Brief History | Academic Studies | Significant Differences | Conclusion | The Islamic Justification

The Frankenstein of Femininity

Introduction

Feminism, a woman-centered discourse that calls for social, economic, and political equality regardless of gender, has a long and rich history in the United States. Born out of the lived reality of unfair gender-based treatment, feminism has resulted in a robust corpus of sophisticated theorizing and valiant legacy of tactical activism. Feminism has evolved over the last century and a half from inhabiting the fringes of society to the very center of sociopolitical norms. In liberal spaces, it is politically incorrect and socially unacceptable not to identify with feminist aims.

In its present forms, liberal feminist practices require approval or agreement to a number of premises, including but not limited to:

Social, economic, and political equality for all genders;
That there are more than two genders; genders are not necessarily linked to biological sex; gender is fluid; and individuals can identify their own gender;
Violence against women and sexually non-conformist people is wrong and must be stopped; and
Human beings enjoy complete sexual freedom (bound by consent) including the freedom to sexually couple without a marital contract and the freedom to sexually couple with same-sex partner(s), etc.

Feminism is a part of what comprises the authoritative values and norms that facilitate American social life, along with human rights, and postsecularism, which, due to the scope of this article, I will not be getting into (although they have much overlap).

In what follows, I dig deeper into the history and impact of feminism on women and communities at large, as well as the values, and assumptions that ground feminism, in order to present an academic critique of feminism– demonstrating how this ‘seemingly’ noble movement has twisted and distorted femininity, resulting in an unrecognizable ‘frankenstein’ built by modernity– feminism.

It is imperative that Muslims acknowledge and appreciate the good aims of feminism, such as justice and freedom, while critically refusing the underlying mass of secular assumptions about the human being, religion, and, ultimately, God.

If being concerned for the well-being of women is feminism, then I would count myself as a feminist. The reality however, is that feminism, in its most common and influential iterations, is only superficially concerned with the well-being of women. When you look deeper and study the historical development and conceptual genealogy of feminism, it is apparent how much of it is contrary to women’s interests. So no, I don’t actually consider myself a feminist. However, it is very important to distinguish an academic critique of a philosophy from a despicable enablement of abuse of women– which isn't limited to the physical, emotional manipulation is equally, if not more damaging.

There is no doubt that feminism started for the right reasons; 200 years ago, in the west, women had no political rights, they couldn't vote, they couldn't own property. Generally, no independence. Even from a religious perspective, in the Bible, the entire fall of Adam was because Eve tempted Adam, and so all women were punished with the pain of childbirth [Genesis 3.16]. In 1595 a debate was even had to discuss if women were even Human. For these reasons, feminism started.

A Brief Look Into The History of Feminism [with a focus on 2nd wave feminism]

1st Wave Feminism Origin & Motives

First-wave feminism involved the movement for women’s suffrage; it was introduced at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 by prominent figures Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. This wave emerged in the context of industrialization and focused on equal employment opportunities for women.

The main founding mothers of the 1st wave were racist, specifically to black people. Ex. Elizabeth Stanton, Millicent Fawcett, a racist who has a current day major feminist society named after her and Rebecca Latimer Felton, who was the 1st female senator in the US that called for the lynching of black people because they could vote before white women could. The nature of feminism was colonial and racial and elitist. It wasn't egalitarian. It's an open secret. This was not a fringe movement. It was a discourse that was cross national– UK, USA etc.. There are papers written on this. It was a surprisingly popular opinion to be racist as a feminist at that time.

2nd Wave Feminism Origin & Motives

In the 60's– Key themes were equal pay, abortion, a disdain towards motherhood, and the institution of marriage. Founding mothers of feminism: Betty Freidan, Germaine Greer & Simone De Beauvoire.

Betty Freidan

With the publication of her book, The Feminine Mystique, in 1963, feminist activism spawned and spanned four decades, Betty Friedan can be counted as one of the top social reformers of our time. Betty Friedan, in one of the most controversial sections of her feminist classic, The Feminine Mystique, compares life as a housewife to life in a concentration camp, dehumanizing, infantilizing, and systematically designed to take away a person’s sense of agency and self determination. Friedan called this the, “Comfortable Concentration Camp.” [1] Scholars of the last 30 years, however, have severely criticized Friedan for her use of the imagery. Her biographer Daniel Horowitz, for example, called it problematic, trivializing, careless, and exaggerated. Afro-American feminist scholar bell hooks charged Friedan with narcissism, insensitivity, sentimentality, and self-indulgence. She retracted this and many other statements, in her book Second stage, saying, "it was rather extreme for me to say that". Friedan grew to regret the comparison, as relayed in her latest memoir Life So Far (2000), "I am ashamed of that analogy… The American suburb was no concentration camp." Indeed, in a 2001 interview, Friedan refused to discuss her camp analogy in any detail, repeating several times that she had made an error in judgment.

The reason for her many retractions were sociological investigations in the year 1970 that demonstrated things were getting worse for women. Women, I quote, "were experiencing more psychological stress than women in their twenties and thirties had in the 1950's and 1960's, and were more likely to feel on the edge of a nervous breakdown than young men.” This was after the civil rights movement and implementation of the equal rights act, after women were going to work, after all discussions about feminism, after women were burning bras.

After all these things, Betty Freidan goes to check if women are happy now because of what she had done. She realized women are worse off, their welfare has been negatively affected. In her book, Second Stage, she admits this, "Women, 35-39 1/3 women in the 1970s experienced a nervous breakdown", which was more than a 10% increase. Which, in sociological terms, is quite heavy.

So she realized, based on her own studies, that more women were suffering after the implementation of all these things, and after they are going to work, and after they've taken up all these attitudes towards domesticity and the family and motherhood and the home and all these things. In fact, she also states in the book, that women have a, "profound human impulse to have children". And she is not the only one to say such things, make such retractions and statements.

In 1981, after realizing the troubling psychological impact on women, Freidan– who many historians say in 1963, when her book was published, 2nd wave feminist started then. Now this same individual stated, “we had better find a change.. but change is hard. Because women have almost a religious feeling about the women's movement... a sacredness, a reverence, an awe.. it keeps us from asking questions about what really matters to women now", amazing isn’t it? She realizes the frankenstein she’s created– it's really negatively impacted women, she wants to change that, but she can't because she's already created a monster, she's already created the frankenstein of feminism, and she's already helped contribute to that.

Germaine Greer

Wrote a book called, "The Female Eunuch", where she was vehemently against women having children, she thought that the moment you become a mother, you are oppressed. By virtue of being a mother, you are oppressed, she made this very clear.

Another reversal from this founding mother– she writes later, in 1981 in her book, "The Whole woman", "I mourn for my unborn babies", and "I still have pregnancy dreams, waiting with vast joy something that will never happen." Because she's too old now to have them, now she regrets it. Think about that, a woman that convinced 10s of millions of women not to have children, not to prioritize motherhood, to prioritize your career instead, all that she said about motherhood and the family unit, now that very same woman, 20 years later, said I regret the situation, ‘I mourn for my unborn children’, ‘mourn’, very strong language. All I'm saying is, look at the confessions of the feminists, forget about me. Germaine Greer states In her book, "The Whole Woman", "now I would argue that motherhood should be regarded as a genuine career option."

Simone De beauvoire

Who probably had the most robust and thorough philosophical work that had been done on feminism, and up until the 3rd wave, it was the main way in which scholars of feminism would argue for feminism. Simone attacked the institution of motherhood, domesticity, said it's oppressive to be a man, biologically even, and these things. She had a boyfriend, Jean Paul Sartre, a huge philosophical player. When Satre was coming back from a trip, from either New York or Paris, she writes, in her autobiography, "I was cleaning the house, I was getting everything ready for him", interestingly, this is the same woman who was vehemently opposed to any domestic activities saying something like this. Upon further reading she states, "He is my true superior... I felt dominated by someone else intellectually... Satre lived up to the man I had dreamt up until 15... I was simply not in his class." She, an egalitarian, said this. A huge academic founding mother of feminism said these things. She also said in the Biological chapter of her book, "Second Sex", “men are faster than women, men are stronger than women, women get more nervous breakdowns than men, men are more emotionally stable than women.”

Why is it that these founding mothers of feminism, they have one speech to the public: don't get married, don't have children, don't allow this from the man, prioritize your career, don't do domestic activities, equality this, equality that– then in their own private lives, they are saying things like. “You are my superior, I was cleaning the house for him, I was simply not in his class”, making clear distinctions between man and women– men faster, stronger, more emotionally stable than women etc. True hypocrite behaviour. Because they know now that their theories are false and have failed miserably.

Interesting to note, if you look at Simone De Beauvoir's autobiography, Satre is the one who hated family life and persuaded her to write the book "Second Sex". A valid question to ask is, was 2nd wave feminism created by a man? Was he doing all the work? Was he the one pushing her to do all these things? Why? Well it makes sense doesn’t it, because feminism is in the benefit of the man. 2nd wave feminism benefits the man more than it does the women, because the man doesn't need to commit, to have kids, he could move from one to the other, use and abuse.

Academic Studies

Sociological Investigations

Study, “Blanchflower and Oswald 2000”. 100k participants in 1970's-1990's, in the UK/USA.

These neutral researchers wanted to answer the question; Are feministic policies that have now been enacted, making women’s lives easier, or harder? The conclusion was, the wellbeing of women has deteriorated. The researchers said, men are happier, women are sadder. After the feminist movement has taken hold, after all the laws have been implemented, and after all the attitudes have changed, and after women are going to work, why are men happier and women sadder? Because they say legislative reform and so on has, and I quote, "not been successful in either country in raising well being among women." Who's getting happier? men were getting happier because they were getting what they wanted– commitment issues are gone down, he isn't really obligated to extract his resources for her, he's got more money now, he can just use her and move women to women. While she is the one who is psychologically primed for security, for one partner. In fact, Richard Dawkins– celebrity new age atheist and one of the leading evolutionary biologists, himself states, "In Darwinian theory.. You might think that the two sex are equal, they have the same amount to gain from mating, not so. The goods that a female mammal brings to the deal are her womb, time devoted to the baby inside it, and milk to feed it. The male generally provides protection and food, so far so good. But the male and the female have very different genetic interests, which is where it gets interesting. The male has the most to gain, by, if he can, persuading lots and lots of females to mate with him, and leaving each one to fend for herself. The female has the most to gain from persuading one male to be loyal to her, faithful to her and to provide a full economic upbringing for here offspring

Further evidence to this fact: "Buss and Schmitt (1993) reported from several studies that men desired significantly more sex partners than women did. In reporting how many sex partners men and women would like to have over the next 2 years of their lives, for example, the men were on average hoping to have about 8 partners, whereas the women wanted approximately 1. Over the course of a lifetime, men wanted around 18, whereas women desired 4 or 5."

"Carroll, Volk, and Hyde (1985) found that women reported substantially lower desire than men for sexual intercourse in the absence of emotional intimacy. Regan and Berscheid (1996) found that more women than men (35% vs. 13%) described love and emotional intimacy as important goals of sexual desire, whereas men were more likely than women (70% vs. 43%) to say that the sexual activity itself was the goal of sexual desire. These results are consistent with the view that men are more intrinsically and women more extrinsically motivated in sex: Male desire aims at the sexual activity itself, whereas female desire aims beyond it toward other outcomes and consequences."

"The use of sex to obtain love is related to the motive to maintain a relationship. The most common reason that women reported for initiating sexual activity was to receive love and intimacy (M. Brown & Auerback, 1981). For men, the most common reason was to obtain a release of sexual tension, which suggests an intrinsic motivation."

"According to the principle of least interest (Waller & Hill, 1938/1951), social interactions will be shaped by the fact that the person who wants something more than the other is in a dependent position and will usually have to offer the other some inducements. Hence many male–female romantic interactions will take the form of the man offering the woman some resources (commitment, flattery, food, entertainment, money, companionship) to induce her to commence a sexual relationship."

Study: “The Equality Paradox: Gender Equality Intensifies Male Advantages in Adolescent Subjective Well-Being”

Let’s do a thought experiment.

Take average women in NYC or London and take average women from the villages in Mauritania or Iraq or Somalia.

Now ask the women from these locations about how happy they are, how good life is, etc. Total all the results. This will give you what’s called a Subjective Well Being (SWB) score.

Now compare the average SWB of women in NYC/London/Paris to the average SWB of men. Now do the same for the Muslim villages.

Where do you think will have the larger gap between men and women in terms of happiness and SWB? The highly gender equal cities or the patriarchal Muslim villages?

Well, the latest research shows that the gap is larger in more gender-equal countries!

The study says:

“Using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 and 2018 data from 78 countries (N = 941,475), we find that gender gaps in adolescents’ SWB (life satisfaction, positive and negative affect) are larger in more gender-equal countries.”

This is a study that analyzed data from nearly one million students across 78 countries.

The result is: The more gender equal a country is, the larger the gap between men’s SWB and women’s. In less gender equal societies, men and women have more equal levels of SWB.

The researchers themselves call it a "paradox", "Results paradoxically indicated that gender equality enhances boys’ but not girls’ SWB, suggesting that greater gender equality may facilitate social comparisons across genders."

It is not a paradox if you understand female nature and hypergamy. Patriarchy and the inequality of genders is natural. If you disrupt this natural order, it leads to dysfunction and dissatisfaction.

But of course, the researchers can’t admit that due to their liberal feminist dogma, so they give this nonsense explanation:

"[Increased gender equality in society] may lead to an increased awareness of discrimination against females and consequently lower girls’ SWB, diluting the overall benefits of gender equality."

Read that carefully. They are saying that more gender equality results in more gender awareness of discrimination which results in less SWB. How does that make any sense? Basically, they mean that women in less gender equal countries are too uneducated to recognize their plight. They are blissfully ignorant of all the evil oppression they suffer under the boots of those dastardly patriarchal men. It is Western women who are educated and intelligent enough to see their plight, and that is making them less happy and more depressed.

O woe, the burdens of enlightenment!

Obviously, this is nothing but feminist self-congratulation. No matter what the empirical evidence to the contrary, it can never be that feminism is the problem. Gender equality can never be wrong. There is no empirical data that can ever establish that gender equality is bad for society simply because these feminists will always find an excuse to dismiss the obvious conclusion. The only conclusion these studies have for feminists is that we need more and more feminism! We need to do even more to make women happy! It is never enough.

Yet, these liberals always claim that Muslims (and theists in general) are unscientific and willfully blind to empirical data! Just the opposite. It is the liberal who stubbornly refuses to see what is right before his eyes.

It’s funny, though. The one thing feminism is supposed to deliver is women’s happiness, at the very least happiness equal to men’s. These feminists are fine burning down the entire globe, destroying countless families, collapsing all of society and civilization for the sake of women’s satisfaction. And they aren’t even able to achieve that! Decades of feminism cultural engineering, social reconstruction, and they can’t do it. They have only made women less happy compared to men. So they have to make these laughable excuses and title it a “paradox.”

Oh, what a strange paradox! How very curious this paradox is!

The bottom line is that this study indicates that the more equality women have with men, the less happy and satisfied they feel compared to men. In contrast, in patriarchal societies, women are happier compared to the men in their societies despite having less equality with them.

Secularists should take note, even their own research indicates that feminism damages society.

And Feminists: You’ve got some explaining to do.

Another example of a study is from the ‘Policies studies institute’, also the same conclusion– women’s wellbeing has deteriorated in the last 60 years.

"Women's magazines are full of stories about women's current unhappiness and surveys to explore why. Top Sante– 'the UK's best-selling health and beauty magazine' – for instance, revealed in its summer 2001 survey that if given the chance, '78 per cent of all working women' would quit their jobs tomorrow if they could. And a similar percentage think that their work is damaging their health, 'causing ailments such as headaches, constant exhaustion, backache, anxiety, forgetfulness, insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome and migraine'"

Imagine having a workforce where almost 80% of the workforce of women want to leave, they don't like it, it's a prison for them. It's an irony, because this is exactly what Betty Freidan said, you need to leave your comfortable concentration camp, your prison, the home is the prison. But now, women are saying, en masse, in the West, that actually what's the prison is the work.

Now if we got the same study, and I don't think it's ever been done– of women, all of which have been mothers, full-time mothers in the home with their children, do you honestly think that 80% of them would want to stop being mothers? Honestly do you think this? No chance.

But why is that when a woman is in her responsibility in a corporate environment, and is a manager and is looking after 5 people, for example. And another manager said you have 5 more people to look after, so now 10 people to look after. She sees that as what? An expansion of power, because it is related to responsibility. But she would never say the same about having more children, although it's also an expansion of more responsibility. Why? Because the domestic environment has been denigrated. In fact, I would say, the influence she would have on the child is going to be far greater than the influence she would have on the employees. But the former is regarded as such because it's in a capitalistic, liberalistic, and feminist framework.

So far, we have feministic confessions from the founding mothers and huge academic studies. From this we can clearly see that the feministic movement has been a major failure. Maybe this is all a coincidence, right?!

We have survey after survey, anecdote after anecdote, academic study after academic study, all pointing in the same direction– women have been affected in the negative due to this feministic movement, and those that have benefitted have been men. Feminists, unfortunately, have sold us all a lie. When I say "Us'', the ones who have suffered the most have not been men. The ones who have benefited the most from feminists are men. The ‘Equality Paradox’, makes this very clear.

Logically, this makes sense, as a man, I don't have to commit to a woman, I can go from one woman to another woman, with no responsibility whatsoever. I don't have to provide for her any protection, my resources don't have to be extracted anymore, I don't have to provide for children– If I live a feministic lifestyle, I don't have to do any of these things. If I weren't a religious man, I'd go for a feminist, independent type.

After 60 years, we've seen it's affected women negatively– with their own self-admission and studies to back this. The feminists themselves, many of them, have retracted their positions and still we want to play with fire– it's not helping us.

Feminist prescriptions and recommendations have also harmed children. When we look at the demographic data, of children that are the least advantaged, we find it's children in single parent households.

Almost all the studies that have been done on the issue have shown that homosexual man and man or women and women have yielded negative results for children. For example, delinquency– in almost every single study, there is an increased level of delinquency. A reduced level of education. More chances that the child will come out with psychological pathology. All of that when there are two partners of the same gender.

In his books and peer-reviewed works, Nicholas Wolfinger was asked that if we identify that that's the case, demographically, if those kinds of family structures are the most problematic, then which ones are the most advantageous? He said, “nuclear family”. By the way, this guy himself is a left-wing guy, he's not a religious, neo-conservative guy, nothing like that. He said we have to be honest with the data, he said “nuclear families, where there are traditional gender roles AND”, very interesting, “where there is religion practiced in that house”, he said it doesn't matter what religion, the children are more likely to succeed educationally, and they are less likely to be criminals in the future. That is his data, peer-reviewed.

Feminists know that there are significant differences between men and women– psychological, physiological, and even biological differences ofc. Yet they effectively make the argument that despite these considerable differences, they should be treated the same. Counterintuitive.

The burden of proof is upon the one making the claim. If one asks why the ruling is different between men and women in Islam, we ought to ask, why should it be the same? The burden of proof is upon them to prove this claim. What's your proof that men and women should be treated equally in call cases? Why should different things be treated the same? Whatever the answer is, is that on an objective level? the same level as 2+2=4?

Plato stated, as quoted by Aristotle, "Treat like cases as like." Meaning, identical things should be treated identically and by extension, different things should be treated differently. Feminism doesn't account for the differences between men and women and that's a failure, that means it has less explanatory scope.

Equality of value (we do believe that men and women are equal in value, spiritual value), is not equivalent to identicality in roles. In fact, Diane F. Halpern [American psychologist and former president of the American Psychological Association (APA)] states, "People do not have to be the same to be equal.” If someone states it should be the case, they have to argue for it, not us.

Outlining Significant Differences

Sexual Differences

Study: “Is There a Gender Difference in Strength of Sex Drive? Theoretical Views, Conceptual Distinctions, and a Review of Relevant Evidence, Roy F. Baumeister, Kathleen R. Catanese, & Kathleen D. Vohs (2001)”

A very large, if not the largest study done on this states, "Sex drive refers to the strength of sexual motivation. Across many different studies and measures, men have been shown to have more frequent and more intense sexual desires than women, as reflected in spontaneous thoughts about sex, frequency and variety of sexual fantasies, desired frequency of intercourse, desired number of partners... and other measures. No contrary findings (indicating stronger sexual motivation among women) were found. Hence we conclude that the male sex drive is stronger than the female sex drive. The gender difference in sex drive should not be generalized to other constructs such as sexual or orgasmic capacity, enjoyment of sex, or extrinsically motivated sex."

“Obviously, human biology has changed relatively little during recent centuries and, as reviewed subsequently, there is increasing evidence for the role of hormones in determining human sexual behaviors and motivations. Our review of the literature indicated that role of androgens (e.g., testosterone) was crucial in producing sex drive.” “Biological processes, including the substantial gender difference in testosterone, have been implicated as determining sex drive.”

“Third and perhaps most germane to this analysis, evidence from the animal and human literatures suggests that androgens are responsible for active initiation of sexual activity (i.e., proceptivity), whereas estrogens are responsible for passive acceptance of sexual activity (i.e., receptivity; Beach, 1976; De Jonge & Van de Poll, 1984; Sherwin, 1988).”

“In a recent study, researchers found that high doses of testosterone given to oophorectomized women via a skin patch (i.e., transdermally) improved sexual functioning and sexual motivation relative to receiving a placebo (Shifren et al., 2000). Frequency of sexual activity, reports of pleasure and orgasm, sexual arousal, and sexual desires and thoughts were most strongly affected by testosterone therapy. For example, the percentage of women reporting sexual fantasies at least once a week was 12% at baseline, 10% for the placebo group, and 24% for women in the high testosterone group.”

"The percentage of women reporting sexual intercourse at least once a week also increased with testosterone treatment (23% of women at baseline vs. 35% of women during placebo treatment vs. 41% during high testosterone treatment)."

"Higher testosterone is linked to higher sex drive. We found no studies in which higher testosterone predicted lesser sex drive."

“A study (Sherwin et al., 1985) of surgically postmenopausal women receiving high doses of testosterone, alone or in conjunction with estrogen, indicated this led to increased sexual desire, fantasies, and sexual arousal significantly more than women receiving only estrogen or a placebo. A similar effect was found among women receiving either therapy with testosterone and estrogen or estrogen alone. Women whose therapy included testosterone in addition to estrogen showed increased sexual activity, satisfaction, pleasure, and orgasm frequency (S. R. Davis, McCloud, Strauss, & Burger, 1995). Last, surgically induced postmenopausal women who receive estrogen therapy continue to report depressed sexual desire, activity, and pleasure (Nathorst-Boos & von Schoultz, 1992; Sherwin et al., 1985; Shifren, Nahum, & Mazer, 1998) and overall decreased well-being (Nathorst-Boos, von Schoultz, & Carlstrom, 1993). Researchers have thus concluded that a lack of sexual interest and activity is the result of insufficient androgen production.."

“The person with the greater sex drive would probably think about sex more often than the person with the lesser drive, just as the person with a greater motivational interest in money, children, or football will devote more spontaneous thought to that topic than a less interested person. Several studies have assessed frequency of spontaneous thoughts about sex.”

“Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, and Michaels (1994) found that men think about sex more often than women. Over half the men in their national sample reported thinking about sex every day, whereas only one fifth of the women reported thinking about sex that often.”

“Beck, Bozman, and Qualtrough (1991) found that men report more frequent sexual desire than women. Nearly all the men (91%) but only half the women (52%) experienced sexual desire several times a week or more. Their study also helped rule out the alternative explanation that women find it more difficult than men to recognize sexual desire, because men and women endorsed essentially the same indicators of desire.”

“Sexual fantasies are probably one of the best indexes of strength of sex drive because they are explicitly sexual and require conscious attention but are not constrained by opportunities, social pressures, or other external factors…Moreover, it seems quite safe to assume that a person with a high sex drive will have more frequent sexual fantasies than a person with a low sex drive. Consistent with the view that fantasies are an index of desire, Nutter and Condron (1983) found that women suffering from chronically inhibited sexual desire reported less sexual fantasy than normal control women"

"Gender differences in sexual fantasy have been examined in many studies. A review and meta-analysis by Leitenberg and Henning (1995) concluded that men have more frequent and more varied fantasies than women."

"Thus, as compared with women, men think about sex more often, report more frequent arousal, and have more frequent and variable fantasies. These findings would be most consistent with a view that men have a higher sex drive."

"Many findings suggest that men want sex more frequently than women. Ard (1977) reported a survey of couples who had been married for over 20 years. He found that “husbands continued to prefer intercourse more frequently than wives” (p. 274). In fact, wives consistently reported that they were quite satisfied with the amount of sex they had in their marriages, but men on average wished for about a 50% increase."

"Julien et al. (1992) found that men were more likely than women to report having less sex in marriage than they wanted."

"A study of elderly couples in Sweden likewise found that men wanted more frequent sex than women (Bergström-Walan & Nielsen, 1990). Indeed, the authors of that study concluded that “men are significantly more sexual than women, in all ages and in all respects” (p. 289). Those findings refer to mature couples who are well into long-term relationships. One might expect that men and women would be more similar early in relationships. Yet data show that at the start of a relationship, men desire sex more than women. Abundant evidence confirms that men are ready for sex earlier in a relationship than women. In a large Australian sample, McCabe (1987) found that the category of people who were in a committed relationship, who wanted to have sex, but who were not having sex, consisted almost entirely of men."

"Driscoll and Davis (1971) found that men were more likely than women to list as a reasons for not having sex the fact that they could not talk their partner into doing so and that the decision was not theirs. Women are willing to wait longer within a dating relationship, measured either in terms of clock and calendar time or in terms of number of dates, before having sex (Buss & Schmitt, 1993; Cohen & Shotland, 1996; Sprecher, Barbee, & Schwartz, 1995). For example, Cohen and Shotland found that men expected sex after about 8 dates, whereas women expected it after about 12."

"Thus, within heterosexual relationships, men want sex more than women at the start of a relationship, in the middle of it, and after many years of it. Consistent with that sweeping conclusion, McCabe (1987) found that men in relationships (across the full sample and all levels of relationship longevity) showed significantly more desire for intercourse than they were having, whereas women had about what they wanted."

"All else being equal, we would expect a person with a stronger sex drive to want to have sex with more different people than someone with a weaker sex drive."

"Men actually report significantly more sex partners than women, across all studies (e.g., Janus & Janus, 1993; Laumann et al., 1994)."

"Buss and Schmitt (1993) reported from several studies that men desired significantly more sex partners than women did. In reporting how many sex partners men and women would like to have over the next 2 years of their lives, for example, the men were on average hoping to have about 8 partners, whereas the women wanted approximately 1. Over the course of a lifetime, men wanted around 18, whereas women desired 4 or 5."

"The person with the stronger drive will be more reluctant to do without. Deprivation of whatever one desires will be more painful for the person with the stronger desires, almost by definition. With regard to sex, this means that a relatively mild sex drive should render a person more willing than others to do without sex."

"The fact that women were more willing than men to do without sexual activity altogether supports the view that women are less strongly motivated to find some sexual gratification consistently across time." [(Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gebhard, 1953)(Kinsey et al. (1953) (Leiblum and Rosen (1988)]

"There are other signs that women are more willing than men to go without sexual gratification. As already reported, women are slower to want sex within relationships, and they take longer after puberty to commence masturbation and other sexual activity. Moreover, the masturbation discrepancy is quite relevant because it avoids the alternative explanation that women are willing to forego intercourse out of fear of pregnancy rather than lack of desire: Masturbation carries no risks of calamity (indeed, warnings of dire consequences of masturbation have been more frequently aimed at boys than girls), and the main reason reported by women and girls for not masturbating is a lack of desire (Arafat & Cotton, 1974)."

"Reasons for not having sex were the explicit focus of a study by Leigh (1989). Among men, fear of rejection was the main reason given for avoiding sex. Women, however, reported that they avoided sex because a lack of interest and enjoyment. The significantly greater allusion by women than men to a lack of sexual interest and enjoyment fits the view that women have a weaker sex drive, as Leigh (1989) herself acknowledged."

"Another very instructive case concerns clerical vows of celibacy. This is especially important because there is no question of separate values or double standard: Among Catholic Christian clergy, both men and women take profoundly important and sacred vows to forego all sexual gratification throughout life. The single standard of absolute purity is thus clear to both priests and nuns. Yet the evidence suggests that nuns are far more successful than priests at achieving that ideal. Clerical celibacy among both genders was studied by Murphy (1992) using a questionnaire survey and a sample of several hundred. Her results suggest significantly greater success at celibacy among female than male Catholic clergy. More male clergy (62%) than female clergy (49%) reported having been sexually active since they took their vows of celibacy. Among the sexually active, the men had had more partners than the women. Thus, 24% of the sexually active men, but hardly any of the sexually active women (3%) reported having had more than five partners since taking their vows...The women were more likely than the men to have terminated the sexual relationship (i.e., the women might just lapse once or briefly whereas many men would continue violating their vows). All these findings suggest that women find it easier than men to live without sexual gratification."

"An examination of sexual dysfunctions and their consequences within interpersonal relationships also supports the hypothesis that men have stronger sex drives than women."

..."if one assumes that both men and women will experience periods of low sexual desire in life, these should be more problematic to the degree that one’s partner wants and expects more sexual activity. If men have stronger sex drives, then they are more likely than women to be distraught when their partner loses interest in sex, and so marital conflict (leading to presenting for therapy) should be more likely to focus on lack of sexual interest in the wife than in the husband. In other words, cases in which one person does not want to have sex should be more distressing to the partner who has a high sex drive, as opposed to a low one."

"Hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) is officially defined by the American Psychiatric Association (1994) as constantly low or absent desire for sexual activity or sexual fantasies, a condition that is distressing to the person and is not caused by a medical or substance abuse disorder. A recent review of hypoactive sexual disorder (Beck, 1995) highlighted differences in the prevalence of HSDD diagnoses as a function of gender. Significantly more women than men are diagnosed with HSDD, consistent with the view that women are more vulnerable to problems of low sexual desire. Beck (1995) noted that low sexual motivation is among the most common complaints in sex therapy. A study of over 900 clients who were being seen for a variety of sexual dysfunctions confirmed the frequency of the complaint, with 65% of all clients being diagnosed with HSDD. More germane to this analysis, 81% of those diagnosed with HSDD were women (475 women out of 588). Thus, women appeared to be more vulnerable than men to the problem of low sexual desire by a rate of about four to one (Segraves & Segraves, 1991)."

"Other therapy studies have confirmed that lack of libido is more common among women than men. Hawton and Catalan (1986) tallied 154 cases presenting for sex therapy. The problem of “impaired sexual interest” was the most common problem (58%) among female patients but the least common problem (4%) among male patients."

"Leiblum and Rosen (1988) reported elsewhere that their clinical observations supported the conclusion that “men have a more insistent and constant sexual appetite” (p. 13) than women."

"Meanwhile, an attempt to assess the frequency of various sexual dysfunctions in normal (nontherapy) couples likewise found that reports of lack of sexual desire or sexual interest were more common among women (35%) than men (16%; Frank, Anderson, & Rubinstein, 1978). This finding helps rule out the potential confound that the difference in therapeutic presentation is due to the greater willingness of women to come forward rather than the greater prevalence of hypoactive sexuality. In other words, the same pattern is found both in therapy clinics and outside of them: More couples struggle with low sexual desire in the woman than in the man."

"A study of sexual dysfunctions in Denmark (Ventegodt, 1998) confirmed the patterns of problematic sexual desire found in North American studies. Among women, one of the most frequently reported sexual problems (11% vs. 3% of men) was decreased sexual desire, whereas among men the lack of a suitable and willing sex partner was the most common complaint."

"Paired with the data on hypoactive sexual desire, these studies suggests not only that women are more likely to be the reluctant partner but that there is conflict caused by the discrepancy between men’s and women’s desired level of sexual activity. Perhaps when the man is the reluctant partner, the woman does not become upset by the prospect of less sexual activity.”

"A study on marital adjustment and sexual desire (Trudel, Landry, & Larose, 1997) also found that the woman was significantly more likely than the man to report low sexual desire. Moreover, this study revealed that low sexual motivation was related to marital adjustment problems."

"A study of sexuality and relationship indexes found that sexual desire discrepancies (the difference between each partner’s level of sexual desire) predicted overall relationship satisfaction (Davies, Katz, & Jackson, 1999). A discrepancy in which the woman has lower sexual desire than the man appeared to be especially problematic, with these women reporting lower relationship and sexual satisfaction than women who matched or exceeded their partner’s level of sexual desire."

"Buss (1989) hypothesized that differences in male and female sexual strategies would lead to specific types of conflict between a sexually active heterosexual couple. He proposed and found that women become upset about men’s strategy of sexual assertiveness (e.g., wanting sex sooner after meeting, wanting more frequent sex, being more persistent to have sex, and wanting more partners than the woman), whereas men become upset about women’s sexual strategy of sexual restraint (e.g., withholding sex, having lower desire for sex, and needing certain conditions to be met before engaging in sexual activity). Buss (1989) showed that not only do these problems arise between men and women on a general level, they also operate within couples to predict both marital and sexual satisfaction."

"A nonclinical sample of never married college students by Carroll, Volk, and Hyde (1985) provided converging evidence. Far more women (19%) than men (2%) claimed that they never felt that they wanted or needed sex. Moreover, even when sexual tension or desire was felt, it was apparently less intense among the women. Most of the men (80%) but only 25% of the women said they preferred to have sex as a way of releasing sexual tension when they did feel it. Instead, women said they preferred to engage in vigorous physical activity (50%) or even just watch television (20%)."

"Low sexual desire in the man has not received commensurate attention as a cause of couple adjustment problems, most likely either because it is a less common occurrence or is less troublesome to the partner."

"In sum, women are more likely than men to report a serious or pathological lack of sexual desire, and couples have more conflicts and problems because of a female than a male lack of sexual desire. If these findings were isolated, they might be interpreted to mean that female sexuality is more vulnerable (than male sexuality) to being interrupted by stress or other situational factors. They are however consistent with the view that women have on average less sexual desire to start with, and so more women than men will fall into the spectrum of very low sex drive—indeed too low, as defined either by themselves or their partners."

"We have surveyed a broad range of available evidence on the relative strength of sex drive, defined in terms of sexual motivation. The evidence was extensive, methodologically diverse, and consistent. By all measures, men have a stronger sex drive than women. Men think about sex more often, experience more frequent sexual arousal, have more frequent and varied fantasies, desire sex more often, desire more partners, masturbate more, want sex sooner, are less able or willing to live without sexual gratification, initiate more and refuse less sex, expend more resources and make more sacrifices for sex, desire and enjoy a broader variety of sexual practices, have more favorable and permissive attitudes toward most sexual activities, have fewer complaints about low sex drive in themselves (but more about their partners), and rate their sex drives as stronger than women. There are several other findings that suggest men have more intense sexual desires. The greater reluctance of men to live without sex, even when personal values and community support strongly encourage celibacy (as among priests), suggests more intense desires. Men thus have less success than women at restraining their sexual desires. Hence we conclude that the data indicate gender differences in both frequency and intensity of sexual desires, although we reiterate that the data are more conclusive with regard to frequency. Either frequency or intensity alone would be sufficient to conclude that a gender difference in sex drive exists, however, and so the broad conclusion is not in doubt. Several findings indicate that women have less frequent or intense sexual desires than men even when cultural pressures do not selectively constrain female sexuality. There were no measures that showed women having stronger drives than men. There was not one definitive source of cross-cultural data to indicate that women had a stronger sex drive than men. In fact, cross-cultural data—even from countries with permissive sexual attitudes such as the Netherlands—supported our conclusion that women possess a weaker sex drive."

“All the evidence we have reviewed points toward the conclusion that men desire sex more than women. Although some of the findings were more methodologically rigorous than others, the unanimous convergence across all measures and findings increases confidence. We did not find a single study, on any of nearly a dozen different measures, that found women had a stronger sex drive than men. We think that the combined quantity, quality, diversity, and convergence of the evidence render the conclusion indisputable.”

Hormonal Differences

Study: “Circulating Testosterone as the Hormonal Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance, David Handlesman et al., (2018)”

The study states that, It is widely accepted that elite athletic competitions should have separate male and female events. The main justification is to allow women a chance to win, as women have major disadvantages against men who are, on average, taller, stronger, and faster and have greater endurance due to their larger, stronger muscles and bones as well as a higher circulating hemoglobin level. Hence, elite female competition forms a protected category with entry that must be restricted by an objective eligibility criterion related, by necessity, to the relevant sex-specific physical advantages.

If sex classification were eliminated, such open or mixed competitions would be dominated almost exclusively by men. It therefore seems highly unlikely that sex classification would ever be discarded, despite calls on philosophical or sociological grounds to end “gender” classification in sport.

Prior to puberty, there is no sex difference in circulating testosterone concentrations and athletic performance. From male puberty onward, the sex difference in athletic performance emerges as circulating testosterone concentrations rise as the testes produce 30 times more testosterone than before puberty, resulting in men having 15- to 20-fold greater circulating testosterone than children or women at any age. This wide, bimodal sex difference in circulating testosterone concentrations and the clear dose-response relationships between circulating testosterone and muscle mass and strength, hemoglobin level, as well as possible psychological (behavioral) differences, largely account for the sex differences in athletic performance (result in at least an 8% to 12% ergogenic advantage in men). The striking male postpubertal increase in circulating testosterone provides a major, ongoing, cumulative, and durable physical advantage in sporting contests. In concert, these differences render women, on average, unable to compete effectively against men in power-based or endurance-based sports.

Cognitive Differences

Book, “Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities”, by Diane Halpern

Halpern started her study stating she didn't expect to find much differences, she said she revised her understanding. In this book, she states, “there are ‘sizable’ cognitive differences between men and women”. Cognitive as in 'HOW' you think, not to say that men are more clever or anything like that.

Study: “Comparison of Cognitive Functions Between Male and Female Medical Students: A Pilot Study, Namrata Upadhayay & Sanjeev Guragain (2014)”

This study connects hormones to cognitive ability

"There are gender differences in cognitive abilities. Generally, females show advantages in verbal fluency, perceptual speed, accuracy and fine motor skills, while males outperform females in spatial, working memory and mathematical abilities.

Males outperform females in tests of visual-spatial ability, and mathematical reasoning, whereas females do better in memory and language use.

Moreover, females have different mental skills at different phases of the menstrual cycle.

Our results support that males outperformed females in the tests of visuo-spatial ability or visual reaction time. We found that the visual reaction times of females in postovulatory (progesterone) phase of the cycle were poorer than those of males.

Females, during their postovulatory phases, outperformed males in the Stroop test. This might be due to the hormone, progesterone that favoured females to properly discriminate the different colours and also able to execute the tasks better than males. This elucidated the fact that in tasks which required fine motor skills, females showed the highest efficiency (in postovulatory phase) as compared to males.

A report has shown that in eugonadal men, increase in testosterone has a differential effect on cognitive function, which inhibits spatial abilities and improves verbal fluency.

Whereas in another study, men with higher levels of bioavailable testosterone showed better scores in the BIMC Test and in the Selective Reminding Test.

It has been reported that testosterone supplementation improves working memory in older men, but a similar enhancement of working memory was not found in older women who were supplemented with oestrogen.”

These differences have not been highlighted to say that men are 'better' than women. Rather, it is to ask, when there are such significant differences, can one really demand absolute equality in every single thing? How could we, given these differences? These differences ought to make a person question, “should there not be some sort of catering for these legitimate scientific differences?”

As Muslims, we believe in complementarity over egality. We both believe in general equality, but we have different conceptions of it, we have different exceptions. We believe there are things we men don't have that women have and things men have that women don't have. There is a natural disposition men and women have and when we act in accordance with that, we will live good lives.

It Can Then Be Concluded

Identical things should be treated identically and by extension, different things should be treated differently. Feminism doesn't account for the significant differences between men and women and that's a failure, as it has less explanatory scope. Identicality in value does not equal identicality in roles. Diane F. Halpern states, "People do not have to be the same to be equal.”

The 60 year experiment of feminism has shown us that this idea of putting careers before families, especially before motherhood, this idea of ‘domestic drudgery’– A former feminist in fact said that for these feminists, raising a child is akin to household chores like mopping the floor. These same women are now saying we have to look at motherhood as a ‘fulltime thing’ and ‘mourning for my unborn child’. It takes a clever person to learn from their mistakes, it shows you're not a fool. It takes a wise person to in fact learn from someone else's mistakes.

Women are saying en masse, we are dissatisfied, we are unhappy with this option of life. Clearly we should not continue playing around with failed experiments.

Academic investigations have made this very clear– Feminism does not benefit women, it benefits men. Islam on the other hand has made this sort of taking advantage of prohibited, it is obligatory for a man to marry, to commit, it is obligatory on the husband to honor his wife, safeguard her rights and earn and provide an honorable life for her. Whereas, in the feminist worldview, a man doesn’t have to marry in order to have intimate relations, he doesn’t have to commit, he can have multiple partners without any commitment, he doesn’t have to to extract his resources to any significant degree, he doesn’t have to provide for or protect the child or the woman. How is this better than Islam? What freedom, what benefits is this providing woman?

By our very nature– physically, mentally, emotionally, we are different. All this means is that we have different skills, strengths and abilities. In other words, comparing the man and the woman is like comparing an apple and an orange, you can't. If a person thinks that different things should be treated equally, they must prove that.

For this very reason, Allah has defined separate roles, separate responsibilities and separate rights for the man and the woman which strengthens and empowers them both individually. Feminism however, states that men and women are equal. But in order for the woman to be equal to a man, she should be like a man in the way that she lives her life, career, 6 figure income, dominant in the room etc. But Allah tells you, you don't have to be like a man to be better. You can differentiate yourself through your deeds, through your relationship with God.

The Prophet (pbuh) stated the following:

Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Verily, Allah does not look at your appearance or wealth, but rather He looks at your hearts and actions.”

In most governments, you have checks and balances. If all of the influence or power belongs to one party, then there would be problems. And if you don't have a decision maker in a government or organization, you have chaos.

So this Islamic system was devised as a result of Allah knowing His creation, what their best interests are, what their strengths and weaknesses are and so forth.

أَلَا يَعْلَمُ مَنْ خَلَقَ وَهُوَ ٱللَّطِيفُ ٱلْخَبِيرُ

"How could He not know His Own creation? For He ˹alone˺ is the Most Subtle, All-Aware." [67:14].

He has made every vein of your body, every fiber of your heart and brain. You breathe because He enables you to breathe, your limbs function because He enables them to function, how then can He not know how best to establish laws concerning the family and society at large? The One who has created the creation must surely know all about them. His knowledge encompasses every little detail and every hidden feeling and thought.

The disease of conceit and arrogance may cripple a woman's heart. In this respect, Mrs. ‘Abeer Murshid says, "If such a disease reaches the heart of the woman, it would be a great disaster. The marital relationship would be threatened with the most dangerous type of disputes and quarrels. The man is in charge of the family by virtue of the role that Allah The Almighty has granted him. If the wife tries to change the Creation of Allah and His norms, this would afflict her with the most harmful consequences.”

The only reason feminists have problems with verses from the Quran or Hadith is due to their assumption of equality on things such as– polygamy, Men's responsibility as 'protectors' (Qawwam), ta'ah (obedience to the man), Inheritance (although there are 4 cases in which female gets 50% of what a male gets, and 11 cases a females gets the same as a male and 6 cases where the female gets more than the male) etc. And the burden of proof is upon the one who makes the claim– that different things should be treated the same, prove that.

وَلَا تَتَمَنَّوْا۟ مَا فَضَّلَ ٱللَّـهُ بِهِۦ بَعْضَكُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ لِّلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبٌ مِّمَّا ٱكْتَسَبُوا۟ وَلِلنِّسَآءِ نَصِيبٌ مِّمَّا ٱكْتَسَبْنَ وَسْـَٔلُوا۟ ٱللَّـهَ مِن فَضْلِهِۦٓ إِنَّ ٱللَّـهَ كَانَ بِكُلِّ شَىْءٍ عَلِيمًا

"And do not crave what Allah has given some of you over others. Men will be rewarded according to their deeds and women ˹equally˺ according to theirs. Rather, ask Allah for His bounties. Surely Allah has ˹perfect˺ knowledge of all things." [4:32]

This verse means that Allah has allocated for both men and women a share of privileges (or deeds) according to His Will and Infinite Wisdom. He calls this share or allocation "the endowed share", and has prohibited each group (of men/ women) from coveting the share of the other group as this entails envy, ungratefulness for what you've been given. Allah Almighty is the most cognizant of the human beings' interests, which necessitate this differentiation between the two sexes in terms of sustenance and privileges. Allah concludes the verse with a clear indication that His grace is distributed according to His infinite Wisdom and Justice, being cognizant of what is in the interest of His worshippers and what is against their interests. There are certain things that a man, on average, can do better than a woman, there are also certain things, on average that a woman can do better than a man. And it is economically efficient, as well as productive, for both to know where that is ie. where the individual is better at, and work on that.

فَٱسْتَجَابَ لَهُمْ رَبُّهُمْ أَنِّى لَآ أُضِيعُ عَمَلَ عَـٰمِلٍ مِّنكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ بَعْضُكُم مِّنۢ بَعْضٍ فَٱلَّذِينَ هَاجَرُوا۟ وَأُخْرِجُوا۟ مِن دِيَـٰرِهِمْ وَأُوذُوا۟ فِى سَبِيلِى وَقَـٰتَلُوا۟ وَقُتِلُوا۟ لَأُكَفِّرَنَّ عَنْهُمْ سَيِّـَٔاتِهِمْ وَلَأُدْخِلَنَّهُمْ جَنَّـٰتٍ تَجْرِى مِن تَحْتِهَا ٱلْأَنْهَـٰرُ ثَوَابًا مِّنْ عِندِ ٱللَّـهِ وَٱللَّـهُ عِندَهُۥ حُسْنُ ٱلثَّوَابِ

“So their Lord responded to them: “I will never deny any of you—male or female—the reward of your deeds. Both are equal in reward. Those who migrated or were expelled from their homes, and were persecuted for My sake and fought and ˹some˺ were martyred—I will certainly forgive their sins and admit them into Gardens under which rivers flow, as a reward from Allah. And with Allah is the finest reward!” [3:195]

وَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِنَ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ مِن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ يَدْخُلُونَ ٱلْجَنَّةَ وَلَا يُظْلَمُونَ نَقِيرًا ۝ وَمَنْ أَحْسَنُ دِينًا مِّمَّنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُۥ لِلَّـهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ وَٱتَّبَعَ مِلَّةَ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ حَنِيفًا وَٱتَّخَذَ ٱللَّـهُ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ خَلِيلًا ۝

“If any do deeds of righteousness,- be they male or female - and have faith, they will enter Heaven, and not the least injustice will be done to them. And whose way of life could be better than that of he who submits his whole being to Allah, does good, and follows exclusively the way of Abraham whom Allah chose for a friend?" [4:124-125]

These statements clearly extend the same treatment to men and women. All humans are equal in the sight of God. God does not have separate criteria for judging the male and the female, the master and the slave, the high and the low. The only determining factor is a person’s own deeds. All are thus referred to the same standard and criterion: complete submission to God alone, doing what is good, and following Abraham’s creed.

The Islamic Justification

Allah is all knowing– He knows what he has created, man, woman, their biology, their psychology and so on and He knows what to give each. And we believe Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is the last Prophet, he is an actual Prophet and he is speaking on behalf of God on Earth and anything he says is revelation, it's not a human or social construct. We believe in what we believe in because we can prove God's existence from 1st principles, we can prove the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is a Prophet, so therefore anything he said is from God and because of that, we say that all of the injunctions are true.

It is very clear that if one looks into the laws and rules and regulations in Islam, the rights of individuals have been organized in such a way that if each of them perfectly fulfills the other's rights, they, as well as those around him, will live in a state of peace, happiness. However, if one of them misuses this right, the marital life will fail as it is a partnership between the spouses. Islam acknowledges the rights of the wife over her husband, just as it acknowledges the husband’s rights over his wife. Additionally, it has clarified the duties of each. If both of them follow the instructions and each of them knows his Islamic rights and duties, the family will live happily and will be encompassed by tranquility and the mercy of Allah The Almighty.

ٱلْيَوْمَ أَكْمَلْتُ لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ وَأَتْمَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعْمَتِى وَرَضِيتُ لَكُمُ ٱلْإِسْلَـٰمَ دِينًا

"Today I have perfected your faith for you, completed My favour upon you, and chosen Islam as your way." [5:3]

The day on which God revealed this verse during the Prophet’s pilgrimage of farewell was the day when this religion attained its perfection and no room was left for any further improvement. The greatest Divine blessings were bestowed on the believers in full measure by giving them this all-embracing and comprehensive code. Islam as a way of life was chosen for them by God. Therefore, anyone who finds it unacceptable as a way of life actually rejects what God has determined to be the proper faith. Islam is a full-fledged system of life. The 'perfection of religion' mentioned in this verse refers to making it a self-sufficient system of belief and conduct, and an order of social life providing its own answers to the questions with which man is confronted. This system contains all necessary guidance for man, either by expounding fundamental principles from which detailed directives can be deduced or by spelling out such directives explicitly so that in no circumstances would one need to look for guidance to any extraneous source.

Divine law is a single and complete whole that cannot be split into separate parts. Its provisions may tackle the concept of faith, or acts of worship, or permissions and prohibitions, or social regulations and international relations, but they are all of equal value. In their totality they constitute the religion God describes in this verse as having been perfected by Him. To reject any part of this code is to reject it all, and to reject the Divine faith altogether. To substitute this code for something made by man has only one clear meaning, namely, that Godhead is denied to God and its attributes are given to human beings. This is a rebellion against God’s authority on earth and a claim of Godhead, since its main quality, i.e. the authority to legislate, is given to someone other than God. This means a rejection of Islam altogether.

This message contains a law addressing all aspects of human life and lays down basic principles and guidelines for those aspects which change according to the time and the environment, as well as detailed regulations for those that remain constant throughout all periods and communities. With such general principles and detailed regulations, this law regulates human life from the time of the revelation of this message to the end of human life. All directives, laws and controls required to help human life to develop and prosper are given within this framework.

When all this has been established, God tells the believers: “This day I have perfected your religion for you and have bestowed on you the full measure of My blessings and have chosen Islam as a religion for you.” Thus, the faith and the law have been brought to perfection, since the combination of both constitutes religion. No believer may then imagine that religion, in this sense, requires any addition or complement to improve on it, or needs some modification or adaptation to suit local conditions. No one who entertains such thoughts is a true believer; for a believer accepts what God says and is satisfied with His choice.

This religion, including this particular legal code, has been chosen for man by God, man’s Creator who knows His creation well. Anyone who says that yesterday’s law cannot be implemented today claims to know man’s needs better than God.

In the days prior to Islam, infant girls were buried alive in Arabia; women suffered much injustice; drinking, gambling and indecent sexual practices were common. Abuse of women, revenge killings, assault, stealing, and looting were characteristics of Arabian life; but these went hand in hand with disunity and weakness before any external enemy. Arabian tribes were quick to fight one another, but when the Abyssinians launched an attack with the aim of destroying the Kaaba, all tribes took a defeatist attitude. It is from such depths of iniquity that Islam rescued the Arabs, molding them into a nation, one capable of assuming the leadership of all mankind. It was the same generation of Arabs which lived in the depths of ignorance and darkness, before it experienced life at the top as envisaged by Islam. Hence, they were quick to fully appreciate the significance of the Qur’ānic statement: “This day I have perfected your religion for you and have bestowed on you the full measure of My blessings and have chosen Islam as a religion for you.” The Arabs who were first addressed by the Qur’ān were quick to appreciate its significance, because it told them of their own experience. In matters of faith, they were at the lowest depth of ignorance, believing in idols and considering angels, jinn, stars and forefathers as deities equal to the Supreme Lord. With Islam, they came to know what it meant to believe in the One God who has power over all things, who sees all and knows all, and who is at the same time fair, compassionate and merciful. He is close to everyone and answers everyone. There is no intermediary between Him and any one of His servants. In this way all of us have been liberated from all forms of tyranny, whether that of chiefs, priests or superstition.

Only a person who has known the true nature of the life of darkness, or jāhiliyyah, (which is the Islamic term for any system not based on Divine revelations) and its oppressive concepts and chaos can appreciate the fact that only through the implementation of Islam does man enjoy the full measure of God’s blessings. A person who has experienced a life of error, loss and chaos following hollow concepts can fully appreciate the blessing of faith. When one reflects on the suffering that results from tyranny, confusion and total lack of balance in all sorts of systems human beings devise for themselves, one can state with absolute conviction that life with faith and with the implementation of the Islamic system is the greatest blessing we may enjoy in this world. Islam gives man a concept of faith which requires him to believe in God, His angels, revelations, messengers and the Day of Judgement. As he formulates this concept, he leaves the realm of animals which comprehend nothing beyond the extent of their senses to an area which extends well beyond the realm of human perception. Thus, man can comprehend the physical and the metaphysical, the perceptible and the imperceptible. As man acknowledges God’s oneness, he is liberated from submission to any authority other than that of God. He feels that he cannot be enslaved by any power other than that of God. He is equal to, if not nobler than, any other creature. It is to God alone that man addresses his worship, from God alone he receives his laws, systems and constitution, on God alone he relies, and Him alone he fears. Through the Divine way of life, laid down by Islam, all human power is dedicated to achieve goodness and to improve life. Thus, he is elevated above the standard of animals, or the fulfilment of desires.

At the end of it all, whoever is fully convinced that the Qur'an is the Book of God, that the Prophet (peace be on him) was designated by Him, and that God is All-Knowing and All-Wise, will necessarily commit himself to observe the restrictions enjoined by God regardless of whether he is able to grasp the wisdom underlying them or not. Whoever lacks this basic conviction will avoid only those evils which are fully evident to human beings, and will remain a prey to all those which have not yet become apparent but which in fact are intrinsically harmful. It is still however key to know that whatever has been prohibited by God has been prohibited because of its bad effects on human morals, because of its repugnance to spiritual purity, and because of its association with false beliefs. Things which have been declared lawful have been so declared because they are untainted by these evils. "Say, "Indeed, Allah does not order immorality. Do you say about Allah that which you do not know?"" [7:28]

Notes

This article has referenced many different sites and does not claim to be a 'pure work'. Its goal was to assemble different relevant information into one easy to read document for the benefit of the reader.

Search This Blog

Incisive Thoughts