"The Woman's Voice" Consults the Champion of Woman

Last year the magazine The Woman's Voice took note of the book "The Young Woman of the East in the Civilization of the West," published by Mr. Mohammad Jamil Beyhum, which treated the development of Arab thought on the subject of woman, calling for general equality between the two sexes.

It is the third book of its kind by Mr. Beyhum, who had earlier published two others, the first "Woman in History and the Codes of Law" and the second "Woman in Modern Civilization" — this besides the many articles the author has written on this subject and the speeches he has delivered before assemblies, all of which place him in the front rank of those who have treated the question of woman in the Arab East.

The magazine therefore decided to ask Mr. Beyhum's opinion on what it means by equality between the sexes in social affairs. Here is the answer he was kind enough to give us:

Woman in the Laws of the Nations

Ever since the age of motherhood — to which I referred in my book "Woman in History and the Codes of Law" — came to its end and the era of fatherhood took its place, the world has been agreed in regarding woman as subordinate to man and a chattel among his possessions.

In the East, the Hindu Law of Manu laid down that "the woman is subject to her father in her childhood and to her husband in her youth; then, if her husband dies, guardianship over her passes to her sons, and if she has no sons, guardianship over her becomes the right of her husband's kin." It deprived her of social rights. China, Assyria, and others followed the same course — except that the law of China permitted a man to take four concubines in addition to the one wife beyond whom he might not marry.

Judaism deprived woman of the right of inheritance where males existed, and of testimony; Christianity followed in its path, in obedience to the Torah, except that it decreed that church marriage is indissoluble, in obedience to the commandment of Christ the Lord.

Athens denied daughters the inheritance, and Rome likewise, and remained so until the age of the Emperor Justinian. The Europeans then went on denying daughters the inheritance and the other civil rights until the French Revolution.

Woman in Islam

Islam followed the world's established custom, agreed upon before it, in regarding the man as master of the family and guardian over the woman. But it carried out a great reform in the laws in force up to that time. Though it did not decree the equality of the sexes in inheritance, testimony, and marriage, it set bounds to these which count as broad strides of reform, above all with regard to woman's civil rights in the matter of independent control of her own property, trusteeship over waqf endowments, and guardianship of the orphan — this besides its prohibition of the burying of infant daughters alive, and its regulation of the principles of conjugal life and of social relations between the sexes.

Islam Looks to the Future

Despite the bounds Islam set, it did not lose sight of the future and of the evolution to occur within it, an evolution that calls for the evolution of the legal rulings. It permitted these rulings to change as the times change in worldly affairs, just as it made the consensus of the Muslims upon whatever serves their interest one of the foundations of the religion.

There is no dispute among the jurists over the permissibility of amending rulings founded upon the independent reasoning of the jurists. As for the rulings laid down explicitly in the Holy Quran and in the sound Traditions, the jurists held that they may not be contravened except in cases of necessity, in accordance with the religion that made forbidden things lawful under necessity. Beyond that — that is, outside cases of necessity — some held that the explicit rulings may not be altered at all, while others held it permissible in two cases: first, when the cause of the legal ruling disappears, on the ground that a legal ruling founded upon a cause turns with its cause, whether present or absent; and second, when custom and usage change.

The Muslims Avail Themselves of These Dispensations

On this basis the Muslims have not scrupled to carry out reforms in civil affairs consonant with the age: the state of the Caliphate — by which I mean the Ottoman Sultanate — availed itself of these dispensations when it drew up the civil codes, when it made males and females equal in the inheritance of uncultivated lands, and when it accepted the testimony of woman.

The Turkish Republic went further, when President Atatürk issued the family law that made males and females equal in political and social rights — among them inheritance and testimony — forbade polygamy, and forbade divorce except under special conditions.

Then Egypt did not hesitate to set bounds to divorce and polygamy, drawing its reforms from the foundations of the religion.

The Reality Facing the Muslims

Now that woman obtains the school certificates just as man does, and takes the higher degrees — when she then comes to give testimony, she has no need for one woman to remind the other.

Now that the wife has come to feel that she must share with the man in the expenses of the family, on the consideration that there is no true equality so long as she remains a dependent upon him — for that reason she needs her inheritance in full.

Now that there has settled in the souls of husband and wife alike the duty of giving the children an upbringing in keeping with the times and with their contemporaries — a thing that cannot be managed if offspring multiply through polygamy, given the costs of living.

Now that the purpose of marriage has come to go beyond animal pleasure, and divorce — as Islam itself declared — has become the most hateful of lawful things, save in special cases.

The wise among the Muslims thus find themselves facing duties of reform that do not conflict with the dispensations of the religion. Religion is ease, not hardship. Did it not speak of the changing of rulings with the changing of the times? And that necessities make forbidden things lawful? And that the legal ruling founded upon a cause turns with its cause, whether present or absent?

And did not some of the jurists hold it permissible to alter even the explicit rulings when custom and usage change?