Assassination of the Woman’s Personality

17/12/2011| IslamWeb

Woman suffered many woes for centuries because of the statements of Paul and those like him. The men of this religion who are attributed to Christ considered that, "The woman is filth which should be avoided, and her beauty is the weapon of Satan.” The Popes were eager to confirm that woman was the source of evil and sin in this world. For this reason, she should be oppressed as much as possible and psychologically consumed under the pressure of the feelings of disgrace and the shame of her human nature and entity. 

This belief crept into Christianity from many ideas and customs from ancient pagan religions, which considered the woman an embodiment of wicked spirits, and consented to scorning and humiliating women, if not exterminating them in the most brutal ways, like, for example, to enjoin upon the woman whose husband died to burn herself after his death immediately after burning his dead body.

 

Simone de Beauvoir stated that the contribution of the Christian creed in persecuting woman was significant.

 

According to Marcuse the idea that the woman carries the perpetual sin, to which the creed of Christianity inseparably adheres, has strongly influenced the woman's social and legal status.

 

According to Denis Diderot, all life’s customs and traditions, the onslaught of popular law and that of nature conspired against the woman. This is because under these laws, the woman was treated as a being that had lost its mind.

 

The history of the woman was written by men who took her as their enemy from the early ages of Popedom. During the past ages of the Roman Empire, man regarded her as a domestic animal and he had the right to dispose of her by selling or killing her if he wished. If a man killed the daughter of another, he had to deliver his daughter to them and they were free to either kill, sell or own her.

 

During the Germanic age, man had power over the woman. The husband had the right to discipline his wife by beating her and was allowed to kill his wife in case she betrayed him, and no punishment was due on him for that.

 

Moreover, she was regarded as a secondary creature and the partner of Satan in perpetual sin, which relegated her to the second rank after man, even at the level of the church.

 

The People of the Book always viewed the woman as the source of sin and the fountainhead of misdeeds and wickedness. They also saw the woman as man's door to Hell, being the source of the movement which leads him to sin, and from her sprang all calamities that afflicted all mankind.

 

For this reason, they seized every opportunity concerning the woman to frustrate her, even if it was related to her clothing. Tertullian wrote an epistle in the 3^rd century CE about the woman’s clothing, in which he said, "It was more fitting for the woman to come out in a despicable dress, and walk like Eve, lamenting her state, in regret for what she did, so that her grief-expressing clothing would be expiation of the shame she inherited from Eve, i.e. the original sin, and then the disgrace of eternal destruction of humanity. The Lord said to the woman: ‘I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.’ Have you not learnt that every one of you (O women) is Eve?” [Genesis 3:16]

 

Saint Bernard, who did his best to transmit the worship of Mary the virgin into the church, said about his sister after she had visited him in his monastery wearing a new uniform, "A dirty prostitute and a lump of dung."

 

The assembly of Bacon

 

In the 5^th century CE, the assembly of Bacon gathered to discuss whether the woman was merely a body or a body with a soul responsible for salvation and destruction. They decided that the woman does not have a saved soul which could deliver her from Hell. None of Eve's daughters was exempted from that stain except Maryam (Mary), may Allah exalt her mention.

 

Another assembly decided that the woman was a filthy animal which should be avoided, and that she had no soul, no eternity, and the principles of religion should not be dictated to her for her worship was not accepted, nor would she enter Paradise and the dominion of the Hereafter. All she had to do was serve and be a slave, with her mouth tied up like a camel or a rabid dog to be prevented from laughter and speech for she was the snare of Satan.

 

Scandals from the heart of Popedom

 

In his Thawrat Al-Fikr (Revolution of Thought), Dr. Lewis ‘Awad said that,

 

The scandals in Rome, the centre of Popedom, were extremely troubling. The Catholic creed, in principle, states that men of religion never marry, and that monks, including Popes and cardinals, make three vows to God once they enter the gate of the church: the vow of chastity, the vow of poverty and the vow of obedience. However, Pope Alexander VI (1431-1503 CE), publicly and openly had three illegal children: Cesare Borgia (1475-1507 CE), Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519 CE), and Don Candia. The time of his predecessor, Pope Innocent VIII (pope from 1484-1492 CE), was known for severe corruption, and he was succeeded by Alexander VI. Innocent VIII was infamous for his nepotism and dishonesty, and he was the first pope to publicly acknowledge his illegitimate children. He endeavored to increase the possessions of his family, to say nothing of his selling of deeds of pardon and terrorizing his opponents with deprivation resolutions. Similarly, it was the habit of all men of the church, from the greatest to the least significant priest, to amass wealth and possess estates. The sexual practices of ecclesiastics were visible everywhere, and regarded as acceptable. Sexual deviation was also negligently overlooked.

 

Why did God create woman?

 

According to Augustine, "If what Adam needed was only good company, then, it would have been better to have two men living together as friends instead of a couple that is made up of a man and a woman."

 

Thomas Aquinas was also confused, like Augustine, his predecessor, as to why God had created the woman. He wrote the following, "As for the individual's nature, the woman is a defective creature, fitting for contempt. That is because the efficient power of the male's semen produces the perfect match of the male sex, while the woman is produced from the defectiveness of that efficient power, or from body trouble, or even as a result of an external effect."

 

The idea that the individual's nature in the woman is defective was taken from Aristotle's biological opinions, according to which, the male is the perfect type or standard pattern, and the woman is but a defective model of man.

 

The woman was regarded as insignificant to the extent that Luther said, "If women are tired or even die, it does not matter; let them die during the operation of childbirth, because they are created only for that."

 

Is woman a human being that has a soul like man?

 

In France, the French men of religion held a conference, i.e. the abovementioned assembly of Bacon in 586 CE at which time the Prophet, , was a young man, to discuss whether the woman was to be regarded as a human or non-human being, whether or not she had a soul, and if she did have a soul, was it human or animal, and if it was human, was it equal to or less than that of the man. Their final resolution was that she was a human being, but was created only to serve man.

 

The woman is legally incompetent

 

According to French Post-Revolutionary Civil Law, a minor was a child, or an insane person, or a woman. It remained so until it was modified in 1938 CE, and it still has many restrictions on how the married woman should behave.

 

Hence, she had no right to possess any fixed estates or movable assets, nor to open a bank account in her name, and even after she was allowed to open a bank account in her name, she had no right to withdraw money from it by herself; rather, her husband had to come to withdraw money for her from her account, just like what is done with minor children and the insane.

 

Selling or lending the wife is legitimate

 

Until the end of the 10th century CE, there was in Britain a common law that gave the husband the right to sell or lend his wife, or even kill her if she had an incurable disease. If one knows that a farmer would refuse to lend his cow to a friend, then what would he think about the one who lends his wife to another man? Was the woman regarded as so insignificant in their sight to the extent that they made her inferior to an animal? Was the law intended to convert the man into a cuckold and the woman into a prostitute? Did this law show respect for the woman? Did this law give woman superiority to an animal or even a non-being? What kind of life was this law seeking for its society and what kind of love did the church find in that law?

 

Pouring boiling oil over the bodies of women just for entertainment was legitimate

 

In 1500 CE, a social council was formed in Britain to punish women, and new means of punishing them were invented. Thousands of women were burnt alive, and boiling oil was poured over their bodies merely for the sake of entertainment.

 

There is no comment other than a question to be raised for consideration: what was the position of a woman when men entertained themselves by pouring boiling oil over her body?

 

Prohibition for a woman to read the Bible

 

During the time of King Henry VIII of England, parliament issued a decree forbidding a woman from reading the New Testament, i.e. the Gospel, for she was considered impure. If she was impure for half of her life because of menstruation in addition to seven days after every menses, and this is why she was forbidden from holding and reading the Bible, then what would one think about Christ, who used to enter the privy, and during his early childhood, urinated and excreted in his clothes? Was a woman considered more impure than urine and excrement?

 

The woman had no right to citizenship

 

According to English common law, women, until the middle of the 19^th century CE, were not considered "persons" or "citizens" who were entitled to be called as such by law. They had no personal rights, they had no right to possess the property they gained, or anything - even the clothes they wore.

 

In 1567 CE, the Scottish parliament issued a decree stating that a woman should not be given authority over anything.

 

The wife's price was half a shilling

 

Until 1805 CE, English law gave the man the right to sell his wife, and priced her at sixpence, i.e. half a shilling. It happened that a man sold his wife for 500 pounds in 1931 CE. In defending this husband, his lawyer argued that in 1801 CE, English law priced the wife at 6 pence, provided that the wife agreed on the sale. However, the court replied that this law was abrogated by another law in 1805 CE that forbade selling or giving up wives. After deliberation, the court ordered that the man who sold his wife should be imprisoned for ten years.

 

Hadhaarat Al-Islam magazine mentioned in its second year (p.1078) that an Italian man sold his wife in installments, and when the purchaser did not pay the last installment, the seller killed him.