Women Were Not Meant to Be Subordinate to Men

Abstract

In the Qur’anic account, human beings are God’s representatives on earth, His viceroys (aka caliphs). Men and women are explicitly entrusted with being each other’s protectors, or walis, and with building up their societies. Yet despite these Qur’anic prescriptions of a male-female partnership, the idea of men as “guardians” of women managed to take root and persists to this day in many places, making men the gateway to women’s education, professional life, social life, marriage—their very existence. How is this possible? Because two verses, 4:34 and 2:228, have traditionally been (mis)interpreted so as to completely overturn the Qur’anic message of equality and partnership, and to place men in charge, despite the historical record from Muhammad’s life as recorded in none other than the hadith literature, and from medieval times.