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 Hijab 6:

Maintaining Equality?

 If we look beyond Muhammed's spurious marriage to Zaynab and his 'love for the ladies', we can still move beyond the veil and find there some other improper moves he made concerning women. One of them deals with the verse on polygamy.

If you fear you cannot treat orphans with fairness, then you may marry other women who seem good to you: two, three or four of them. But if you fear that you cannot maintain equality among them, marry one only or any slave-girls you may own. This will make it easier for  you to avoid injustice.39

As we have already discussed, Muhammed did not give his followers a good example concerning the number of wives, but that is not the issue here. Muslims have, in the face of the non-applicable sunna of Muhammed, recited this verse in order to justify polygamy. However, many have argued that no man is able to treat his wives -be they two, three or four- with complete equality. Outwardly he might appear to be just towards them and treat them fairly. However, one cannot know if in his heart he loves one more than another, which is an inescapable feature of the human heart. Muhammed's example proves that beyond doubt. It is common knowledge, which even his wives knew, that he loved Aisha more than the others, and he also loved a woman, to whom he was not married, more than his average wife.
 Muslims have taken a great interest in Muhammed's wives, especially in Khadija and Aisha, the central female figures in Muhammed's life. On the other hand, the woman whom Muhammed loved perhaps the deepest, was taken from the spotlight and put beyond the veil. Mary the Copt was a slave who had been presented to Muhammed from Egypt.  Muhammed asked her to marry him, but she refused to embrace Islam in order to enjoin him in matrimony and remained his slave and concubine. Aisha is reported to have said:

I never was as jealous as I was of Maria [Mary]. That is because she was a very beautiful, curly-haired woman. The Prophet was very attracted to her. In the beginning, she was living near us and the Prophet spent entire days and nights with her until we protested and she became frightened.40

Mary was known for her beauty and Muhammed lusted for her so deeply that he frequently violated the commands he had given - to treat one's wives with justice and equality. Muhammed was afraid of his wives' response to his love for Mary, so he promised not to have sexual intercourse with her again. Still, his desire for her remained and he continued sleeping with her. His wife Hafsa, Umar's daughter, caught him copulating with Mary in his wife Safiya's room and on "her day".41 Despite promising to keep that knowledge to herself, Hafsa told Aisha and Safiya, who became angry and complained: 'O, Prophet of God, in my room and on my day!'42
 Concerning Muhammed's betrayal of his promise to not see Mary, his wives were furious and confronted him. Instead of pleading guilty, as he indeed was, he produced yet another 'revelation' from 'Allah', in order to release himself from his oath to Hafsa.

Prophet, why do you prohibit that which Allah has made lawful to you, in seeking to please your wives? [Mary was not his wife!] Allah is forgiving and merciful.
  Allah has given you absolution from such oaths. Allah is your Master. He is the Omniscient One, the Wise One.
  When the Prophet confided a secret to one of his wives; and when she disclosed it and Allah informed him of this, he made known one part of it and said nothing about the other. And when he had acquainted her with it she said: 'Who told you this?' He replied: 'The Wise One, the All-knowing, told me.'
  If you two [Hafsa and Aisha] turn to Allah in repentance (for your hearts have sinned) you shall be pardoned; but if you conspire against him, know that Allah is his protector, and Gabriel, and the righteous among the faithful. The angels too are his helpers.43

It is also noteworthy that the Koran calls Muhammed's illegal intercourse a 'secret', which implies that it could not bear public scrutiny and was simply wrong. However, it was not only that Muhammed's wishful desires became justified in the Koran, but Umar ibn al-Kittab's also. Umar is said to have been very strict on marriage and married only in order to beget offspring. He repeatedly rebuked Muhammed's wives, even his own daughter Hafsa, for behaving without respect for the Prophet and said:

 It may well be that, if he divorce you, his Lord will give him better wives than yourselves, submissive to Allah and full of faith, devout, penitent, obedient, and given to fasting; both formerly-wedded and virgins.44

Somehow, these words of Umar found their way into the Koran.45 Those excuses which Muhammed uttered (and in fact Umar also) are incomprehensible, especially when we go down two verses in the same sura: "... Make no excuses for yourself this day. You shall be rewarded according to your deeds."46 If so, then Muhammed would have had a lot to answer for, if not for a miraculous escape, through a koranic 'revelation'.

We know well the duties We have imposed on the faithful concerning their wives and slave-girls. We grant you this privilege so that none may blame you. Allah is forgiving and merciful. You may put off any of your wives you please and take to your bed any of them you please. Nor is it unlawful for you to receive any of those whom you have temporally set aside.47

Anyway, Muhammed's 'revelation' was not only an obvious justification of his betrayal and lust for women, but a distortion of the story as it was told.  He did not tell his wife what he had done, but was caught red-handed. Instead of admitting his guilt, he accused his wives, whose trust he had violated, of committing a sin. Muhammed's message was simply: 'If you do not allow me to sleep with whomever I wish, whenever I wish, I will divorce you for other women who will.' Muhammed's wives had to be tolerant towards his sexual needs and not 'sin', as Hafsa and Aisha did. The Koran states:

Wives of the Prophet! Those of you who commit a proven sin shall be doubly punished. That is easy enough for Allah. But those of you who obey Allah and His Apostle and do good works shall be doubly rewarded; for them We have made a generous provision.48

Those generous provisions were such, that where the general Muslim widows were encouraged to remarry, Muhammed's widows had to stay barren and desolate for the rest of their lives. Aisha was only 17 years old when the Prophet died, in the prime of her life, and was deprived of having children by Muhammed's 'generous provision.' Fatima Mernissi quoted the authentic Muslim scholar al-Afghani, who stated that the Islamic history of strife and inter-warfare is to be blamed on Aisha's involvement in politics at the Battle of the Camel. He thought that by using her as an example, 'Allah' was teaching the Muslims a lesson in gender relations: "It seems that Allah created women to reproduce the race, bring up future generations, and be in charge of households; He wanted to teach us a practical lesson that we cannot forget."49 This was the double reward Aisha was allotted for being Muhammed's faithful and caring wife.50

 

Notes:
 

39 The Koran 4:3.
40 Mernissi, Beyond the Veil, 55.
41 Muhammed had a busy schedule, because his wives and concubines were allotted special days for intercourse with the Prophet.
42 Mernissi, Beyond the Veil,  55. Also, N.J. Daword refers to this story in the commentary to his translation of the Koran.
43 The Koran 66:1-4
44 The Koran 66:5.
45 Discussed in Goitein, Umar b. al-Khattab,  9.
46 The Koran 66:7.
47 The Koran 33:51.
48 The Koran 33:30-33.
49 Quoted in Mernissi, The Veil, 6-7.
50 In the light of the high frequency of divorces in Muslim countries, one has to wonder why Muhammed's sunna has not been adopted for the marriages of the commoners?