O ye who believe! Approach not prayers with a mind befogged, until ye can understand all that ye say, – nor in a state of ceremonial impurity (Except when travelling on the road), until after washing your whole body. If ye are ill, or on a journey, or one of you cometh from offices of nature, or ye have been in contact with women, and ye find no water, then take for yourselves clean sand or earth, and rub therewith your faces and hands. For Allah doth blot out sins and forgive again and again.
Qur’an, Surah 4, verse 431
Two brief sentences in a verse discussing observance of the dawn-to-dusk Ramadan fast succinctly capture much of what is essential about marriage and sex in the Qur’an: “Lawful for you on the nights of the fasts is the approach to your wives. They are garments for you and you are garments for them.”2 First, and most obviously, sex between spouses is not opposed to spiritual practice – in this case, fasting – but exists as a complement and a supplement to it. Second, and a point much remarked on by contemporary interpreters,3 there is an undeniable reciprocity in the marital relationship; a husband is a garment for his wife just as a wife is a garment for her husband. Third, and much more seldom acknowledged, there is a basic asymmetry in God’s speech here: God is speaking to men, about women. In this verse, as in numerous others that treat the relationship between spouses or refer to women’s bodies in sexual contexts, men are the “you” and women are the “they.”4 This androcentrism is not equivalent to misogyny, but neither is it unproblematic for interpreters concerned with matters of gender and justice.5
Since the Qur’an is the primary mode of divine guidance to humanity as well as the basis for so much Muslim thought, any attempt to formulate an ethics of sex and intimacy must engage with the revealed text. Recent interpretations of the Qur’an have tackled many important topics related to women and gender, but few have explicitly dealt with the verses discussing sex. In this chapter, I argue that close attention to those Qur’anic verses that discuss sex can provide a new lens through which to engage in feminist exegesis. Qur’anic rules are gender-differentiated in intimate and familial matters above all, with men seemingly given greater rights and responsibilities. Recent works by a number of gender-conscious scholars have shown the extent to which standard exegetical treatments of these issues have been shaped by interpreters’ presuppositions about male dominance and superiority. At the same time, feminist attempts to approach the question of male marital and familial authority have not attempted to disaggregate the issues surrounding marriage, divorce, and sex. Despite the way quite a number of verses on all topics are directed to men about women, I suggest that there is often a difference in content and tone between those focusing on marriage and divorce on the one hand, and those discussing sexual intimacy on the other. The former usually direct men to allow women particular freedoms; the latter do not contain similar directives, but rather only command men to behave in particular ways. Even those verses that posit men as having greater agency and control in intimate relationships, though, situate all human actions as being directly subject to divine scrutiny, which implies a higher ethical standard alluded to by, but not explicitly presented in, the Qur’anic text.
As Amina Wadud has shown, God does not always speak to a specifically male audience; indeed, such treatment is the exception rather than the rule. Yet because Arabic, like French and Hebrew, relies on gendered nouns, readers of the Qur’an must pay close attention to the content and context of each verse to determine whether particular passages are gender-specific or gender-neutral. Many Qur’anic verses address women and men together using the gender-neutral terms “human being” or “people” (insan, nas). These words are often poorly translated into English as “man,” “mankind,” or “men.”6 Part of the reason that these terms have often been rendered in this way is that these words take masculine pronouns in Arabic, but the gender of nouns is only sometimes indicative of the gender associated with the signified object. To insist that because insan takes a masculine pronoun it refers to a male person is untenable; logic would also then dictate that nafs (self or soul), which takes a feminine pronoun, would necessarily refer to a female, making the first creation female rather than male (as Muslim interpretation generally, although not universally, holds) or of unspecified gender, as some premodern commentators and a number of contemporary scholars have argued.7
The structure of Arabic plural forms can make it especially difficult to determine whether a gendered meaning is intended. Only exclusively female groups can be referred to with the feminine plural, while both exclusively male groups and groups including both males and females must be referred to with the masculine plural.8 A Muslim man is a muslim while a Muslim woman is a muslimah. A group of Muslim women is muslimat; a group of Muslim men is muslimun. A group that includes both men and women is also muslimun.9 Thus, when a collective noun such as muslimun appears in the Qur’an, it cannot be assumed that it only refers to men. In most cases, muslimun and similar collective plurals refer to all Muslims, male and female.
In some instances, though, a particular collective noun clearly refers specifically to males, as it is accompanied by its exclusively feminine counterpart. This tendency is most clearly illustrated in Surah 33, verse 35:
Muslim men (muslimin) and Muslim women (muslimat), believing men and believing women, devoutly obedient men and devoutly obedient women, truthful men and truthful women, patient men and patient women, humble men and humble women, charitable men and charitable women, men who fast and women who fast, men who protect their chastity and women who protect their chastity, and men who remember God frequently and women who remember God frequently, God has prepared for them forgiveness and a great reward.
This verse describes men and women separately but in parallel fashion that makes absolutely clear their spiritual equality. Though an equivalent meaning could have been conveyed by the use of these terms in the masculine inclusive plural, the separate references to men and women emphasize both the inclusiveness of the revelation and the sameness of divine reward to members of both sexes. The latter point is explicit in other verses such as “And whoever does good deeds, whether male or female, and is a believer, will enter Paradise and not be wronged in the least.”10 The word “believer” appears here in the male singular due to grammatical convention,11 but the meaning is clear: God will reward males and females alike according to their deeds. Interpreters intent on proving male/female equality in the Qur’anic message frequently quote these and similar verses as proof of women’s equality with men.12
On other occasions, the separate treatment of men and women in the Qur’an indicates a lack of sameness. Regulatory verses discussing matters such as witnessing and inheritance explicitly differentiate between males and females. In witnessing certain types of commercial contracts, Surah 2, verse 282 declares that one can employ two men, or one man and two women “So that if one of them errs, the other can remind her.”13 In dividing inheritance between children of a decedent, Surah 4, verse 11 states that a male gets twice the portion of a female, a ratio that also holds for a number of other cases.14 Difference, in these instances, involves obvious inequality,15 though whether this inequality constitutes injustice is a separate and more complicated issue.
The clear Qur’anic declarations of sameness and the equally clear Qur’anic acceptance of inequality based upon differentiation must be understood in the context of an ever-present tension in the Qur’an between egalitarianism and hierarchy, which exists not only with regard to the sexes but also when it comes to matters such as wealth or slavery.16 Although the Qur’an famously insists that all people are equals before God and the only distinguishing criterion is piety, other verses acknowledge and seemingly authorize disparities in treatment based on freedom or gender.17 Not only are some abstract rules meant to apply differently, as in the cases of witnessing and inheritance, but hierarchies of power in the interrelationships between individuals are accepted as a matter of course.18 As Barbara Stowasser succinctly sums up, “the Qur’an does not associate its principle of equal human dignity and worthiness with notions such as absolute and individual social, political, or economic equality.”19
Male-female relations embody both norms of ultimate sameness and earthly differentiation. One common line of argument suggests that while men and women are ontologically equal as human creations, they are not meant to be socially equal in the life of this world. Revelation is seen to justify social differentiation, either because of an assumed male superiority or, in the twentieth century, a more palatable view of male and female complementarity.20 Asma Barlas acknowledges, but swiftly dismisses, the argument that one can “distinguish between religious and social/legal equality” in her “Believing Women” in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an.21 In rejecting this division, Barlas must attempt to explain away numerous verses that suggest or command differential treatment for males and females. (She does so in part by making the sound point that difference is not always unequal.) Others have argued, persuasively, that the Qur’an does present such a distinction, but that the ontological equality of all human beings takes precedence over the earthly, temporally bound regulations that privilege men over women, as in inheritance and witnessing. Thus, specific regulations which are discriminatory toward women need not apply always, or in every context.
Feminist or gender-conscious interpretation of the Qur’an, a discipline still in its infancy despite some paradigm altering scholarship, has tended to focus much of its attention on the issue of power as wielded in intimate relationships.22 How, scholars have attempted to discern, can one reconcile the Qur’an’s basic stance that Muslim women are first and foremost Muslims, the religious equals of men,23 with the notion expressed in Surah 4, verse 34 that men are “qawwamun ‘ala” (“bread-earners,” “maintainers,” “protectors and maintainers,” “the managers of the affairs of,” “in charge of,” “have authority over,” or “shall take full care of”) women?24 Even within a single verse, such as Surah 2, verse 228, there can be a tension between the notion that women have rights “similar to” or “just as” or even perhaps “equal to”(mithl) those of men, but that “men have a degree over them.” Both verses are crucial for those concerned with gender equality or equity, and the ways that they have been treated illustrate both the significant insights of feminist scholarship as well as the limitations of certain approaches to the Qur’an.
Traditional scholars and contemporary Muslims from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives have interpreted Surah 4, verse 34. While classical and medieval interpretations of this verse stress female obedience and male authority, recent interpretations tend to emphasize the financial component of men’s marital duties and the limits on a husband’s power over his wife.25 Many Muslims have gravitated toward the latter views, in keeping with modern discourses of complementarity rather than hierarchy, and fitting with the Qur’anic portrayal of women in other verses as full human beings and partners in the relationship of marriage. The range of ways in which this verse’s key provisions have been interpreted illustrates both the presence of androcentrism and misogyny in some aspects of the Muslim tradition as well as possibilities for more egalitarian readings of scripture.
This verse presents numerous difficulties for translation, since so many of the words have contested meanings. My provisional rendering here leaves three terms in the original Arabic since they cannot be translated without taking a position on how they should be interpreted.
Men are qawwamun in relation to women, according to what God has favored some over others and according to what they spend from their wealth. Righteous women are qanitat, guarding the unseen according to what God has guarded. Those [women] whose nushuz you fear, admonish them, and abandon them in bed, and strike them. If they obey you, do not pursue a strategy against them. Indeed, God is Exalted, Great.26
Interpreters from a variety of perspectives have addressed the key issues raised by this verse: are men “in charge” of women? What are the characteristics of righteous women? What is nushuz and what are its consequences? Is the command to “strike them,” that is, women, to be taken literally?
This verse begins with the declaration that “Men are qawwamun in relation to women.” The word qawwamun (singular, qawwam) derives from the Arabic term for standing. It signifies one who “stands over” or “stands up for,” thus potentially encompassing both authority and responsibility. These dual elements were recognized by classical commentators on this verse who attributed men’s role as qawwamun to both divine favor of men in general over women in general (“according to what God has favored some over others”) and to husbands’ financial responsibility for paying dower and maintenance to their wives (“according to what they spend from their wealth.”) Some commentators devoted more attention to male “perfection” and female “deficiency” than to men’s financial obligations, while others acknowledged male superiority as a given but stressed a husband’s duty to support his wife.
Progressive interpretations contest the notion that men are inherently superior to women. Some argue that while the verse can indeed be taken to refer to favoring men over women, this favor is only in the limited realm of the greater inheritances men receive (possibly alluded to in the immediately preceding verses). These interpreters see this connection in the next clause of Surah 4, verse 34 which refers to men’s financial responsibilities (“and according to what they spend from their wealth”). Other interpreters stress that the Qur’an only states that “God has favored some over others” (or “one over the other”) not that men are favored over women; there is no grammatical reason for taking men as the “some” and women as the “others.” Thus, the verse might refer to some men being privileged over other men, thereby differing in the amount of wealth they use to maintain the women for whom they are qawwamun.27 Regardless of the specifics, the most important element in rereadings of this verse is the focus on male support of women. If men are qawwamun in part “because of what” (one possible translation of bi ma along with “according to what”)28 they spend on women, then their role is dependent on their exercise of financial responsibility. If men no longer support women, then they lose any resultant authority. Thus, in a family where both husband and wife contribute to the household expenses, the husband would not be the wife’s qawwam.
After giving one very broad statement about men and women, the verse turns to a specific category of women, the “righteous women” (al-salihat), defining them in two ways: as hafizat li’l-ghayb, women who guard or protect what is absent or unseen, and as qanitat, a term that can mean obedient, subservient, or deferential. Commentators disagree on how to interpret the phrase “hafizat li’l-ghayb,” particularly in conjunction with bi ma hafiza Allah, according to, or with, or because of what God has guarded or protected. Based on a widely quoted hadith, most commentators suggest that these women are those who, in the absence of their husbands, protect their own chastity and their husbands’ possessions. Progressive and feminist interpreters, however, have tended to interpret “those who guard what is unseen” as those who fulfill their religious obligations and protect their faith, as God has guarded it.
Classical and reformist interpretations of qanitat also diverge sharply. Qanitat is the feminine plural of qanit, meaning one who is obedient, subservient, or deferential, one who demonstrates qunut, from the same Arabic root (q-n-t). Medieval commentators often reduce qunut in this context to a woman’s obedience to her husband. However, the term qanit(at) is used elsewhere in the Qur’an only for obedience to God and God’s Messenger. ‘Abdullah Yusuf Ali renders it as “devoutly obedient,” in his translation of this verse, just as he does where the Qur’an applies the term to men and women alike in Surah 33, verse 35, which includes “devoutly obedient men (qanitin) and devoutly obedient women (qanitat)” among the list of those who will be rewarded by God. The Qur’an also refers to exceptional figures such as Mary and Abraham with the term qanit.29 There is thus no reason for considering the use of the term in Surah 4, verse 34 to refer to anything other than women’s obedience and devotion to God. In fact, interpreting qanitat in terms of obedience to the husband is particularly problematic, given the way that the Qur’an treats obedience to human beings and human authorities (with the exception of the Prophet) as generally significantly less worthy than obedience to God.30
There is, however, some type of disjunction between deference to God and the misbehavior discussed in the latter portion of the verse. The root of the word nushuz (n-sh-z) refers to rising. Most medieval Qur’an commentators understand women’s nushuz as disobedience or rebelliousness (isyan) toward their husbands. Two behaviors repeatedly mentioned as forms of nushuz are leaving the marital home without permission and refusing the husband’s sexual overtures. More rarely, disrespectfulness, “lewdness,” or failure to perform religious obligations are mentioned as forms of female nushuz.31 A woman who commits nushuz is referred to as nashiz or nashiza. Men can also commit nushuz, but the term is understood differently in that case.
Contemporary interpreters differ somewhat in their interpretation of nushuz, whether on the wife’s part or the husband’s. Generally, they view nushuz as a type of marital disharmony, arising on the part of either husband or wife, or lewd conduct, falling short of adultery, on the part of either spouse.32 When a woman commits nushuz, past generations of authorities have generally agreed on measures that the husband may use. In addition to those sanctioned by the Qur’an, discussed below, jurists generally agree that a man may suspend his wife’s support (nafaqa) if she refuses him and/or leaves home, since she has made herself unavailable to him.
Moroccan feminist Fatima Mernissi argues that nushuz is conceptually central to the Islamic gender system. “Nushuz is a Qur’anic concept; it means the rebellion of the wife against her Muslim husband’s authority,” she writes. “The Qur’an only refers to nushuz in order to describe the punishment a husband must inflict upon the wife in case she rebels.”33 Mernissi elaborates elsewhere: “[N]ushuz refers specifically to the wife’s rebellious tendencies toward her husband in an area where female obedience is vital: sexuality. The Qur’an calls nushuz the wife’s decision not to comply with her husband’s desire to have intercourse.”34 Mernissi is mistaken in her assertion that the Qur’an explicitly defines nushuz in this way and in her claim that the term only appears in the Qur’an with reference to a wife’s behavior, but she is substantially correct in her characterization of how the classical and medieval scholars understood the wife’s nushuz.35
The Qur’an also discusses a husband’s nushuz in Surah 4. As in verse 34, the Qur’anic passage on men’s nushuz (verse 128) appears near other verses discussing marital discord: “If a woman fears nushuz or rejection (i‘rad) from her husband, there is no blame on them if they come to a settlement, and settlement is better, even though people’s souls are stingy.” Interpreters generally agree on the definition of, and remedies for, men’s nushuz. Most hold that the husband’s nushuz is his dislike of, or aversion toward, his wife. Some accounts hold that this verse was revealed in the case of a husband who came to dislike his wife because of her advancing age or some other factor. Some state that this man was Rafi‘ b. Khadij, who had married a young bride and favored her over his wife of many years. Other accounts suggest that it was revealed about the Prophet and his wife Sawda. In either case, the exegetes and jurists agree that the “settlement” the Qur’an refers to consists in the wife giving up certain marital rights, as both as both Rafi‘ ’s wife and Sawda eventually did, as a means of inducing her husband not to divorce her.
While most defined the husband’s nushuz as dislike of a wife, a minority held that the husband’s nushuz was his maltreatment of his wife. Specifically, frequent or excessive violence, including striking her in the face, constituted nushuz, in this view. (This interpretation has increased in popularity in modern times.) This condemnation of a husband physically harming his wife stands in contrast to the generally accepted view that he may strike her under certain circumstances. The three measures given in Surah 4, verse 34 to be taken in cases where men fear female nushuz are “admonish them, and abandon them in bed, and strike them.” The verb daraba, “to strike,” is commonly translated in this context as “hit,” “beat,” or “scourge,” though two recent translations have rendered the word as “spank.”36 The verb appears numerous times in the Qur’an with other meanings, leading some to question why it must be understood as striking in this context. One translator has proposed that daraba in this context does not mean strike, but rather “separate” or even “have sex with” (a metaphorical meaning attributed to the same Arabic root).37 Commentators have broadly agreed, though, that the term is meant literally, not metaphorically, and that the verse gives permission for a husband to strike his wife for nushuz, although only if admonition and abandonment in bed have had no effect.
There are several layers to the problem of interpretations raised by these two verses discussing nushuz. It is clear that medieval interpreters were guided by certain unflattering presumptions about female nature in their discussions of righteous women and marital obedience. Further, the treatment of male and female nushuz as unrelated phenomena, part of the atomistic verse-by-verse approach that Fazlur Rahman criticizes, misses a vital connection between the two, something modern commentators such as Sayyid Qutb have remedied to a certain extent.38 Yet simply noting that the Qur’an treats both male and female nushuz as problems does not automatically absolve the Qur’an of preferring the male over the female in this respect. That is to say, the consequences for female nushuz – even if nushuz is understood as antipathy or high-handedness, which can rightly be attributed to either spouse – do not merely differ in the interpretations of the exegetes, but are clearly differentiated in the text of the Qur’an itself.
How, then, can one approach the Qur’an in a gender-conscious manner, neither accepting patriarchal premises nor falling into what Farid Esack refers to as “simplistic apologia”? The challenges facing feminist exegetes can be clearly seen in a comparison of two essays on Islam from the volume What Men Owe to Women: Voices from the World’s Religions.39 One, by Esack, challenges much conventional reformist wisdom about the Qur’an’s treatment of women and gender relations. The other, by Asghar Ali Engineer, exemplifies the most common modernist way of dealing with the issues involved, including a significant proportion of apologetic. Their essays center largely on Surah 2, verse 228 (the “degree” verse) and Surah 4, verse 34 (“Men are qawwamun”), notoriously difficult verses for exegetes concerned with gender justice and equality. Though women constitute the majority of contemporary scholars concerned with these problems, the similarities and differences in this pair of essays by male scholars exemplify both the promise and peril of particular approaches to the matters at hand.
Indicative of his unwillingness to grapple with particularly thorny problems, Engineer omits all reference to men’s “degree over” women when he quotes from Surah 2, verse 228. He presents only the first portion of the verse, which he translates “The rights of the wives (with regard to their husbands) are equal to the (husbands’) rights with regard to them ...”40 A more literal translation of this phrase would have, “To them (fem. plural) like due from them (fem. plural) [according to what is proper].”41 Admittedly, this rendering is too vague to be satisfactory for those reading in English only; Engineer justifiably adds in the notion of rights and duties (haqq) which, while not present in the Arabic text, is clearly implied. Nonetheless, his use of the term “equal” without any qualifiers or alternatives is misleading. Still more disingenously, Engineer substitutes an ellipsis for the second portion of the verse which declares: “and men have a degree over them (fem. pl.).”42 His omission of this clause is particularly problematic given that he uses this verse, in tandem with Surah 33, verse 35 (“For Muslim men and Muslim women ...”), as evidence for both justice and equality. According to Engineer, “Both of these verses leave no doubt that gender justice is highly crucial to Qur’anic teachings. These verses also make it abundantly clear that gender justice cannot be realized without gender equality.”43
Engineer’s dual assertion that gender equality is a necessary component of gender justice, and that both equality and justice are found in Surah 2, verse 228, is only rendered plausible by his manipulation of the Qur’anic text. By omitting the “degree” portion of the verse, Engineer avoids the stereotype of Muslim women as irremediably oppressed and without rights. However, to anyone familiar with the verse or who pursues the matter further, Engineer’s tactic appears as a blatant attempt to hide what the Qur’an says, as if that is the only way Muslim women’s rights could be affirmed. Engineer is not the only author to bypass the troublesome notion of a “degree;” non-Muslim Islamicist John Esposito, for example, gives a similarly partial quotation of the verse in Women in Muslim Family Law.44 Of course, some authors – both non-Muslim polemicists and Muslims seeking to affirm male familial authority – take the opposite tack, only quoting the portion of the verse where the degree is mentioned, leaving off the description of the woman as a moral personality with both rights and obligations.45
More nuanced explorations of the “degree verse” by other commentators acknowledge the existence of the degree but limit its scope to the immediate Qur’anic context of divorce.46 In granting men the additional authority to pronounce or take back divorces, “the Qur’an recognizes men as the locus of power and authority in actually existing patriarchies,”47 but does not otherwise stipulate a husband’s superiority in marriage. (Divorce is, in fact, a realm in which Qur’anic verses clearly accept or confer greater power for husbands in relation to their wives. Female responsibility to act also appears in this verse, which expresses a command regarding their action – “Divorced women shall wait concerning themselves for three [menstrual]48 cycles” – but does so in a way that makes clear women’s legal passivity, referring to them as women who have been divorced.) The Qur’an’s declaration in this verse that “their husbands have more right to take them back in that period if they (masc./inclusive plural) wish for reconciliation”49 has been plausibly construed to refer to the “degree” mentioned in the verse.
The specifics of the Qur’an’s regulations cannot be understood in isolation from their historical context, but how precisely that context is to serve later readers is open to debate. Engineer places himself in an ultimately untenable position: he insists, on the one hand, that the Qur’an affirms the equality of men and women, yet acknowledges, on the other, that there are “situational constraints”50 governing the Qur’an, meaning that particular verses may not always demonstrate this equality. According to Engineer, “Scriptures both reflect the given situation and also transcend it.”51 There are both “normative” and “contextual” verses in the Qur’an.52 Ijtihad – defined by Engineer as “exerting oneself to solve newly arising problems if no precise guidance was available in the Qur’an and in the Prophet’s Sunnah”53 – is to play a major role in transforming modern understandings of verses that seem unfair to women today. Ironically, Engineer blames earlier scholars for deviating from the “normative” message of the Qur’an by putting their individual interpretation on its verses, while asserting that contemporary scholars should exercise the same type of ijtihad.
Esack, in an article that focuses on Surah 4, verse 34, agrees with Engineer and other scholars that interpretation of the Qur’anic text has always played a significant role in determining how its verses have been understood and implemented. He notes key verses where the Qur’an advocates gender justice, including a more accurately translated but similarly truncated version of the degree verse.54 Where he moves against the grain of Muslim feminist and reformist discourse on the Qur’an is in his assertion that it is impossible to place all blame for the difference and inequality in interpretations of the Qur’an on its interpreters. Considering himself “a Muslim with a passionate commitment to both the Qur’an and to gender justice,” he recognizes that these can be “seemingly conflictual voices.”55 Esack makes the crucial point that interpreters of the Qur’an must grapple with its androcentrism in addressing certain revelations to men; indeed “The Qur’an’s essential audience is males. ... [Women] are essentially subjects being dealt with – however kindly – rather than being directly addressed.”56
Esack discusses Surah 4, verse 34 as a prime example of a verse presupposing male listeners; it also assumes male physical control of women. The provisions outlining measures to be taken in case of women’s nushuz – or, more exactly, in case of men’s fear of female nushuz – are addressed to a male audience, in sharp contrast to the way that women’s different options in the face of a husband’s nushuz are discussed in Surah 4, verse 128, where both men and women are discussed in the third person. Esack demonstrates that while classical commentaries oversimplify the matter of women’s devotion to God and obedience to husbands, modern apologetics and feminist analyses frequently overlook the very clear authority delegated to men over women’s bodies.
In Surah 2, verse 228, positing that men have a degree over women (or that husbands have a degree over their wives), men and women are spoken of in reciprocal but unequal terms – but they are both spoken of. In both Surah 4, verse 34, the “striking” verse, and Surah 2, verse 187, the “garment” verse, women are spoken of, but men are spoken to.57 This commonality between these two verses is all the more noteworthy given that the clause so frequently quoted from the latter refers to a reciprocal and mutual relationship between spouses, while the former presumes (or commands) hierarchical and gender differentiated spousal interactions. I will consider the garment verse in its entirety below, but here I want to suggest that the Qur’anic mode of address is not in itself sufficient to classify the contents of particular verses. The Qur’anic text repeatedly refers to women as a “them” who must be dealt with by men, who are its implicit or explicit addressees, with regard to matters associated with sex, women’s bodies, and conduct in intimate relationships. Yet not all of these verses addressed to men about women endorse customs and rules supporting male dominance.
Verses addressed (in the second person) to men discussing women (in the third person) may or may not assume or advocate women’s legal or social passivity, though the very mode of address presumes a privileged position for men as the audience for divine guidance. The extensive discussions of divorce and widowhood surrounding the “degree” verse in Surah 2 take the male as the hearer (“you”) and the female as the subject or object of the revelation (“they”), but do so in order to promote women’s liberty. Examples include Surah 2, verse 232 (“When you have divorced women and they [fem. plural] have reached their term”), verse 234 (“When any of you die leaving wives, they [fem. plural] are to wait on their own account”), and verse 240 (“And those of you who die leaving wives”). Though these verses are addressed to a male audience, it is not the males who are being tasked with obligations and granted agency. The women of whom God speaks are passive in the sense of being divorced or widowed (though one may presume a man leaving a widow did not do so intentionally), yet the crucial information conveyed in these verses is female freedom to act independently in the aftermath of a marriage’s termination. Even though men, not women, are the recipients of the commands, these regulations promote women’s right or duty to act – especially since, in the case of widowhood, husbands are only the addressees in a theoretical sense.
Similar injunctions in other verses, such as those stressing that the choice to remain married or to separate should be mutual, promote the relaxation of male marital and familial controls on women. The use of the dual form in relevant contexts makes clear that both spouses are intended, as in Surah 4, verse 130 (“if they [dual] separate”). A series of statements in Surah 2, verses 229–30 addresses both male and female feelings.58 Even Surah 2, verse 230, which depicts the male action of divorce as unilateral, does not dismiss female agency entirely, presenting the woman as the active party in another marriage. (This stands in contrast to Surah 2, verse 221 where men marry and women, in the passive voice, are married.) Further, any possible reunion between two spouses after divorce appears as a mutual action, based on a mutual ability to observe God’s limits.
Amina Wadud and Asma Barlas have argued that the places where the Qur’an addresses men qua men respond to the practical exigencies of an extant patriarchy – specifically, that of seventh-century Arabia.59 This explanation accounts satisfactorily for discussions such as those about divorce or widowhood, and consent to marriage; commands that men fulfill obligations toward women but allow them independent action suggest a trajectory away from male familial domination and control, if not a complete rejection of patriarchy. With regard to sexual intimacy, though, this interpretation is less convincing. In a number of verses concerned with sex, women are spoken about and men are spoken to in a way that presumes male control and is unconnected with ameliorative measures intended to restrict men’s scope of action or enlarge that assigned to women.
A number of considerations arise when the “garment” verse is considered in its entirety:
Lawful for you on the nights of the fasts is the approach to your wives. They (fem. pl.) are garments for you and you are garments for them. God knows that you used to cheat yourselves, and [God] turned to you and forgave you. So now be intimate with them (bashiruhunna, fem. pl.) and pursue what God has written for you. And eat and drink until the white thread becomes distinct from the black thread, from the dawn, then fast completely until night. And do not be intimate with them (fem. pl.) when you are in retreat in the mosque. Those are the limits ordained by God, so do not approach them. Thus does God make signs clear to humanity, that they may be conscientious.60
This verse speaks to men about pursuing or abstaining from intimacy with women. Despite the address to men, there does not seem to be anything inherently gender specific in the commands. The regulations with regard to fasting are universally taken to apply equally to male and female Muslims.61 Perhaps, then, not only the regulations surrounding eating and drinking but also those pertaining to sex should be read as non-gender differentiated; clearly, the description of spouses as “garments” for one another is equally applicable to both sexes.62 Moreover, there is no indication that the human consciousness of divine guidance that is counseled at the end of the verse should be limited to men. Nonetheless, the verse clearly presumes male initiation of sexual activity (“Lawful for you ... is the approach”) and male restraint from initiating sex when impermissible (“do not be intimate with them then”).
Another passage presumes a level of male control over the intimate relationship between a couple that even more clearly assigns a dominant role to men in the sexual decision-making process, with regard to both initiation of sex and sexual positions. Surah 2, verses 222–23 declares:
They ask you about menstruation. Say, It is a hurt (adhan), so keep away from women during menstruation and do not approach them until they become pure. When they have purified themselves come to them in the way (min haythu) God has ordered you. God loves those who repent, and loves those (masc./inclusive pl.) who purify themselves. Your wives are a tilth (harth) for you; so come to your tilth as you wish, but do something for your souls beforehand. And be conscious of God, and know that you are going to meet God. And give good tidings to the believers.63
In addition to the obvious (these commands are addressed to men, about women) and the tangential (menstruation renders women impure for intercourse), these verses make two essential points. First, they presuppose male agency and female passivity with regard to the initiation of sex. Second, they place all sexual relations, like other human activity, firmly within the scope of divine regulation.
Exegetes understand Surah 2, verse 222 to be divine guidance conveyed to the Prophet in response to questions posed to him by Muslims (“They ask you about ...”). It is perfectly intelligible that commands or advice about women should be directed toward men, if they were the ones doing the questioning. The content of the first verse, about sex during menstruation, clearly indicates that men bear responsibility for either keeping away from or approaching their wives for sex. It does not, for example, command men to wait for their wives to approach them after they have purified themselves from menstruation. Though women have the duty to purify themselves, it remains a male duty (or prerogative) to initiate sex once purification is complete.
The second of these verses famously declares “nisa’ukum harthun lakum” – “your wives are a tilth for you.” The choice of metaphor seems to suggest passivity; a field, after all, is an object to be tilled, not an active partner in the decision whether or not to plow, or plant, or harvest (or to be plowed, etc.).64 Barlas has argued, suggestively, that one cannot read this verse to justify the treatment of “women as men’s sexual property”, because “property in land” was not known in that place and time; besides, other Qur’anic verses give a different semantic scope for the term harth.65 Others accept the land analogy, but stress that the likening of a woman’s body, or genitals, to a tilth implies an obligation of careful cultivation, not proprietary license to act without thought for the woman’s well-being.66 Others have suggested that the passage refers to procreation and the (im)permissibility of contraception.68 However this passage is interpreted, though, the fact remains that the Qur’an here objectifies women in the most literal sense, discussing them as matter to be acted-upon not agents in their own right.
The usual account of the revelation of Surah 2, verse 223, strengthens the view that the Qur’anic text supposes male control of women’s bodies; it is said to have been revealed in response to a dispute between husband and wife over the acceptability of a particular position for intercourse. The wife reportedly objected to the husband’s desire to enter her from behind; this verse granted him permission to have sex with her in the position of his choosing.68 If such is its circumstance of revelation, the verse seems to preclude a woman having any right to deny her husband sexual access (except during menstrual impurity) in the manner of his choosing. Of course, the occasion of revelation usually proposed for this verse may instead be a post-facto rationalization; the Qur’anic text might merely grant freedom to married couples to determine their own sexual positions.69 Even this analysis, however, leaves intact the presumption that husbands instigate and control sexual activity.
That said, the most important content of all of these verses is not the content related to intercourse itself but the placement of sex firmly under divine oversight – in the sense that God will call each human being, and here particularly men, to account for their deeds, even with regard to sex. As with the discussion of divorced or widowed women, these passages are anything but a license for unbridled male actions; men’s access to women’s bodies is controlled by divine regulation. Unlike in those cases, however, Qur’anic discussions of sexual intimacy contain no appeal for female freedom to act.70
Though the Qur’an stresses individual accountability on numerous occasions without reference to gender, men seem to have greater scope for action and moral agency, particularly with regard to marriage and sex. That is not to say that women’s feelings and desires are not taken into consideration at all; discussions of verses on marriage and divorce in this chapter have shown that a woman’s role in selection of a marriage partner and in regard to continuing her marriage may be necessary, if not decisive. Overall, however, the Qur’an directs men to exercise responsibility for numerous decisions in familial and intimate matters. Dominant interpretations that acknowledge this gender differentiation suggest that this arrangement reflects the natural order of things; men have both greater responsibilities and greater privileges in the divinely approved hierarchical forms of social and familial organization outlined in the Qur’an. Others, though, insist that such verses merely reflect the social norm of patriarchy, by addressing those with greater power in it. Although I am reasonably persuaded of this latter view with regard to marriage, divorce, and polygamy, I find it less convincing with regard to intimate sexual relations between husband and wife. The Qur’anic privileging of male sexual agency suggests that in some crucial sense the Qur’an is a thoroughly androcentric – though not, I would argue, misogynist – text.
Modern scholarship on the Qur’an has rightly pointed out serious oversimplifications and distortions in the commentarial tradition, where commentators’ own assumptions about female inferiority and male supremacy have led to seriously flawed exegeses of particular verses. Yet, scholars intent on reform have at times committed the same error of allowing their own presuppositions to color their interpretations of the Qur’an to the extent that they fail to consider other possibly legitimate readings. It is not enough to simply posit that “the Qur’an is egalitarian and antipatriarchal,”71 and to blame interpretations that deviate from that perspective entirely on “misreadings.” Barlas, in an exercise of considerable intellectual honesty, acknowledges the role of the interpreter’s beliefs in “Believing Women” in Islam. She writes that:
I set out to absolve the Qur’an “itself” of culpability for what Muslims have, or have not, read into it. This does not mean that I did not consider seriously the alternative argument that the problem is not one of reading but of the very nature of some of the Qur’an’s teachings. ... I wondered whether the Qur’an itself is responsible for its misreadings.72
Even in this attempt to query her work’s presumptions, Barlas does not acknowledge the possibility that a reading of the Qur’an that arrives at different conclusions could be a legitimate reading or a faithful explication of “the Qur’an’s teachings.” The way she frames the issue in fact presupposes what she sets out to prove: that any patriarchy or inequality seen in the Qur’anic text is the result of a “misreading.”
Barlas’s work operates under the assumption that the existence of mutuality and reciprocity in intimate relationships is incompatible with hierarchy; since the former clearly exist in the Qur’an, the latter cannot. However, as David Halperin has argued with regard to ancient Greece, inequality does not preclude real and enduring affection and may, in certain circumstances, even be a condition for it; in some contexts, “personal affection and social subordination ... are two sides of the same coin.”73 It is one thing to accept this as a description of an ancient society, however, and another to view it as part of the divine plan for humanity. If the Qur’an – and, by extension, God – treats the male as the primary recipient of guidance on matters of sex, if divine revelation endorses man-on-top (figuratively, of course, as the occasion-of-revelation literature seems to suggest that position-wise, it is not the placement of the man’s body but his decision about the position that matters), one must ask whether the egalitarian vision of gender justice that I and others would like to see diverges from God’s understanding of essential human nature.74
Honesty requires me to concede the strength of some scriptural interpretations positing a privileged role for males in family and society. Still, just because these are possible – even the most straightforward – readings does not mean there cannot be equally compelling feminist interpretations of the text when historical context is considered and when critical principles of justice, kindness, and love are taken seriously. However, in order to create a body of persuasive and thorough feminist interpretation these principles will need to be defined and explored because justice, just to take one example, can mean a variety of things. One must debunk and counter aggressively patriarchal and indeed misogynist interpretations, but also justify the project of egalitarian interpretation. In the process, one must acknowledge that esteeming equality as the most important interpersonal value is a peculiarity of some modern Muslims and not something inherent in the text of the Qur’an. Feminist exegetes must take care not to be as blinded by the commitment to equality, and the presumption that equality is necessary for justice, as classical exegetes were by their assumptions about the naturalness of male superiority and dominance in family and society.
In any case, the Qur’an is not primarily a rule book but rather a revelation that captivates and engages hearts and minds. It serves not only as a source of divine guidance but also as an indicator of the divine intelligence at work in the universe; it reminds human beings of God’s existence, generosity, wrath, mercy, and justice. The fact that the Qur’an has a larger purpose – and a more complicated relationship to human social and familial life than simply to provide regulations – does not excuse sloppy or apologetic readings of difficult passages. However, we do well to remember that there are limitations not only to the work of human interpretive intelligence, but to the Qur’anic text itself, at least as manifested in the earthly realm. It is, and can only ever be, a pale shadow of the ultimate Reality.