Women in Islam - Aisha vs Fatima - Essay Example

Women in Islam: Compare and contrast between Aisha and Fatima The Koran, in its dis on community relations as well as its recommendations on the methods of interpersonal interaction, discusses aspects of life that affect women. Particularly, it narrated personages that are influential to Muslim women. For instance, Aisha and Fatima are revered models of Muslim values and that their characters, lives and pronouncements are deeply analyzed and mythologized to serve as guides in terms of proper Muslim female way of life. Aisha is the wife of the prophet Muhammad while Fatima is his daughter. This paper will compare the lives of these two female personalities in Islam and explore their significance and impact in the religion and in its faithful. Aisha Aisha is controversial figure where Fatima is devout to the family and her religious values. She, as one of the favorite wives of Muhammad and a learned scholar, is viewed from two fundamental roles in the establishment of Islam as a religion. Fundamentally, Aisha is important in the sense that she represents the bitterness of the political contestation in Islam. Her status as Muhammad’s favorite wife and her knowledge as a learned scholar has been viewed by Islamic historians and clergy as the threat to the faith posed by women. One reason being offered for this is that she symbolized the rights of women in the infancy of the Muslim faith. According to Beverly Milton-Edwards (2004), those who make the claim against women’s rights, particularly in the political and military spheres, use Aisha’s role in the struggle for succession as a demonstration of women’s capability to sow chaos and internal disorder. In the Shii tradition Aisha committed adultery and took part in civil unrest following the prophet’s death. (Gordon 2002, p. 50) In addition, it was Aisha who has gone to the battlefield in order to challenge rivals for the leadership. Chaos and disorder are considered as serious threats to Islam and Aisha’s bout with the power struggle after the prophet’s death was considered to be the cause of the first major schism within Islam. On the other hand, Aisha is viewed positively as she symbolized the importance of the role that women played in Islam. Consequently, she has been seen as the representation of modern Muslim women – a link from the Islam of old to the Islam of today. In the formative years of Islam, Aisha is the source of much of the oral information about the Muhammad. These information were the foundation of the hadith – the abiding basis for Sunni faithfulness. As early as her childhood, she has been a wife to Muhammad that is why she was a credible source, relating many incidents from his home life. This would be the main driver of her influence and impact not only among Muslim women but also in the Muslim community as a whole. Because the considered mother of the believers was not a saint, but a scholar, she became the tangible model for women scholars, and the prestigious validation of their careers. (Robinson and Lapidus 1998, p. 192) Fatima Fatima, on the other hand, is considered to be the fountainhead of female spirituality in Islam. She has an extreme piety and devotion to her family, which for Muslims is an important factor why she is elevated to a high station in the religious hierarchy. Fatima and her mother, Khadija, stand at the beginning of Islamic piety and occupy a very distinguished rank. (Smith 1984, p. xxx) Fatima is revered because during her lifetime, she had excelled through her many roles without compromising her Islamic values and beliefs. As the daughter of Muhammad, she took care of her father, never leaving his side in times of hardship. Being the wife of Ali, she must contend with many political enemies. She confronted all her battles without fear for her life. Another aspect that is so admired in Fatima is her role as a mother. She gave birth to sons like Hassan and Hussain and that these men’s lives – as Muslims who lived up to Islamic expectations and became great in themselves – are testament to her ability as a mother. One could see the education that Fatima has inculcated in her sons when Hussain in the Karbala tragedy preferred to die and become a martyr instead of surrendering. In several bodies of Islamic literature, it is being encouraged that Muslims learn from Fatima’s life the lessons in regard to her personality, her roles, her social, mental and political perspectives and actions and why they are so desirable. Freda Hussain (1984) stressed that Fatima portrayed herself as the ideal Islamic woman who knew her direction in life and did not despair over the harsh realities of life but with a strong faith in her heart learned to cope and confront the most dangerous situations which dogged her life and hence, she was a role model as a daughter, a wife and a mother. (p. 63) And so it seems that in Islam’s need for models, Fatima becomes a logical choice not only because of her roles but also because she is a woman in her own right - that she was able to make/create herself, holding her own against her enemies and the enemies of her husband, articulating her views on issues that concerned her and her family. Where Aisha stood for equality, women’s rights and to some extent, defiance, Fatima became the symbol for Muslim women that are characterized by chastity, piety and submission. In the Islamic Lunar calendar, her birthday was officially proclaimed as Mother’s Day and that the week it falls in is celebrated as Women’s Week. Muslim women are encouraged to follow her example. A traditionalist narrative by Ayatollah Ahmad Azari-Qomi stressed that if a woman wants to fin her place in an Islamic society, in the eyes of God and the Prophet, she must adjust the program of her life in accordance with feqh and second and that in order to do so, she must model her life on Fatima’s. (Mir-Hosseini 2000, p. 56) Conclusion It is important to understand that women such as Aisha and Fatima play a number of roles in Islam. Their names and stories occur in the chains of transmission the prophetic hadith and that they form part and parcel of the spiritual lineage of the religion. However, the most important argument demonstrated in the comparison between these two women is that they demonstrated in different ways how the role of women are valued and seen in Islam in its varying schools and timelines. The traditionalist perspective puts Fatima above Aisha and all other good women in Koran. She epitomizes the religious woman and therefore must be emulated not just for the good of the family but for the strengthening of the Islamic faith. Fatima complimented the conservative and non-secular objectives of Islam as a religion. Aisha, on the other hand, appeals more to the modernist Islamic perspectives. She, and those values that she represent, is conducive to the secular aspects of Islam particularly in the contemporary period. For those defending Islam against charges of inequality and cruelty towards women, Aisha is the most invoked character to demonstrate Islam’s capability on gender equality. What is significant about this is that the need for a modern role model of an Islamic woman fits Aisha best instead of some western model that Muslim women could follow. Aisha seems to be the best solution to confront the Western dominating values and the most important factor for creating a conscious struggle within the new generation of Islamic societies against the Western invitation. In regard to this dimension, we cannot find a strong argument in Fatima and the conservative perspective. At least in Islam’s confrontation with the highly secular and materialistic culture of the West, an elevated, strong and religious symbol is needed to reinvigorate the Islamic faith. Works Cited Gordon, Matthew. Islam: origins, practices, holy texts, sacred persons, sacred places. Oxford University Press, 2002. Hussain, Freda.. Muslim Women. Taylor & Francis, 1984. Milton-Edwards, Beverly. Islam and politics in the contemporary world. Wiley-Blackwell, 2004. Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. Islam and gender: the religious debate in contemporary Iran. I.B. Tauris, 2000. Robinson, Francis and Lapidus, Ira. The Cambridge illustrated history of the Islamic world. Cambridge University Press, 1998. Smith, Margaret. Rābi’a the mystic & her fellow-saints in Islām: being the life and teachings of Rābi’a al-‘Adawiyya Al-Qaysiyya of Ba’ra together with some account of the place of the women saints in Islām. CUP Archive, 1984. Read More