The Islamic Way Of Thinking by Hasan Abdullah

The issue of woman in Islam was clear and never debated among Muslims. Allah (swt) created men and women and legislated general responsibilities for both, such as carrying the Daw'ah and holding the rulers accountable, in addition to designating specific responsibilities for each gender. Muslims acknowledged that sovereignty belongs to Allah, and the rules related to both men and women are Islamic rules deduced through ijtihad based upon the daleel. It was implicitly recognized among Muslims that the process of ijtihad and the concept of daleel are not sex-dependent, and thus, a "male" or "female" understanding of Islam never emerged. The only understanding that Islam produced for any concept or rule was the legal understanding based upon the daleel. As a result, all Muslims, whether man or woman, adhered to the Islamic rules in their entirety, and the Muslims with this understanding were saved from the "sex wars" that continue to plague the West until today.

It was this understanding that the Muslims lacked in dealing with the onslaught from the West regarding the status of women in Islam. The ideological invasion initiated by the West raised issues related to the Islamic Social System, such as why the man is allowed to marry four women and why the woman must cover her entire body except the face and hands. Even more damaging was the very concept of the status of women in Islam which the West constructed and propagated - a slave in a male-dominated society. The proper response to all of this would be to realize that the outlook of the West towards women stem from a specific viewpoint. The Muslims could have easily addressed this issue by presenting Islam with its intellectual basis, forcing the West to question whether the human being or Allah was fit to decide what status would be conferred to both men and women. However, the Muslims made a critical mistake by attempting to justify the status of women in Islam to accommodate the Western outlook. Some Muslims reacted to the accusations initiated by the West began by calling for Western ideas such as woman's liberation and equality between the sexes, thinking that doing so would stave off some of the attacks. As a reaction to this group, another section of Muslims went to the opposite extreme and claimed that the woman should not leave her home and are prohibited from trade, education, and politics. A third group emerged in an attempt to reconcile between the two camps, which was no more than an attempt to reconcile between Western thoughts and Islamic emotions.

The end result of these attempts to address this issue was a total disaster. As a direct outcome of these movements, the Muslim Ummah was faced with three options regarding the status of women:

To adopt the Western model, which was based on a reaction to an incorrect viewpoint; or to adopt what was labeled as the "Islamic" model, which was a reaction to a reaction; or to adopt the model which attempted to mix Islam with the Western outlook, which was a compromise between two reactions. Further compounding the problem was the fact that the Muslims began to lose the distinction between Islam and various local cultures and traditions which did in fact discriminate heavily upon women. Many aspects of these traditions and cultures were deemed Islamic, particularly on the issue of women. This intermixing of Islam with local culture succeeded in magnifying the image among Muslims and non-Muslims that Islam is oppressive to women.

In addition to these issues, many others were addressed, such as Jihad, the status of non-Muslims in Islam, and the Islamic penal code. In order to ensure the success of this process, new universities and schools were erected throughout the Muslim world, and scholarships were granted to Muslim students to study in the West. Furthermore, cultural and educational clubs were established, and even hospitals were utilized for the purpose of promoting Western ideas and culture among Muslims. All of these tools were used to spread Western ideas such as Nationalism, Secularism, and, above all, sanctification of the West in all of its aspects, from its history to noted Western personalities to its achievements in the arts and literature. These thoughts were initially accepted by some Christians in Lebanon and later spread among Muslims. When the West eventually colonized the region militarily, the Shariah was abandoned except in areas dealing with personal issues, and a new educational curriculum was imposed. The existence of this educational curriculum would guarantee that, after the military departure of the West from the Muslim lands, the future generations who would graduate from this curriculum would look up to the West as their ideal model in every facet of life.

Nowadays, the Western thought has become pervasive among Muslims. In fact, the Western culture became the dominant point of view among the intelligentsia and the educated class. Most of the publications, seminars, intellectual circles, and discussions, which exist in the Muslim World are influenced by this point of view. And the advent of new means of transmitting ideas such as telecommunications and internet further enhanced this influence.

The impact of the Western thought is the most dangerous factor which affected Muslims, far surpassing the impact of the Greek and Eastern philosophies. While these old philosophies may have diverted the thinking of the Muslims, the modern Western philosophy killed the Muslim thought altogether and worked to reshape the thinking of future generations of Muslims based on the Western culture. Today, the majority of Muslims have Islamic emotions, but are Westernized in their thoughts and ideas.

The Islamic way of thinking was not destroyed overnight but was slowly dismembered due to many factors which accumulated throughout history. Those factors started with the emergence of some intellectual factors after the Tabi'een. Recently, many attempts were initiated to restore the Islamic way of thinking by returning the Muslims back to the lifestyle of the first three generations. But even these attempts failed because those who pioneered such attempts confined their efforts to Taqleed in Fiqhi opinions produced by these early generations and continuous repetition of their opinions in issues related to the Aqeedah without any profound intellectual thinking. Furthermore, they did not differentiate between examining the first three generations, how they built and maintained their thinking, and how they faced the issues surrounding them as a role model to take lessons from, and actually copying the tools and technologies that existed at the time. As a result, the change that they called for was in fact a call for Muslims to return to the days of riding camels and not a call for the Muslims to emulate the early generations. Thus, even these movements were unable to solve the problem.