In our last issue we published the gist of an article on the conditions
of Muslim women written by an English lady in the Nineteenth Century.
Last September the Hon�ble Justice Ameer Ali has given a reply to that
article. He has shown that the Christian religion cannot claim all the
credits for the improvement of the conditions of women. It has been
possible largely because of the gradual advances of knowledge and
civilization.
In early Christian society the status of women was very inferior. Their
natural impurity made the church fathers their malicious critics.
According to St. Tertullian women are the Devil�s gateway, the unsealer
of the forbidden fruit, first deserter of the divine law and destroyer
of God�s image, man. And according to Saint Chrisostom she is the
original sin, nature�s snare, a fatal beauty, the root of all domestic
disharmonies, a dangerous attraction and a sleek evil. At that time she
could not participate in important religious ceremonies. She was
forbidden to go out in the public, mix freely with others or join feasts
or festivals. She led a secluded life at home, her duty was to silently
obey the orders of her husband and spinning and cooking.
Even during the medieval period with the advent of chivalry when it
became a fashion to worship women one of the chief characteristics of
the time was the oppression of women. Not only among the upper classes
but also among the common people polygamy and secret marriages were
widely practiced. Breaking their vows of celibacy the Christian clergy
also used to have many legal and illegal wives. According to antiquarian
Hallam when one wife proved barren the German clergy held it legal for a
man to have more than one wife simultaneously. It is common knowledge
that king Charlemagne had many wives. During the time of Justinian, who
was a great patron of Christianity, the streets of Constantinople
witnessed many scenes of inhuman atrocities on women. For her �sins� of
being beautiful and learned a woman was torn to pieces on the street of
Alexandria by the followers of a Christian saint. Justice Ali has cited
Manu, the Hindu lawgiver, as saying that when a woman is disobedient to
her husband wild dogs should be set upon her on a public thoroughfare.
And if St. Cyril had written a treatise on women his views would not
have been much different from those of Manu. In medieval Europe women
were always oppressed, forcibly kidnapped, incarcerated in dungeons and
whipped by the chieftains who claimed themselves to be model Christians.
The Christians never felt any qualm of conscience to burn or drown their
women.
At this juncture arrived Muhammad. It was not his intention to cause a
great commotion by preaching the coming of the kingdom of heaven soon on
earth. He set his mind to put as much restraints as was possible on the
lawlessness that was prevalent in the Arab society of the time. Earlier
there was no bar to polygamy, abuse of maidservants and divorcing of
wives at will. By setting limits to these he uplifted the status of
women to a considerable extent. He told again and again that abandoning
a wife was an extremely unpleasant act in the eyes of God. But it was
not possible for anybody to root out this evil practice. He therefore
put a number of very difficult impediments instead of totally forbidding
divorce.
According to Justice Ali the law relating to women is much more liberal
among the Muslims than among the Christians. According to Hindu
scriptures a woman has a right to leave her husband in certain
circumstances, but in the Hindu society it is not practiced. Islam
recognizes similar rights for women on grounds like oppression,
husband�s inability to maintain etc. To prove the superior status of
women in our society as we often cite examples of Lilavati and Khana,
Justice Ali has similarly cited as examples many learned women of
ancient Arab society. Thus he has proved that in certain respects the
social ideals in early Muslim society were nobler. And whatever reforms
he had initiated Muhammad never regarded them as ultimate. As a
moderator for the time being he had made compromises with the powerful
society of his time. Bringing about certain changes he had shown the
way. But the Muslim society chose to stop at that point. For this Islam
cannot be blamed, what we have to blame is the lack of knowledge and
civilization.
The study of Justice Ali�s essay saddens our mind. Once our ideals were
high, now we have degenerated. By the conscious exertions of our
intellect we have not been able to go beyond what our great men had
prescribed long ago as suitable for their time,� we both Hindus and
Muslims admit this both in our glorification and lamentation. Among the
Asiatics as if that vigor is dead, that vital power that makes the
society ceaselessly grow reforming itself every moment shedding what is
old and worn and accepting what is new.
The chief difference between Europe and Asia is this � In Europe the
dignity of man is a recognized fact which is lacking in Asia. Hence we
do not regard our great men as human beings; we make them no less than
deities. In Europe men love action and they are all the time showing
their power in various ways through their activities. They therefore do
not regard themselves as insignificant and worthless nor their life a
mere dream. Under the influence of the oriental religion of Christianity
at times they may think differently, but such thoughts are swept aside
by their active nature. That is why they are able to dethrone their
autocratic king, rebel against the divinity of the clergy and their free
reason wins over the infallible revealed sayings of their gurus.
In the presence of mighty nature every man in the orient lives his life
considering himself very insignificant. Whenever a great man is born he
appears to be completely different from his class and he is ranked with
the gods. And we live our life thereafter counting each alphabet of his
sayings which were only suitable for his time. We consider it a great
sin if we make an attempt to violate even an iota of what he had
prescribed. We are unable to help ourselves in the meantime till another
great man appears as a god in another millennium to introduce changes
for the second time. As if we are born from one egg into another egg.
The new reforms which a great man introduces breaking the shells of
ancient customs and usages gradually harden into another shell and we
again become imprisoned in that shell. We are unable with our own
efforts to fend for ourselves what is suitable for our own sustenance.
The Arabs have kept standing at the point upto which Muhammad had been
able to move them forward by breaking to some extent their old bad
customs and usages; they have not budged an inch beyond that. Our
society lacks that fertility which new reforms need to sprout into a
vigorous plant. In our human nature we lack the nature of life to grow.
That is why fresh ideals do not gradually flourish among us, they
degenerate and wither. Just like a bird�s egg that rots when not
incubated by its parents the stagnant societies gradually degenerate and
rot as the warmth of the living influence of great men recedes further
and further in time.
In fact pure things become impure and stale when kept in a closed
container and impure things are refreshed when kept in an open and airy
place. Small defects found in stagnant and closed societies where reason
is not free are far more dangerous than great defects found in free and
open societies, because they do not get fresh air and are deprived of
the life giving touch of nature.
May 11, 2008
* Original essay Prachya samaj (The
Oriental Society) written by Rabindranath Tagore and published more than
one hundred years ago in 1298 BS (1891-92) in the journal Sadhana.
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