The description which the Qur’an makes of this woman head of state is in and of itself an undeniable refutation of all the allegations of the hyper-emotionalism of women who are said to reason-less well than men due to the hyperemotivity of their personality and who, according to the same logic, cannot lead, politically speaking, an entire people! This is the explanation found in the discourse of almost all the Muslim scholars, and this regardless of the era.
Women are said to be very sensitive, excessively sentimental and therefore vulnerable, emotionally speaking, which renders her incapable of using her reason, and in the management of state affairs; there is no room for feelings or emotions reason rules.
However, putting forth arguments which suggest that women reason less or that their ability to reason is subject to her emotions is equivalent to saying that she is less human. In fact, if we were to distinguish human beings from the other terrestrial creatures, one would note that it is indeed reason, this essentially human ability, which differentiates us from the rest of Divine creation and which allows us to accede to this privileged dimension of human beings through our faculties of reason and discernment.
In assuming that women have deficiencies in this area, they are being deprived quite simply of a part of their reason and, therefore, of their humanity.
In Islamic literature, validating these sorts of theses from the religious standpoint has always been an easy task given the anchoring of such traditions in the popular imagination which stipulates the supremacy of man regardless of the context or social environment. Concerning political affairs and governance, given the assumption that man is stronger, less emotional and, therefore, more reasonable, he is definitively viewed as more apt than women at managing these sorts of situations. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that these sorts of macho assumptions are not specific to Muslim peoples alone, far from it. They can be found in all societies, even in those considered most advanced. In France for example,7 the land of human rights and the cradle of feminism, the parliament is composed of 89% men and women’s struggle for political equality still has a long way to go.
Nonetheless, it remains true that in our Muslim context, women’s access to positions of political responsibility is often, if not always, forbidden in the name of Islam … And it is just as surprising to see how the so-called ban on women acceding to the highest spheres of political governance is Islamically justified through a single hadith – only one – which has become the norm, if not the sword of Damocles brandished over heads each time the issue of women’s political participation is raised in the lands of Islam.
There does indeed exist a saying from the Prophetic tradition which states: ‘A nation cannot succeed if it is led by a woman or if it leaves political power in the hands of a woman …’.8
On the other hand, one must underline that the context in which this hadith was formulated has often been ignored, which significantly restricts the account of its true significance … In fact, it occurred when the Prophet had learned that Chosroes II, Emperor of Persia and inveterate enemy of the Muslims, had died and that his daughter had taken over leadership in his place … The Persian empire of the time was governed with a hand of steel by the ruling family which was known for its insidious despotism. The Prophet was seeking through this phrase to denigrate the daughter of the emperor due to the state of war which prevailed between the two peoples and due also to the politically autocratic regime which lived there and not, to criticize the fact she was a woman. We can at this level pose the question differently: would the Prophet have glorified the ascension to power of the Persian Empire if it had been the son and not the daughter of Chosroes II who had succeeded him? Evidently not. The Prophet criticized the nature of power and the entire political system of the Persian empire of the time! Yet, it is sad to note that a certain, profoundly misogynistic religious reading perceived, through this hadith, the absolute need to impose the nomination of a man for all positions of political responsibility.
It is interesting to note that Abu Bakrah,9 narrator of the hadith, recalled this particular hadith for the first time in a historical context as particular as that in which it was uttered by the Prophet!
Indeed, the story of the tradition states that Abu Bakrah recalled this hadith during the famous ‘Battle of the Camel’ in which were confronted the allies of A’ishah and those of Ali ibn Abu Ṭalib.10 Abu Bakrah, himself an ally of A’ishah’s clan, justified his own refusal to participate in the battle on the basis that it was A’ishah, a woman, who was leading the political action! Abu Bakrah thus made the link between the hadith he had heard from the Prophet and the context of conflict which opposed A’ishah to Imam Ali and which sadly turned to tragedy.
Having interpreted the hadith literally, he considered illicit any participation in an activity led by a woman even if, in this case, it was A’ishah who he held in very high esteem according to certain Islamic sources.11
It is important to note in this regard and concerning this political episode, that the justification given by Abu Bakrah was not repeated by any of the great companions of the Prophet at the time, who themselves abstained from participating in the battle of the camel based on other considerations.
Whereas the Prophet criticized a political framework due to its authoritarianism, Abu Bakrah understood this to mean – as many of the scholars after him did – that it was all political representation of women which should be forbidden.
The following generation of scholars ended up inserting this hadith into the register of recommendations in favour of the prohibition of all political participation by women despite, the fact the Prophet never enjoined anything on the subject. He was merely making an observation of the Persian political situation of the time, and any instrumentalization of this hadith has been undertaken in defiance of the context in which it was formulated and with the intended objective of denying women any form of political participation.12
What’s more, some thinkers, notably contemporary ones, affirm that this hadith, being a simple ahad hadith (hadith reported by a single narrator), cannot logically, therefore, be used as a single source of legislation.13
The interpretation of this hadith has had the most widespread impact we know, with the corollary of justifications, the most in vogue of which remain the notion of the structural weakness of women. The scholars banned women from having access to all political responsibility due to this alleged structural weakness, which puts them in a state of moral and intellectual incapacity to manage the affairs of the State! Women are said to be weaker due to their physical constitution and their biological propensity to conceive of everything on an emotional level, which is said to render them predominantly irrational. What is being confused here are emotional predispositions and intellectual capabilities. Yet, there is a big difference between saying that women have a greater inclination towards sensitivity and affectivity – which in no way represents a weakness – and suggesting they are somehow handicapped by this! Is the suggestion that a female neurosurgeon who operates each morning in order to extract cerebral tumours from men is incapable of controlling her alleged over-emotionalism in the political sphere, when she clearly does so without issue on the operating table?
All these affirmations, in addition to being erroneous and unjustified, are in flagrant contradiction with Qur’anic principles. The Qur’an has never advocated any sort of weakness which is singular to women and nowhere does it stipulate that man is endowed with greater reason or that women are more deficient than men or that women are devoid of rationality. Nowhere … ! However the Qur’an has stated that human beings in general are weak:
man has been created weak. [...] (al-Nisā’ 4: 28)
The weakness referred to by the Qur’an here is a deficiency linked to the creation of human beings themselves, due to their incapacity to control their negative impulses, a weakness