Is Male a Degree above Female in Status? Part 4

The Word ‘Daraja’ in Verse 2:228

Accordingly to the Quran, love mercy, intimacy and mutual protection and modesty are the qualities expected from marriage. Even in Paradise marriage remains as one of the great joys.[i] According to God’s law, women have the same rights as men (2:228). Women can divorce their husbands.[ii] She cannot marry until they have three menstrual periods but men have no such obligation and this is the only difference. According to the Quran, divorce is a case that takes atleast four months to be put into effect.[iii] A husband can pronounce divorce twice and can remarry, but after the third divorce he cannot remarry consecutively (2:229-230).

A Quranic passage which is cited to support the idea that men are superior to women is in the specific context of “iddah” – a three month waiting period prescribed for women between the pronouncement of divorce and remarriage. It would be contradictory to conclude from the statement: “Li rijaale alayhenaa darjah” ‘men are degree above them’ that men are superior to women, as at one hand the verse says that women and men have rights similar to each other, and the implication that men are superior, will contradict this impression. One gender cannot be superior to another if their rights and obligations are equal. The word used by Quran is “darjah” meaning ‘degree’. This ‘degree’ can be understood easily by reviewing the whole verse. The context of this verse informs us that it deals with the conditions attached to remarriage after divorce. The whole verse reads thus: “And the divorced women should keep themselves in waiting for three courses; and it is not lawful for them that they should conceal what God has created in their wombs, if they believe in God and the last day; and their husbands have a better right to take them back in the meanwhile if they wish for reconciliation; and they have rights similar to those against them in a just manner, and the mean are a degree above them and Allah is Mighty, Wise” (2:228).

After divorce, women shall wait three menstruations before remarriage. There is no waiting period for a woman who is divorced intimate relationship with her husband. (33:49); and it is three months if they do not habitually menstruate (65:4). In case of pregnancy their waiting period shall be until delivery (65:4). Men, however, do not have a waiting period for remarriage for obvious psychological reasons. That is where mean are on a different platform.[iv]

Ibn Jarir al-Tabari (839-923 CE) wrote that the best explanation in this regard is that of Ibn Abbas: “The ‘darajah’ mentioned by Allah Most High here is the exemption, on the man’s part, of some his wife’s obligations towards him and indulgence towards her, while he is fully obligated to fulfill all his obligation towards her, because the verse came right after [And they (women) have rights similar to those (of men) over them in kindness]. Hence Ibn Abbas (d.687) said: ‘I would not like to obtain all (astanzif) of my right from her because Allah Most High said [and men are degree above them].’” In other words, God: (1) gave men and women similar rights; then (2) He gave then men a greater degree of responsibility over the women than that of women over men. It follows that the rights owned to the wife are un-negotiable, where as husband has to give up certain rights. This is not a feminist reading but the actual explanation of Ibn Abbas (companion of the prophet) according to al_Tabari in his Tafsir.[v]

Sayyid Qutub (1906-1966) explains the idea thus: ‘the advantage…is in no way absolute but in contingent, within the present context, upon the fact that it is the man who initiates the divorce and would , therefore, have the prerogative to take his wife back, a decision that could not be left to her to take. This advantage indeed is useful and proper one, is by no means universal, as some have erroneously concluded, but is dictate by nature and circumstances of the dispute’.[vi]

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[i] Quran 30:21, 2:187, 36:55-57

[ii] Quran 2:230, 4:35

[iii] Quran 2:226, 4:35, 65:6

[iv] Quran 2:228-234, 4:3, 4:19, 4:35, 4:128, 33:49, 58;1, 65:1-4

[v] Fatwa by Sheikh G. F. Haddad at: www.livingislam.org/fiqhi/fiqha_e22.html - 20k

[vi] Sayyid Qutb, In Shade of the Quran, Volume 1, Islamic Foundation: Leicester, 1999, p.279