“And the male is unlike the female”..#Thread
1. 🤔Boys are boys & girls are girls. There are biologic differences between a male and a female. We are built & wired differently; there’s absolutely no doubt about that. We are meant to complement each other but ofcourse,..
1. 🤔Boys are boys & girls are girls. There are biologic differences between a male and a female. We are built & wired differently; there’s absolutely no doubt about that. We are meant to complement each other but ofcourse,..
2:..societal nurturing plays a massive role in creating profound, often strict gender roles that entrench a wholescale gender hierarchy on us, to the point where it has proven detrimental to one compared to the other. Most worrisome is how this pernicious gender hierarchy..
3. ..has become so entrenched that it appears divinely ordained - even though it is not. In the Quran, males & females share an essential sameness: created from the same nafs (soul) (Q4:1), are each other’s waliyys (guardians) (Q9:71) & have same punishment eg in zina (Q24:2)
4: The most important distinction is that which matters to God, and that is piety (Q49:13), not biologic sex/gender. The enduring truth is that our essential sameness as human beings is more important than our biologic differences.
5: To insist on a sweeping gender hierarchy solely based on biologic difference is to adopt the “Iblis logic”. Just like Iblis insisted on a creational hierarchy between fire and clay in his perception of the primordial Adam, whenever we insist on a sweeping hierarchy..
6: between males & females, we are doing as Iblis did - insisting on the primacy of a hierarchy not expressly sanctioned by God. To claim that you, as a male, are the superior human simply because you are for example, the physically stronger sex, is to think like Iblis..
7: who in his flawed logic (even if it seemed true), believed that fire is innately superior to clay. What a big deal that turned out to be, considering that Iblis provoked God’s wrath precisely because of this logic.
8: Therefore, I am amused every time I come across someone citing the Quranic line “and the male is not like the female” not really to allude to biologic differences but SPECIFICALLY to justify a patriachical stance or two. Do they realize that this very line within..
9:..a verse in the Quran (Q3:36), itself in a surah that includes a statement on the multiplicity of meaning and depth of the Book (Q3:7), ironically undermines their claim to male superiority? I wish they’d study the Quran & understand the verse in its rightful context.
10: I wonder whether they’d still invoke such a line if they knew that in reality, the Quran is not categorically stating that “the male is not like the female” but REPORTING what the mother of Maryam/Mary (RA) said upon realizing that she had given birth to a daughter
11: The background here according to most classical tafsirs is that while pregnant, Maryam’s mother prayed for a child who will be consecrated in worship but it was unconventional for females to be consecrated in service at the Temple.
12: When Maryam’s mother says “a male is not like the female” in response to giving birth to a daughter, she was alluding to a defining gender hierarchy at play in her society, a stratification that could prove an obstacle to the intended consecration of her child.
13: The divine answer to a prayer is often poetic. God indeed answers Maryam’s mother’s prayer granting her a pious child. Crucially, by granting a daughter and not a son, God poetically demonstrates that if piety is the wish, then gender doesnt matter. And so we learn that..
14: Maryam’s mother is granted a daughter, who will be among the most extraordinary humans known to us; who will be known for her piety and chastity till the end of time; who will speak directly to an angel as (male) Prophets did; who will give birth to a unique Prophet..
15: ..who will have an entire surah in the Quran named after her, which infact is the only surah named after a female figure; who will not only be the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran but who will, in it, be referred to some 70 times, more times than..
16: ..Adam, Nuh, Hud, Dawood, Sulayman, Yunus, Ilyas, Ishaq, Ismail, Lut, Salih, Shuaib, Yahya, Yaqub, Yusuf etc or even her guardian Zakariya (AS)...infact, more times than the esteemed Prophet Ibrahim (AS). So God not only answers a mother’s prayer for a pious child...
17: By giving this prayerful mother a daughter instead of a son, God also addresses, in typical inimical fashion that unfolds through the life of Maryam, the flaw in that insidious gender hierarchy created by society, that a male is superior/better than a female.
18: Maryam (RA) is very important to Divine teaching. She is extraordinary not just because she was the virgin mother of Isa/Jesus (RA) but foremost because she was a pious human. Some of you here undervalue a woman’s spirituality simply because women menstruate.
19: Well, that amazing daughter granted to her mother, who in turn became mother of Prophet Isa/Jesus (AS) was yes, a menstruating, unmarried female who is among the greatest that ever lived; infact, Maryam is “..exalted above all women in the worldS” (Q3:42)(emphasis mine).
20: Importantly, the Quran says Maryam (RA) is an ayat, a sign (Q23.50; Q21:91), and an examplary human not just for female believers but for all believers, male and female (Q66:11-12).
Pause and think.
Pause and think.
21: If males were truly superior just because they are males or that male superiority engendered by society were that important to God, then why would the Quran instruct males believers to consider Maryam, a female, as an exemplary believer worth emulating?
22: Those who pompously cite “a male is not like the female” to claim male superiority, should keep in mind that the female child being referred to in that Qur’anic line turned out among the greatest humans.
23: She is the very female the Quran says is an example to you and I, an example that will be remembered, and one that will be revered for as long as there is life on earth.
24: So you may wish to respect if not revere each & every female you meet, as she may very well be better than you (and many other males) in the sight of God. The Quran makes this point many times over, in many different ways: piety is the ONLY distinction that matters.
Think.
Think.
