ABSTRACT
During the formative period of the early Muslim community, the perception or belief that females were secondary in the creation process was hardly replaced by the Qur’an assertion in al Nis {4: 1} that the female entity is primary in creation. J. al Banna (1998: 111; 2004a: 124) states that jurists also obstructed Quranic gender justice by using weak or unauthentic ahaadith. In addition to these weak and several other ahaadith that I referenced earlier, some Jurists also suggest that “al marah ’awra” (equating the woman as a whole to her private parts, hence declaring that the woman is prohibited [from being seen or touched] by others than next of kin). Such statements imply that the woman is a sex object. These general beliefs or dogmas and juristic practices continue to prevail to the point that women are still regarded as the property of their male household just as an owned slave or mulk al yameen was viewed before Islam. Mulk al yameen, instead of being interpreted as a trust in one’s right hand, is often thought of as the possession of the right hand. That is, the unrelated persons, mainly women living under a male guardianship, are viewed as if they were property of the male, and the expression “mulk al yameen” often simplified or interpreted as a “slave” or “concubine.” With the hope of moving away from such antiquated perception of woman as “mulk” (property owned by her tribe, father, or husband), contemporary studies by Muslim women scholar-activists, especially in North America, brought back some awareness to the Quranic story of creation (for example, Barazangi 1991a; L. Ahmed 1992; Hassan 1994; Wadud 1992 and 1999). These studies also explained how the Quran story is different from the story in the Judeo-Christian traditions. In my own research and scholarly work, I wanted to go further to analyze woman’s primary role in the creation story as the basic concept for understanding khilafa or trusteeship of humans (Barazangi 1996), and to affirm that for the woman to regain her identity and identification with the Quran, she needs to be clear about the Quranic concept of creation (Barazangi 2004b). Despite these and other scholars’ efforts to change perceptions about gender in Islam from within the Quranic worldview (for example, M. al Faruqi 2000; al Hibri 2000; and Barlas 2002), some major lapses remain, often leaving room for ambiguity in the status of women and gender in Islam. Even unintended, these lapses open other doors for misreading Quran guidelines concerning women and gender in general.
