Made from Adam’s
Rib – The Issue of Woman’s Creation
by Dr. Riffat Hassan (Professor of Islamic Studies,
The ordinary
Muslim, as seriously as the ordinary Jew or Christian, believes that Adam was
God's primary creation and that Eve was made from Adam's rib. If confronted
with the fact that this firmly entrenched belief is derived mainly from the
Bible and is not only extra-Qur'anic but also in contradiction to the Qur'an,
this Muslim is almost certain to be shocked. The rather curious and tragic
truth is that even Western-educated Muslims seldom have any notion of the
extent to which the Muslim psyche bears the imprint of the collective body of
Jewish and Christian ideas and attitudes pertaining to women.
The Biblical account
of the creation of the first human pair consists of two different sources, the
Yahwist and the Priestly, from which arise two different traditions, subject of
much Jewish and Christian scholarly controversy. There are four references
to woman's creation in Genesis: (1) Gen. 1:26-27, 5th century B.C.E.,
Priestly tradition; (2) Gen. 2:7, 10th century B.C.E., Yahwist tradition; (3)
Gen. 2:18-24, 10th century B.C.E., Yahwist tradition; (4) Gen. 5:1-2, 5th
century B.C.E., Priestly tradition. A study of these texts shows that the
Hebrew term "Adam" (literally, "of the soil," from adamah:
"the soil") functions mostly as a generic term for humanity. Pointing
out that the correct translation of this term is "the human," Leonard
Swidler observes: "It is a mistake to translate it ["ha Adam"]
in Genesis 1 to 2:22 either as man in the male sense or as a proper name, Adam
(until Genesis 4:25 the definite article "ha" is almost always used
with "Adam," precluding the possibility of its being a proper name:
in 4:25 it becomes a proper name, "Adam" without the
"ha"). Moreover, it is clearly a collective noun in Genesis 1 to
2:22, as can be seen in the plural 'let them be masters' (Genesis 1:26).”10 Of
the four texts referring to creation, undoubtedly the most influential has been
Genesis 2:18-24, which states that woman (ishshah) was taken from man (ish).
From this text it has generally been inferred that: (1) Adam was God's
primary creation from whom Eve, a secondary creation, was derived, hence Eve is
inferior and subordinate to Adam; and (2) Eve was created simply and solely to
be the helpmate of Adam.
While in Genesis,
specific reference is made to the creation of Adam and Eve, there is no
corresponding reference in the Qur'an. In fact, there is no mention of Eve
(Hawwa') at all in the Qur'an. The term Adam occurs
twenty-five times in the Qur'an, but there is only one verse (Surah 3: Al-'Imran:59) that
refers to the creation of Adam: "Certainly with Allah the likeness of 'Isa
[Jesus] is as the likeness of Adam. Allah created him from the earth then
said to him, "Be," and he was." Here it needs to be mentioned
that the term "Adam" is not an Arabic term but a Hebrew term, and the
description of Adam as a creature of earth in the verse cited above is no more
than an explication of the meaning of the term. There are three other
verses (Surah 3: Al-'Imran:35;
Surah 19: Maryam:58; and Surah 5: Al-Ma'idah:30) in which
the term "Adam" is used as a proper name for an individual who was
probably a prophet. Since Arabic has no capital letters, it is often not
possible to tell whether a term is used as a proper name or as a common noun
without looking at the context in which it occurs. However, there is no
categorical statement in the Qur'an to the effect that Adam was the first human
being created by Allah. The term is used most frequently in reference to
more than one or two human beings. That the term "Adam"
functions as a collective noun and stands for humankind is substantiated by an
analysis of several verses in which this term occurs. It is also
corroborated by the fact that all human beings are assimilatively addressed as
"Children of Adam" (Bani Adam) in Surah 7: Al-'Araf:26, 27, 31, 35, 172, Surah 17: Bani Isra'il:70, and Surah 36: Ya-Sin:60, and also by the fact that the Qur'an
sometimes replaces the term "Adam" by al-insan or bashar,
which are both generic terms for humanity. Here it is important to note
that though the term "Adam" mostly does not refer to a particular
human being, it does refer to human beings in a particular way. As pointed
out by Muhammad Iqbal:
“Indeed,
in the verses which deal with the origin of man as a living being, the Qur'an
uses the word "Bashar" or
"Insan," not
"Adam," which it reserves for man in his capacity of God's vicegerent
on earth. The purpose of the Qur'an is further secured by the omission of
proper names mentioned in the Biblical narration – Adam and Eve. The word
"Adam" is retained and used more as a concept than as the name of a
concrete human individual. This use of the word is not without authority
in the Qur'an itself.”11
It is noteworthy
that the Qur'an uses the terms bashar, al-insan, and an-nas while
describing the process of the physical creation of human beings. It uses
the term "Adam" more selectively to refer to human beings only when
they become representative of a self-conscious, knowledgeable, and morally
autonomous humanity.
Instead of
"Adam and Hawwa',” the Qur'an speaks of "Adam and zauj”
in Surah 2: Al-Baqarah:35,
Surah 7: Al-'Araf: 19, and Surah 20: Ta-Ha:117. Muslims,
almost without exception, assume that "Adam" was the first human
being created by Allah and that he was a man. If "Adam" was a
man, it follows that "Adam's zauj" would be a
woman. Hence the zauj mentioned in the Qur'an becomes equated with Hawwa'. Neither
the initial assumption nor the inferences drawn from it are, however, supported
in a clear or conclusive way by the Qur'anic text. The Qur'an states
neither that Adam was the first human being nor that he was a man. The
term "Adam" is a masculine noun, but linguistic gender does not necessarily
define sex. If "Adam" is not necessarily a man, then
"Adam's zauj" is not necessarily a woman. In fact, the
term zauj is also a masculine noun and, unlike the term "Adam,"
has a feminine counterpart, zaujatun (here it may be noted that the most
accurate English equivalent of zauj is not "wife" or
"husband," or even "spouse," but the term "mate",
and the Qur'an uses the term zauj with reference not only to human
beings but to every kind of creation, including animals, plants, and fruits.)
However, neither the term zauj nor
the plural form zaujatun is used anywhere in the Qur'an,
which consistently uses the masculine forms zauj and azwaj. It has been
pointed out by the authoritative Arabic lexicon Taj al-'Arus that only
the people of Al-Hijaz (
The Qur'an
describes human creation in thirty or so passages that are found in various
chapters. Generally speaking, it refers to the creation of humanity (and
nature) in two ways: as an evolutionary process whose diverse stages or phases
are mentioned sometimes together and sometimes separately, and as an
accomplished fact or in its totality. In the passages in which human
creation is described "concretely" or "analytically," we
find that no mention is made of the separate or distinct creation of either man
or woman, as may be seen, for instance, from the following: Surah
15: Al-Hijr:26, 28, 29, Surah
16: An-Nahl:4; Surah 22: Al-Hajj:
5; Surah 23: Al-Mo'minun:12-14;
Surah 25: Al-Furqan:54; Surah 32: As-Sajdah:7-9; Surah 36: Ya-Sin:77; Surah 38: Sad:71-72; Surah 39: Az-Zumar:6; Surah 40: Al-Mo'min:67; Surah 55: Ar-Rahman:3, 4, 14; Surah 71; Nuh:14, 17; Surah 76: Ad-Dahr:2; Surah 77: Al-Mursalat:20-22; Surah 82: Al-Infitar:6-8; Surah 86: At-Tariq:5-7, Surah 95: At-Tin:4; and Surah 96: Al-'Alaq:1-2. In
some passages (e.g., Surah 49: Al-Hujurat:13;
Surah 53: An-Najm:45; and Surah 78: An-Naba:8), though
reference is made to Allah's creation of human beings as sexually
differentiated "mates," no priority or superiority is accorded to
either man or woman.
There are,
however, some verses in the Qur'an that are understood in such a way that they
appear to endorse a version of the Genesis 2 story of woman's creation
from man. These verses can be grouped into two categories. The most
important verses in the first group are: Surah
16: An-Nahl:72; Surah 30:
Ar-Rum:20-21; and Surah 35: Al-Fatir:11.
Muslim arguments that women were created from and for men are supported as
follows: (1) Surah 30: Ar-Rum:21
uses the term ilaiha to refer to "mates" created from, and
for, the original creation. Since ha is a feminine attached
pronoun, the "mates" it refers to must be female (thus making the
original creation male); (2) all three verses cited use kum as a form of
address. Hence these verses are addressed not to humanity collectively,
but only to men, since the term used is a masculine attached pronoun (second
person plural). Men are, therefore, the primary creation from and for whom
the “mates” were created. Regarding (1), ilaiha literally means
"in her" and not "in them", and refers not to women (who
are not mentioned here) but to azwaj (masculine plural used in the
Qur'an for both men and women). If the “mates” were clearly designated as
women, the term used would be hunna, not ha. The use of ha
here is consistent with the Arabic grammatical rule that permits the use of
feminine singular terms for a class or collectivity. The fact that the
creatures to whom the passage is addressed are referred to as bashar
further supports the argument that the "mates" created by Allah are
not only women (for men), since bashar obviously has a bisexual
reference. Regarding (2), Arabic usage permits the use of kum in
reference to men and women together. When women alone are concerned, kunna
is used. Here it is of interest to note that in his book Haquq-e-Niswan
(The Rights of Women, 1898), Mumtaz 'Ali pointed out that the Qur'an uses the
masculine form of address to prescribe fundamental duties (e.g., salat, zakat, fasting) to Muslim men and
women. If masculine terms of address are understood by the entire Muslim ummah
to apply to both men and women in highly significant contexts, such as the
prescription of basic religious duties, then it cannot consistently be argued
that these terms apply to men invariably and exclusively.
Regarding the
second group of verses that are cited to prove man's ontological priority and
superiority to woman, the following are of exceptional importance: Surah 4: An-Nisa': 1; Surah 7: Al-'Araf :189; and Surah 39: Az-Zumar:6. In
these verses (as also in Surah 6: Al-An'am:98
and Surah 31: Luqman:28), reference is made to the
creation from one source or being (nafsin wahidatin) of all human
beings. Muslims, with hardly any exceptions, believe that the one original
source or being referred to in these verses is a man named Adam. This
belief has led many translators of the Qur'an to obviously incorrect
translations of simple Qur'anic passages. For instance, Surah 4: An-Nisa':1; if
correctly translated, reads as follows: "O an-nas, be circumspect
in keeping your duty to your Sustainer who created you [plural] from one being
[nafsin wahidatin) and spread from her [minha] her mate
[zaujaha] and spread from
these two beings many men and women." However, most translators (e.g.,
Hashim Amir-'Ali, Muhammad Ali, A. J. Arberry, A. K. Azad, A. M. Daryabadi, N.
J. Dawood, S. A. Latif, A. A. Maududi, M. M. Pickthall, George Sale, and M. Y.
Zayid) translate the feminine attached pronoun ha in minha and zaujaha
as "his" instead of "her". How is such a mistake
possible? Could it be the case that given their preconceptions and psychological
orientation, these interpreters of the Qur'an (who all happen to be men) are
totally unable to imagine that the first creation could have been other than
male? Or are they afraid that a correct translation of ha might
suggest the idea – even for an instant – that woman, not man, was the prior
creation (and therefore superior if priority connotes superiority) and that man
was created from woman and not the other way around (which, in a reversal of
the Eve from Adam's rib story would give Eve the primacy traditionally accorded
to Adam)? Certainly no Qur'anic exegete to date has suggested the
possibility that nafsin wahidatin might refer to woman rather than man.
Summing up the
Qur'anic descriptions of human creation, it needs to be emphasized that the
Qur'an evenhandedly used both feminine and masculine terms and imagery to
describe the creation of humanity from a single source. That Allah's
original creation was undifferentiated humanity and not either man or woman
(who appeared simultaneously at a subsequent time) is implicit in a number of
Qur'anic passages, in particular Surah
75: Al-Qiyamah: 36-39, which reads:
Does
al-insan think that he will be left aimless? Was he not a drop of
semen emitted then he became something which clings; Then He [Allah] created
and shaped and made of him [minhu]
two mates [zaujain] the male and the female.
If the Qur'an
makes no distinction between the creation of man and woman, as it clearly does
not, why do Muslims believe that Hawwa' was created from the rib of Adam? Although
the Genesis 2 account of woman's creation is accepted by virtually all Muslims,
it is difficult to believe that it entered the Islamic tradition directly, for
very few Muslims ever read the Bible. It is much more likely that it
became a part of Muslim heritage through its assimilation in hadith literature, which has been, in
many ways, the lens through which the Qur'an has been seen since the early
centuries of Islam.
Hadith literature, which modernist
Muslims tend to regard with a certain skepticism, is surrounded by
controversies, centering particularly around the question of the authenticity
of individual hadith as well as the
body of the literature as a whole. These controversies have occupied the
attention of many Muslim scholars since the time of Ash-Shafi'i (d. A.H. 204/A.D.
809). Fazlur Rahman has pointed out that "a very large portion of the
ahadith were judged to be spurious
and forged by classical Muslim scholars themselves," but goes on to add
that "if the hadith as a whole
is cast away, the basis for the whole historicity of the Qur'an is removed with
one stroke.”12 Noted Islamicists such as Alfred Guillaume.13
H. A. R. Gibb,14 and M. G. S. Hodgson15 have underscored
the importance of the hadith
literature, which not only has its own autonomous character in point of law and
even of doctrine, but also has an emotive aspect, hard to overstate, relating
to the conscious and subconscious thought and feeling of Muslims, both
individually and as a group. That the story of Eve's creation from Adam's
rib had become part of the hadith
literature is evident from the following hadith
related from Ibn 'Abbas and Ibn Mas'ud, which is referred to by authoritative
commentators on the Qur'an, including Fakhr ud-Din ar-Razi, Isma'il ibn 'Umar
Ibn Kathir, and al-Fadl ibn al-Hasan al-Tabarsi:
When
God sent Iblis out of the Garden and placed Adam in it, he dwelt in it alone
and had no one to socialize with. God sent sleep on him and then He took a rib
from his left side and placed flesh in its place and created Hawwa' from it.
When he awoke he found a woman seated near his head. He asked her, "Who
are you?" She answered, "Woman." He said, "Why were you
created?" She said, "That you might find rest in me." The angels
said, "What is her name?" and he said, "Hawwa' " They said,
"Why was she called Hawwa'?" He said, "Because she was created
from a living thing."16
Another hadith, related from Ibn 'Abbas and
cited by Ibn Kathir in his Tafsir, which also refers to the creation of
Hawwa' from Adam's rib, reads as follows:
After
Iblis had been chastised and Adam's knowledge had been exhibited, Adam was put
to sleep and Hawwa' was created from his left rib. When Adam awoke he saw her
and felt affection and love for her since he was made from his flesh and blood.
Then Allah gave Hawwa' in wedlock to Adam and told them to live in al-jannah.17
Both of the above ahadith clash sharply with the Qur'anic
accounts of human creation, while they have an obvious correspondence to Genesis
2:18-33 and Genesis 3:20. Some changes, however, are to be noted in the
story of woman's creation as it is retold in the above ahadith. Both mention "the left rib" as the source
of woman. In Arab culture great significance is attached to
"right" and "left," the former being associated with
everything auspicious and the latter with the opposite. In Genesis, woman
is named "Eve" after the Fall, but in the above ahadith she is called Hawwa' from the time of her creation. In
Genesis, woman is named Eve because "she is the mother of all who live"
(thus a primary source of life), but in the first of the aforementioned ahadith, she is named Hawwa' because
"she was created from a living thing" (hence a derivative
creature). These variations are not to be ignored. Biblical and other
materials are seldom incorporated without alteration into ahadith. The above examples illustrate how in respect of
woman, Arab biases were added to the adopted text.
The citing of the
above ahadith by significant Muslim
exegetes and historians shows the extent to which authoritative works both of
Qur'anic exegesis and Islamic history had become colored by the hadith literature. In the course of
time, many ahadith became
"invisible," the later commentators referring not to them but to the
authority of earlier commentators who had cited them, to support their
views. This made it very hard to curtail their influence since they became
diffused throughout the body of Muslim culture. A typical example of how
the Qur'anic account of human creation is distorted by means of unauthentic ahadith (which identify nafsin
wahidatin from which all human beings, including Hawwa’, originated, with
Adam the man), even when these ahadith
are not mentioned or affirmed directly, is provided by A. A. Maududi, author of
a well-known modern commentary on the Qur'an18 and one of
contemporary Islam's most influential scholars. In commenting on Surah
An-Nisa' l, Maududi observes:
"He
created you of a single soul." At first one human being was created and
then from him the human race spread over the earth.... We learn from another
part of the Qur'an that Adam was that "single soul." He was the
first man from whom the whole of mankind sprang up and spread over the
earth. "And of the same created his mate": we have no definite
detailed knowledge of how his mate was created of him. The Commentators
generally say that Eve was created from the rib of Adam and the Bible also
contains the same story. The Talmud adds to it that she was created from
the thirteenth rib of Adam. But the Qur'an is silent about it, and the
Tradition of the Holy Prophet that is cited in support of this has a different
meaning from what has been understood. The best thing, therefore, is
to leave it undefined as it has been left in the Qur'an, and not to waste time
in determining its details.19
In the above
passage, Maududi has no difficulty in affirming what has traditionally been
made the basis of asserting woman's inferiority and subordination to man,
namely that woman was created from man. Having made the deadly
affirmation, however, he is reluctant to explicate it further, nor does he
reveal what he considers to be the "true" meaning of the hadith pertaining to Eve's creation from
Adam's rib. His justification for not discussing the issue of woman's
creation is that the Qur'an has deliberately left it undefined. But this
is simply not the case. The creation of woman is as clearly defined in the
Qur'an as the creation of man, and the Qur'anic statements about human
creation, diverse as they are, leave no doubt as to one point: both man and
woman were made in the same manner, of the same substance, at the same
time. Maududi (like the majority of Muslim exegetes, who happen to be all
men) does not want to face this fact, so he declares that the discussion of the
issue of woman's creation is a waste of time. If the issue in question was not
worthy of serious theological reflection, or one that had no significant effect
on the lives of human beings, particularly of women, one would, perhaps, be
less critical of a scholar who has had massive impact on the minds of the
Muslim masses, for dereliction of scholarly duty. But theologically the
issue of woman’s creation is of such import that it cannot be allowed to be
dismissed in the manner in which Maududi has done.
Perhaps no better
proof can be given of how totally ahadith
such as the ones cited above have penetrated Muslim culture than the fact that
the myth of the creation of Hawwa' from Adam's rib was accepted uncritically
even by Qasim Amin (1863-1906), the Egyptian judge and feminist whose books Tahrir
al-Mara' (The Emancipation of Women, 1899) and Al-Mara' al-Jadida (The
Modern Woman, 1900) were epoch-making in the history of Muslim feminism. Amin's
romantic interpretation of the myth, reminiscent of Milton's, shows that he did
not realize how fundamentally the issue that concerned him most deeply, namely,
woman's social equality with man in a strongly male-centered and male-dominated
Muslim society, hinged upon the acceptance or rejection of a creation story
that asserted woman's derivative status and had been interpreted traditionally
to affirm her inferiority and subordination to man. It is unfortunate that
many present-day Muslim advocates of women's rights also do not realize the
profound implications of this myth that undergirds the anti-women attitudes and
structures they seek to change.
Anti-women ahadith are found not only in the
significant secondary sources of Islam but also in Sahih al-Bukhari (compiled
by Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari, A. H. 194-256/A..D. 810-870) and Sahih
Muslim (compiled by Muslim bin al-Hajjaj, A. H. 202 or 206-261 /A. D. 817
or 821-875), the two most influential hadith
collections in Sunni Islam. Cited below are six ahadith, the first three from Sahih al-Bukhari and the last
three from Sahih Muslim, that have had a formative influence upon the
Muslim mind:
1.
Abu Karaith and Musa bin Hazam related to us: Husain bin 'Ali told us that he
was reporting on the authority of Zai'dah who was reporting on the authority of
Maisarah al-Ashja'i who was reporting on the authority of Abu Hazim who was
reporting on the authority Abu Hurairah (with whom may Allah be pleased) who
said: Allah's Rasul20 (may peace be upon him) said: Treat women
nicely, for a woman is created from a rib, and the most curved portion of the
rib is its upper portion, so if you should try to straighten it, it will break,
but if you leave it as it is, it will remain crooked. So treat woman
nicely.21
2.
'Abd al-'Aziz related to us that he was reporting on the authority of 'Abd Allah
who said: Malik had told us that he was reporting on the authority of Abu Zinad
who was reporting on the authority of al-A'raj who was reporting on the
authority of Abu Hurairah (with whom may Allah be pleased) who said: Allah's
Rasul (may peace be upon him) said:22 The woman is like a rib, if
you try to straighten her, she will break. So if you want to get benefit
from her, do so while she still has some crookedness.23
3.
Ishaq bin Nasr related to us: Husain al-Jo'fi related to us that he was reporting
on the authority of Za'idah who was reporting on the authority of Maisarah who
was reporting on the authority of Abu Hazim who was reporting on the authority
of Abu Hurairah (with whom may Allah be pleased) who said: The Holy Prophet
(may peace be upon him) said:24 Whoever believes in Allah and the
Last Day should not hurt (trouble) his neighbor. And I advise you to take
care of the women, for they are created from a rib and the most crooked part of
the rib is its upper part; if you try to straighten it, it will break, and if
you leave it, it will remain crooked, so I urge you to take care of woman.25
4.
Harmalah bin Yahya related to me: Ibn Wahb informed us: Yunus informed me that
he was reporting on the authority of Ibn Shihab who said: Ibn al-Musayyab told
me that he was reporting on the authority of Abu Hurairah (with whom may Allah
be pleased) who said: Allah's Rasul (may peace be upon him) said:26
Woman is like a rib. When you attempt to straighten it, you would break
it. And if you leave her alone you would benefit by her, and crookedness will
remain in her.27
5.
'Amr an-Naqid and Ibn 'Umar related to us saying: Sufyan related to us that he
was reporting on the authority of Abu Zinad who was reporting on the authority
of al-A'raj who was reporting on the authority of Abu Hurairah (with whom may
Allah be pleased) who said: Allah's Rasul (may peace by upon him) said:28
Woman has been created from a rib and will in no way be straightened for you;
so if you wish to benefit by her, benefit by her while crookedness remains in
her. And if you attempt to straighten her, you will break her, and
breaking her is divorcing her.29
6.
Abu Bakr bin Abu Shaibah told us: Husain bin 'Ali told us that he was reporting
on the authority of Za'idah who was reporting on the authority of Maisarah who
was reporting on the authority of Abu Hazim who was reporting on the authority
of Abu Hurairah (with whom may Allah be pleased) who said: The Holy Prophet
(may peace be upon him) said:30 He who believes in Allah and the
Hereafter, if he witnesses any matter he should talk in good terms about it or
keep quiet. Act kindly towards women, for woman is created from a rib, and
the most crooked part of the rib is its top. If you attempt to straighten it,
you will break it, and if you leave it, its crookedness will remain there so
act kindly towards women.31
While it is not
possible, within the scope of this chapter, to give a detailed critical
analysis of either the isnad (list of transmitters) or matn (content)
of the above ahadith, a few comments
on both may be useful. With regards to the isnad the following
points may be noted: (1) All these ahadith
are cited on the authority of Abu Hurairah, a Companion who was regarded as
controversial by many early Muslim scholars, including Imam Abu Hanifah (A.D.
700-767),32 founder of the largest Sunni school of law. Here it
is pertinent to point out that though a more critical attitude toward hadith and hadith transmitters prevailed during the earliest phase of Islam,
later, as stated by Goldziher,33 it became "a capital
crime" to be critical of any Companion; (2) All six of the above ahadith are gharib (the lowest
grade of hadith classification)
because they contain a number of transmitters who were single reporters.
(Al-Hakini Abu 'Abd Allah al-Naysaburi and lbn Hajar al-'Asqaiani, who were
eminent scholars of hadith, defined a
sahih or sound hadith as one
that is related in the first place by a well-known Companion, in the second
place by at least two Followers, and thereafter by many narrators.);34
(3) All of the above ahadith are da'if
(weak) because they have a number of unreliable transmitters (e.g., Maisarah
al-Ashja'i, Harmalah bin Yahya, Zaidah, and Abu Zinad).35
Analysis of the matn
of the above ahadith leads to the
following statements: (1) Woman is created from a rib or is like a rib; (2) The
most curved and crooked part of the rib is its top; (3) The crookedness of the
rib (and of the woman) is irremediable – any effort to remove it will result in
breakage; and (4) In view of the above, an attitude of kindness is recommended
and those who wish to benefit from women are advised to do so "while
crookedness remains in her." Concerning these statements the following
observations are made: (a) The rib story obviously originates in Genesis 2, but
no mention is made in any of these ahadith
of Adam. This eliminates the Yahwist's androcentrism but also
depersonalizes the source of woman's creation (i.e., the "rib" could,
theoretically, be nonhuman); (b) The misogynist elements of the ahadith, absent from Genesis, clash with
the teachings of the Qur'an which describes all human beings as having been
created fi ahsan-i taqwim (most justly proportioned and with the highest
capabilities); (c) I cannot understand the relevance of making the statement
that the most crooked part of the rib is at the top; (d) The exhortation to be
kind to women would make sense if women were, in fact, born with a natural handicap
and needed compassion. Is "irremediable crookedness" such a handicap?
(e) The advice to benefit from women without making any effort to help women
deal with their "crookedness" (in case it is a natural handicap)
smacks of hedonism or opportunism and is hard to appreciate even if women were
indeed "irremediably crooked."
The theology of
woman implicit in the above ahadith
is based upon generalizations about her ontology, biology, and psychology that
are contrary to the letter and spirit of the Qur'an. These ahadith ought to be rejected on the
basis of their content alone. However, "matn analysis"
(which was strongly urged by Ibn Khaldun, A.D. 1332-1406)36 has
received scant attention in the work of many Muslim scholars, who insist that a
hadith is to be judged primarily on
the basis of its isnad. It is not difficult to see why isnad criticism
– particularly if it excludes a scholarly scrutiny of initial reports of a hadith – is not a sufficient
methodological tool for establishing the reliability of a hadith. Not all initial reporters of ahadith were the Prophet's close Companions whose word would be
difficult to question. (The word "Companion" has come to be applied
rather loosely to a variety of persons, some of whom spent only a limited
amount of time with the Prophet and cannot necessarily be presumed to
have known him well.) Furthermore, it is not always possible to say in the case
of a hadith whether its isnad (including
the name of the Companion initially narrating the hadith) is authentic and not fabricated. In such cases
references to the matn of other ahadith ascribed to the same initial narrator, or to other ahadith with similar content, become
critically important in determining the degree of reliability of both the
narrator and the hadith in question.
Conclusion
To sum up the
foregoing discussion on the issue of woman's creation, I would like to
reiterate that according to the Qur'an, Allah created woman and man
equal. They were created simultaneously, of like substance, and in like
manner. The fact that almost all Muslims believe that the first woman (Hawwa')
was created from Adam's rib shows that, in practice, the hadith literature has displaced the teaching of the Qur'an at least
insofar as the issue of woman's creation is concerned.
While all Muslims
agree that whenever a hadith
attributed to the Prophet conflicts with the Qur'an it must be rejected, the ahadith discussed in this chapter have
not only not been rejected, they have in fact remained overwhelmingly popular
with Muslims through the ages, in spite of being clearly contradictory to the
Qur'anic statements pertaining to human creation. While being included in
the Sahihan gives the ahadith
in question much weight among Muslims who know about the science
of hadith, their continuing
popularity among Muslims in general indicates that they articulate something
deeply embedded in Muslim culture – namely, the belief that women are
derivative creatures who can never be considered equal to men.
Even the
courageous Muslim women presently leading women's movements in oppressively
conservative Muslim societies, which in the name of "Islamization"
are systematically legitimizing the reduction of women to a less than fully
human status, are not aware of the far-reaching implications of the ahadith that make them derivative or
devious creatures. It is imperative for the Muslim daughters of Hawwa' to
realize that the history of their subjection and humiliation at the hands of the
sons of Adam began with the story of Hawwa's creation, and that their future
will be no different from their past unless they return to the point of origin
and challenge the authenticity of ahadith
that make them ontologically inferior, subordinate, and crooked. While it
is not a little discouraging to know that these ahadith (like many other anti-woman ones) represent not only the ideas
and attitudes regarding woman of the early generations of Muslims (whose views
were reflected in the hadith
literature), but also of successive generations of Muslims until today, it is
gratifying to know that they cannot be the words of the Prophet of Islam, who
upheld the rights of women (as well as other disadvantaged persons) throughout
his life. Furthermore, regardless of how many Muslim men project their own
androcentrism and misogyny upon the Prophet of Islam, it is valid to question
how, being the recipient of the Qur'an, which states that all human beings were
made from a single source (i.e., al-insan, bashar, or nafsin
wahidatin), the Prophet of Allah could say that woman was created
from a crooked rib or from Adam's rib.
Notes
1.
Saiyyad: a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
2.
Ummah (from umm: mother): community of Muslims.
3.
Sunnah: practical traditions
attributed to the Prophet Muhammad.
4.
Hadith (plural: ahadith): oral traditions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad.
5.
Fiqh: jurisprudence.
6.
Surah 4: An-Nisa':34.
7.
Surah 4: An-Nisa':11.
8.
Surah 2: Al-Baqarah:282.
9.
Reference here is to ahadith from Sahih
al-Bukhari.
10. Leonard Swidler, Biblical Affirmations of Woman. (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1979), 76.
11. Muhammad lqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious
Thought in Islam (Lahore: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1962), 83.
12.
Fazlur Rahman, Islam (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1968), 73.
13.
Alfred Guillaume, The Traditions of Islam (Beirut: Khayats, 1966), 15.
14.
15. Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam:
Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Vol. 1, The Classical
Age of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 332.
16. Hadith quoted
in Jane Smith and Yvonne Y. Haddad, "Eve:
Islamic Image of Woman," Women's Studies International Forum 5
no. 2 (1982): 136-37.
17. I.B.U. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir lbn Kathir (
18. A. A. Maududi, The Meaning of the Qur'an and Tafhim
ul-Qur'an, 6 vols. (Lahore: Maktaba-e-Ta'mir-e-Insaniyyat, 1974).
19.
Maududi, The Meaning of the Qur'an, 2: 298, footnote 1 (emphasis is
mine).
20.
Rasul: a Prophet sent by God with a
message. Reference here is to the Prophet Muhammad.
21. M. M. Khan, translation with notes of Sahih
al-Bukhari (Lahore: Kazi Publications, 1971), vol. 4 "Book of
Prophets," chap.1, Hadith 548,
p. 346.
22. Sahih
al-Bukhari 7: 33.
23.
Sahih al-Bukhari (translation), vol. 7, "Book
of Wedlock," chap. 80, Hadith
113, p. 80.
24.
Sahih at-Bukhari 7: 33.
25.
Sahih al-Bukhari (translation), vol. 7, "Book of Wedlock," chap. 81, Hadith 114, p. 81.
26.
Muslim bin al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim, 2 vols. (
27. A. H. Siddiqui, translation with notes of Sahih
Muslim (
28.
Sahih Muslim, 1:625.
29.
Sahih Muslim (translation), vol. 2, "Book
of Wedlock," chap. 576, Hadith
3467, p. 752.
30.
Sahih Muslim, 1: 625.
31.
Sahih Muslim (translation), vol. 2, "Book
of Wedlock," chap. 576, Hadith
3468, pp. 752-53.
32.
'Abdul Wahab Ash-Shairani, Al-Mizan al-Kubra (
33. Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies trans. C.
R. Barber and S. M. Stem, ed. S. M. Stem (Chicago: Aldine Publishing
Company, 1971), 2:163.
34. See Muhammad bin 'Abd Allah al-Hakim, Ma'rifat 'Ulum
al-Hadith, ed. Mu'azzam Hussain (
35. See, for example, Shams ad-Din Adh-Dhahabi, Mizan
I'tidal fi Naqd ar-Rijal, 4 vols. (Cairo: 'Isa al-Babi al-Halbi, n.d.).
This is a highly authoritative work investigating the credentials of Hadith transmitters by a renowned Hadith critic (A.D. 1274-1348). 36.
Hodgson, Venture of Islam, 2:480.
Posted
July 26, 2009