to say that they are unequal is simply confusing the issue. Engineers, doctors, poets and artists play different roles in society, but the question of their 'inequality' is not raised. Different roles do not mean that some are superior and others inferior. Each area is important and participant in them are to be judged according to their performance in their area of work. And one is assigned to the area one can serve best. Man also has to play a role in the family, but that is not his major role. Here he plays a role secondary to the woman. In the same way, the woman has a role to play in society and its economy. But this is secondary to her role in the family. The Prophet has said: "All of you are guardians and responsible for your wards and the things under your care. The Imam (the ruler) is the guardian of his people and is responsible for them. A man is guardian of his family and is responsible for them. A woman is guardian of her husband's house and is responsible for it. AII of you are guardians and all of you are responsible for your wards." Vide Bukhari.
29 "And stay in your home and do not show off in the manner of the women of the days of ignorance. Be regular in prayer, and pay the. poor-due and obey Allah and His messenger. Allah desires to remove uncleanness far from you, folk of the household and cleanse you with a thorough cleansing." al-Quran, 33: 33.
30 See al-Quran 4: 1
31 ibid. 2: 223, "take care of what is for you" refers to the children expected from the relationship as also to their education, upbringing, moral training and acculturation. The productive aspect is also implicit in the metaphor of 'tillage. Earlier in the same Surah, it has be en said, "So now go to bed with them and seek what God has prescribed for you". (2:187).
32 Al-Quran 2: 25.
33 ibid. 5: 5. The Prophet (peace be upon him) has said: "O young man Those among you who can support a wife should marry, for it restrains eyes from casting (evil glances), and., preserves one from immorality. "Sahih of Muslim, Ch. (The Book of Marriage) Hadith No.3213, p.703. See also ahdith Nos.3232 to 3235.
34 Al-Quran 30: 21. The Quranic word Sakinah embraces all these shades of meaning and much more.
35 ibid. 2:187
36 It is a misconception that nursery school lodging house and work place have taken over these functions in modern society. None of the original functions of the family have been totally or effectively taken care of by any or all of these institutions. What has happened is that some roles have, been partially taken over by these institutions with the result that some other aspects remain totally neglected today, and what is more important, the integrated personality that would develop through the family fails to emerge. Other influences had always been there in some form, although their quantum was different. But the family has been the institution where all other influences would converge and lead to the evolution of a well-balanced personality. With the loss of this function of the family (and not its replacement) the world is a poorer place to live in.
37 al-Quran 4:1.
38 ibid. 2: 223
39 ibid. 44: 6
40 ibid. 25: 74
41 ibid. 14: 40.
42 Vide, Ibn Hanbal, Vol.2, pp. .315 and 346. See also Bukhari, Book of Tafsir Surah al-Nur,' and Muslim, 'Book of Destiny'.
43 Vide Mishkat, op cit.
44 Mlshkat, Book XIII p 716
45 The family is the first tier of the Islamic system of social security. Other tiers include a number of social institution and the state system of social security is one of them.
46 There are people who object to polygamy, but accept polygamous life as a form of human behaviour. Many eyebrows are raised at having a second wife, 'but to have at many 'mistresses' or 'girlfriends' as one likes is accepted in good grace. The contradiction between these two attitudes is conveniently ignored. It may be instructive to quote Mrs. Annie Besant and Dr. Havelock Ellis on this point. Mrs. Besant says: "There is pretended monogamy in the West, but there is really polygamy without responsibility; the mistress is cast off when the man is weary of her, and sinks gradually to the 'woman of the street, for the first lover has no responsibility for her future and she is a hundred times worse off than the sheltered wife and mother in the polygamous home. When we see thousands of miserable women who crowd the streets of Western towns during the night, we must surely feel that it does not lie within western mouth to reproach Islam for polygamy. It is better for woman, happier for woman, more respectable for woman, to live in polygamy, united to one man only with the legitimate child in her arms, and surrounded with respect, than to be seduced, cast out in the Street - perhaps with an illegitimate child outside the pale of the law -unsheltered and uncared for, to become the victim of any passerby, night after night, rendered incapable of motherhood despised by all." Annie Besant, The Life and Teachings of Muhammad, Madras, 1932, p.3. Dr. Havelock Ellis writes: - "It must be said that the natural prevalence of monogamy as the normal type of sexual relationship by no means excludes variations, indeed it assumes them. The line of nature is a curve that oscillates from side to side of the norm. Such oscillations occur in harmony with changes in environmental conditions and no doubt with peculiarities of personal disposition. So long as no arbitrary and merely external attempt is made to force Nature the vital order is harmoniously maintained. The most common variation, and that which must clearly possess a biological foundation, is the tendency to polygamy, which is found at all stages of culture, even in an unrecognised and more or less promiscuous shape. In the highest civilisation...'The path of social wisdom seems to lie on the one hand in making marriage relationship flexible enough to reduce to a minimum of these variations - not because such deviations are intrinsically bad but because they ought not to be forced into existence - and on the other hand in according to these deviation when they occur such a measure of recognition, as will deprive them of injurious influence and enable justice to be done to all the parties concerned. We too often forget that our failure to recognise such variations merely means that we accord in such cases an illegitimate permission to perpetrate injustice. In those parts of the world in which polygamy is recognised as a permissible variation a man is legally held to his natural obligations towards all his sexual mates and towards the children he has, by those mates. In no part of the world is polygamy so prevalent as in Christendom; in no part of the world is it so easy for a man to escape the obligations incurred by polygamy. We imagine that if we refuse to recognise the fact of polygamy, we may refuse to recognise any obligations incurred by polygamy. By enabling man to escape so easily, from the obligations of his polygamous relationship we encourage him, if he is unscrupulous, to enter into them; we place a premium on the immorality we loftily condemn. Our polygamy has no legal existence. The ostrich, it was once imagined hides his head in the sand and attempts to annihilate the facts by refusing to look at them; but there is only one known animal which adopts this course of action and it is called Man." Ellis, Havelock, The PsychoIogy of Sex, 1910, Vol. IV. Pp.491-92, 493-94.
47 Al-Quran 4: 3. For a fuller discussion on polygamy see: Khurshid Ahmad (ed.). Studies in the Family Law of Islam, (Karachi: Chiragh-e-Rah Publication, 1961), pp. 214-228.
48 Mishkat
49 AI-Quran 24: 32.
50 Syed Ameer Au paraphrases the viewpoint of leading Muslim jurists from their works like Ashbah, Durr-ul-Mukhtar, Radd-aI-Mukhtar as follows: "Marriage is an institution ordained for the protection of society, and in order that human beings may guard them selves from foulness and unchastity, no sacrament but marriage has maintained its sanctity since the earliest time (lit, the days of Adam). It is an act of 'Ibadah or piety, for it preserves mankind free from pollution; it is instituted by divine command among members of the human species...'" Marriage when treated as a contract is a permanent relationship based on mutual consent on the part of a man and a woman between whom there is no bar to a lawful union; it does not give the man any right over the person of the wife." Ameer Ali, Mohammadan Law, op cit, p.241
51 Professor S. H. Nasr correctly sums this up when he says: "In the home the woman rules as queen and a Muslim man is in sense the quest of his wife at home. The home and the larger family structure in which she lives are for the Muslim woman her world. To be cut of from it would be life being cut off from the world or like dying. She finds the meaning of her existence in this extended family structure which is constructed so as to give her the maximum possibility of realising her basic needs and fulfilling herself. The Shar'iah therefore envisages the role of men and women according to their nature which is complementary. It gives the man the privilege of social and political authority and movement for which he has to pay by bearing heavy responsibilities, by protecting his family from all forces and pressures of society economic and otherwise. Although a master in the world at large and the priest of his own family, the man acts in his home as one who recognises the rule of his wife in this domain and respects it. Through mutual understanding and the realisation that God has places on each others shoulders, the Muslim man and woman are able to fulfil their personal lives and create a firm family unit which is the basic structure of Muslim society." S.N. Nasr. Ideals and Realities of Islam, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966), p.113
52 The Prophet (peace be upon him) has said: "Divorce is the most detestable in the sight of Allah of all permitted things." Mishkat.
53 The Prophet said: "A widow shall not be married until she be consulted, nor shall a virgin be married until her consent be asked" and that: "A woman ripe in years shall have her consent asked in marriage and if she refuses she shall not be married by force." Mishkat. Marriage without proper consent is invalid in Islamic law.
54 Prof. S.N. Nasr writes: "A woman does not have to find a husband for herself. She does not have to display her charms and make the thousand and one plans through which she hopes to attract a future mate. The terrible anxiety of having to find a husband and of missing the opportunity if one does not try hard enough at the right moment is spared the Muslim women. Being able to remain more true to her own nature she can afford to sit at home and await the suitable match. This usually leads to a marriage which being based on the sense of religious duty and enduring family and social correspondence between the two sides is more lasting and ends much more rarely in divorce than the marriages which are based on the sentiments of the moment that often do not develop into more permanent relationships." Ideals and Realities of Islam, op Cit p.112-113
55 Vide. Mishkat.
56 It may not be out of place to mention that if there are servants in the family, they have been regarded as a part of the family in the Muslim tradition. It is enjoined that they should be fed, clothed and treated like other members of the family and not as a different class. It is a common sight in the Arab world that house servants, chauffeurs etc., eat with family members at the same table.
57 We are using the word foster-nursing for the Islamic legal concept al-rida'ah. This means that a woman has suckled a child, whether he lives with her or not. Such a woman becomes the baby's foster-mother, her husband becomes his foster-father and their children his foster brothers and sisters. This relationship is very different from that produced by simple legal adoption. The relations produced by this foster-nursing are almost at par with those of direct blood relationship, i.e. consanguinity, except in matter of inheritance.
58 In Muslim society there is no joint family system of the type found in traditional Hindu society wherein the economic resources of the family are joined together into one business unit and the head of the family exerts real control over them. There is economic cooperation in a Muslim family but no joint economic organisation and control except where arranged mutually.
59 Al-Quran, 4:34
60 Ibid 21: 228
61 A perusal of the Islamic law of inheritance is very instructive in this respect. For instance, the share of a daughter is one half of the share of a son and this means there is apparent inequality, but when this is considered in the context of the economic roles and responsibilities of men and women, its justification becomes manifest. The responsibility for earning and spending on the family is that of man, while woman has the right to hold property and investment in her own name and keep their returns to herself. Due to this differentiation of roles and contributions, shares have been kept different. But where men and women inherit as men and women and not as relatives with specific economic and social responsibilities equal shares go to the two. For example in the presence of the sons and daughters of the deceased the share of the father or the mother of the deceased, whoever is alive and of both of them if they are living is the same proportion of the deceased's inheritance. In the cases where both the parents are alive both of them share equally the part that goes to the parents. Mother's share is not one half of the father's share. Both get equal shares. Similarly the shares of uterine brothers and sisters are equal.
62 See Abdul A'la Mawdudi, Purdah and the Status of Women in Is/am, Tr. by Al-Ashari, (Lahore: Islamic Publications Ltd., 1973) and Ali Musa Muhajir, Islam In practical Life, (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1968), Ch. IX.