Disputing Islamic Views on Women

ISLAM’s CONCEPTION OF WOMANHOOD differs substantially from images of Arabian women in “heathen,” pre-Islamic Bedouin poetry. Those women seemed to lead amazingly free lives and were often quite independent in their relations with men. Following the introduction of Islam, however, they appear solely as beings of a second order, destined only to serve. Goethe took a critical stance toward this conception, and when he says, in the “Arabs” chapter of the Notes and Essays, that Muhammad had cast a “gloomy religious veil” over his tribe, this metaphor implied, too, the covering women are subjected to in Islamic lands. In contrast to orthodox Jewish, Christian, and Muslim opinion, Goethe did not consider women to be, essentially, creatures of a lower order.

The moral basis for the abasement of women and the low regard in which they are held within Judaic and Christian traditions lies in the Old Testament’s story of the Fall (Genesis 3), in which “woman” is identified with evil. In the Islamic tradition, on the other hand, “Eve has never been held responsible for Adam’s exile,” as Annemarie Schimmel correctly asserts. She adds that Muslims “only rarely reached the pitch of hatred that medieval Christian authors achieved in their damning tirades against women.” Furthermore, medieval monasticism’s contempt for women is impossible in Islam because of “the Prophet’s love for women, his numerous marriages, and his four daughters.” Ever since the introduction of Islam, however, women have been under the control of men and subject to their commands. Their subordinated roles are traditionally rationalized by the idea that women are creatures of lesser intellectual capacity than men and that animal qualities predominate in their characters. Otherwise than pre-Islamic Arabs, Muslims do not respect females as much as males, aside from a few saints such as Fatema or the Virgin Mary.

In light of Goethe’s essentially equitable opinion of women, it is not surprising that he does not share Islamic attitudes toward them, treating such ideas ironically and asking that the verdict of Genesis 3:16 be qualified: “thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”