Sex segregation in Islam - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This is a sub-article to Islamic jurisprudence and Sex segregation

Sex segregation

Sex segregation is the separation of people according to their sex.The term gender apartheid also has been applied to segregation of people by gender, implying that it is sexual discrimination...

Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

discourages free mixing between men and women when they are alone but not all interaction between men and women. Interaction between men and women is prescribed to be maintained at a healthy and modest level, to the extent where they can socialize in order to know each other as ordained by God in the Quran (Surah al-Hujurat), as long as there is no obscenity, touching, secret meetings and any sexual contact, which violates the general rules of interaction between the genders.

However there is no evidence from the Quran or Hadith that enforces segregation of sexes.

Namus

In the Muslim world, preventing women from being seen by men

Purdah

Purdah or pardeh is the practice of concealing women from men. According to one definition:This takes two forms: physical segregation of the sexes, and the requirement for women to cover their bodies and conceal their form....

is closely linked to the concept of Namus

Namus

Namus is the Arabic word of a concept of an ethical category, a virtue, in Middle Eastern patriarchal character...

.

Namus is an ethical category, a virtue

Virtue

Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....

, in Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

ern Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

patriarchal character. It is a strongly gender

Gender

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

-specific category of relations within a family described in terms of honor, attention

Attention

Attention is the cognitive process of paying attention to one aspect of the environment while ignoring others. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience....

, respect

Respect

Respect denotes both a positive feeling of esteem for a person or other entity , and also specific actions and conduct representative of that esteem. Respect can be a specific feeling of regard for the actual qualities of the one respected...

/respectability, and modesty

Modesty

Standards of modesty are aspects of the culture of a country or people, at a given point in time, and is a measure against which an individual in society may be judged....

. The term is often translated as "honor".

Sources

The Qur'anic verses which address the interaction of men and women in the social context include:

"Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and to be mindful of their chastity: this will be most conducive to their purity - (and,) verily, God is aware of all that they do. And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and to be mindful of their chastity, and not to display their charms beyond what may be apparent thereof; hence let them draw their head-coverings over their bosoms.(24:30-31)"

and

"O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters, as well as all believing women, that they should draw over themselves some of their outer garments: this will be more conducive to their being recognized and not annoyed.(33:59)"

The following hadith

Hadith

The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

indicate that the separation practiced in some Islamic societies today has little precedence in early Islamic practices:

Narrated Sahl

Sahl

Sahl may refer to:* Abū Sahl al-Qūhī, a Persian mathematician, physicist and astronomer.* Sahl ben Matzliah, a Karaite hakam* Hans Sahl , a German literature-, film- and theatre-critic* Jan Sahl , a Norwegian politician...

When Abu Usaid As-Saidi got married, he invited the Prophet and his companions. None prepared the food for them and brought it to them but his wife. She soaked some dates in water in a stone pot overnight, and when the Prophet had finished his food, she provided him with the drink.(Bukhari, Vol. 7, No. 111)

Narrated Anas ibn Malik

Anas ibn Malik

Anas bin Malik ibn Nadar al-Khazraji Al-Ansari was a well-known sahabi of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.He was an Ansar of the Banu Khazraj . He is not to be confused with Malik ibn Anas. Anas ibn Malik, the last of the Companions of the Prophet died at al-Basrah in 93 AH aged 103.-Muhammad's...

Once an Ansari woman came to the Prophet and he took her aside and said, "By God, you are the most beloved people to me."(Bukhari, Vol.7, No. 161)

Narrated Ar-Rabiʿ bint Muʿawidh,

We used to take part in holy battles with the Prophet by providing the people with water and serving them and bringing the killed and the wounded back to Medina. (Bukhari, Vol.4, No.134) (See also Nos. 131-133 and Muslim, Nos. 4453-4460).

Other hadith also confirm that men and women eating at the same place, and even at the same table, is not haram

Haraam

Haraam is an Arabic term meaning "forbidden", or "sacred". In Islam it is used to refer to anything that is prohibited by the word of Allah in the Qur'an or the Hadith Qudsi. Haraam is the highest status of prohibition given to anything that would result in sin when a Muslim commits it...

.

Abu Hurairah
Abu Hurairah
Abu Hurairah , was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the narrator of Hadith most quoted in the isnad by Sunnis.-Early life:...

reported,

A man came to the Prophet and said; "I am hard pressed by hunger. He sent a word to one of his wives who replied: "By Him Who has sent you with the Truth, I have nothing except water. Then he sent the same message to another and received the same reply. He sent this message to all of them and received the same reply. Then he said, "Who will entertain this as guest? One of the Ansar said: "O Messenger of Allah, I will. So he took him home and said to his wife: "Serve the guest of Messenger of Allah.

Another narration is,

An Ansari man asked his wife: "Have you got anything? She answered: "Nothing, except a little food for the children. He said: "Keep them busy with something, and when they ask for food put them to sleep. When the guest enters, extinguish the light and give him the impression that we are also eating. So they sat down and the guest ate and they passed the night hungry. When he came to the Prophet in the morning, he said to him, "Allah admired what you did with your guest last night. (Reported by Al-Bukhari and Muslim).

Based on this hadith, the scholars concluded that it is part of hospitality that the husband and wife eat with their guest.

Also, Imam Malik, as reported in Al-Muwatta', was asked about a woman eating with non-mahram, and he said: "There is no harm in doing this."

Similarly in strict Muslim communities today, women are discouraged from going to the mosques. Yet, Muhammad specifically admonished the men not to keep their wives from going to the mosques:

Ibn Omar reported,

The Messenger of God said, "Do not prevent the maid-servants of God from going to the mosque."(Muslim, No.888) (See also Nos. 884-891 and Bukhari Vol.1, Nos. 824, 832)

Also, it is clear from the following hadith that the women simply prayed behind the men and were not separated in a separate room or even concealed by a curtain or partition as is practiced in so many mosques today:

Asma' daughter of Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr

Abu Bakr was a senior companion and the father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He ruled over the Rashidun Caliphate from 632-634 CE when he became the first Muslim Caliph following Muhammad's death...

said,

I heard the Apostle of God say, "One of you who believes in God and in the Last Day should not raise her head until the men raise their heads lest she should see the private parts of men."(Sunan Abu Dawud, No. 850).

Islam requires believers to:

Treat one another with respect at all times in all situations.
Behave modestly.
Avoid situations of seclusion.
Dress modestly.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, under Taliban religious leadership, was characterized by feminist

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

groups and others as a "gender apartheid

Gender apartheid

The term gender apartheid, like sex apartheid, is a term used to describe economic and social sexual discrimination against women, including strict sex segregation, as well as an "absence of justice for women in much of the non-Western world." It is used especially to describe treatment of women...

" system where women are segregated from men in public and do not enjoy legal equality or equal access to employment or education. In 1997 the Feminist Majority Foundation

Feminist Majority Foundation

The Feminist Majority Foundation is a non-profit organization in the United States dedicated to Women's Equality, Reproductive Health and Non-Violence, headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia. The name Feminist Majority comes from a 1986 Newsweek/Gallup public opinion poll in which 56 percent...

launched a "Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan", which urged the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

government and the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

to "do everything in their power to restore the human rights of Afghan women and girls." The campaign included a petition to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

and U.N. Assistant Secretary General Angela King

Angela King

Angela Evelyn Vernon King was a Jamaican diplomat. She worked for the United Nations for 38 years, from 1966 to 2004, working mainly for equal rights for women. She was appointed Assistant Secretary-General for gender issues in 1997, remaining in that post until she retired in 2004.-Early...

which stated, in part, that "We, the undersigned, deplore the Taliban’s brutal decrees and gender apartheid in Afghanistan."

In 1998 activists from the National Organization for Women

National Organization for Women

The National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S...

picketed Unocal's Sugar Land, Texas

Sugar Land, Texas

Sugar Land is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the metropolitan area and Fort Bend County. Sugar Land is one of the most affluent and fastest-growing cities in Texas, having grown more than 158 percent in the last decade. In the time period of 2000–2007, Sugar Land also enjoyed a...

office, arguing that its proposed pipeline through Afghanistan was collaborating with "gender apartheid". In a weekly presidential address in November 2001 Laura Bush

Laura Bush

Laura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...

also accused the Taliban of practicing "gender apartheid". The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...

referred to the Taliban's 1997 order that medical services for women be partly or completely suspended in all hospitals in the capital city of Kabul

Kabul

Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

as "Health apartheid".

According to the Women's Human Rights Resource Programme of the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

Bora Laskin

Bora Laskin, PC, CC, FRSC was a Canadian jurist, who served on the Supreme Court of Canada for fourteen years, including a decade as its Chief Justice.-Early life:...

Law Library "Throughout the duration of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, the term "Gender Apartheid" was used by a number of women's rights advocates to convey the message that the rights violations experience by Afghan women were in substance no different than those experienced by blacks in Apartheid South Africa."

Iran

When Ruhollah Khomeini

Ruhollah Khomeini

Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran...

called for women to attend public demonstration and ignore the night curfew, millions of women who would otherwise not have dreamed of leaving their homes without their husbands' and fathers' permission or presence, took to the streets. After the Islamic revolution, however, Khomeini publicly announced his disapproval of mixing between the sexes.

Saudi Arabia

Sex segregation is also prevalent in health centers. In Saudi Arabia, a male doctor is not allowed to treat a female patient, unless there are no female specialists available; and it is also not permissible for women to treat men.

A woman is also not allowed to meet her spouse unveiled until after the wedding

Islamic marital practices

Muslim marriage and Islamic wedding customs are traditions and practices that relate to wedding ceremonies and marriage rituals prevailing within the Muslim world. Participants in these rites belong to communities of people who have Islam as their faith....

. Saudi daughters are encouraged to wear the niqab

Niqab

A niqab is a cloth which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of sartorial hijāb...

in public. Religious Saudis believe it is forbidden for a woman to eat in public, as part of her face would be exposed, therefore in most restaurants barriers are present to conceal women. Some have linked this conservative attitude to an increase in homosexual behavior in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf

Arab states of the Persian Gulf

"Arab states of the Persian Gulf" or "Arab Persian Gulf states" or "Persian Gulf Arab states" or "Arabic Persian Gulf states" or "Arab States of The Gulf", are terms that refer to the six Arab states of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, bordering the Persian Gulf....

Mandate Palestine

Of the late 1800s and early 1900s European

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

Jewish immigration to Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

, Norman Rose writes that secular "Zionist mores" were "often at odds with Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

convention, threatening the customs and moral assumptions that lent cohesion to a socially conservative, traditional Palestinian society." The active political role of the women of the Yishuv, and their lack of segregation, was judged as particularly offensive.

Sex segregation in mosques

It is claimed that Muhammad

Muhammad

Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

preferred women to pray at home rather than at a mosque, although this is disputed. According to one Hadith

Hadith

The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

, a supposed recounting of an encounter with Muhammad, he said:

I know that you women love to pray with me, but praying in your inner rooms is better for you than praying in your house, and praying in your house is better for you that praying in your courtyard, and praying in your courtyard is better for you than praying in your local mosque, and praying in your local mosque is better for you than praying in my mosque.

Muhammad is also recorded to have said: "The best places of prayer for women are the innermost apartments of their houses"

Despite the recommendation that women should pray at home, Muhammad did not forbid women from entering his mosque in Medina. In fact, he also told Muslims "not to prevent their women from going to mosque when they ask for permission".

It is recorded that Muhammad ordered that Mosques have separate doors for women and men so that men and women would not be obliged to go and come through the same door. He also commanded that men should pray in the first rows and women should pray behind men. He also commanded that after the Isha

Isha

* Hebrew word meaning "woman"* Isha'a, the Fard daily Salah prayers in Islam* A Sanskrit term for "God, deity", see Ishvara* A name meaning: deity; the ruling Goddess; the Lord, One who protects, Supreme.* Another name of Goddess Kali* An Indian given name...

evening prayer, women be allowed to leave the mosque first so that they would not have to mix with men.

After Muhammad's death, many of his followers began to forbid women under their control from going to the Mosque. Aisha bint Abubakr, the favorite wife of Muhammad, once said:

If the Prophet had lived now and if he saw what we see of women today, he would have forbidden women to go to the mosque even as the Children of Israel forbade their women.

The second caliph

Caliph

The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...

Umar also prohibited women from attending mosques especially at night because he feared they may be teased by males, so he required them to pray at home.

As Islam spread, it became unusual for women to worship in mosques because of male fear of immorality between sexes

Sometimes a special part of the mosque was railed off for women. For example, the governor of Mecca in 870 had ropes tied between the columns to make a separate place for women.

Many mosques today will put the women behind a barrier or partition or in another room against most Islamic beliefs. Mosques in South

South Asia

South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...

and Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

put men and women in separate rooms, as the divisions were built into them centuries ago. In nearly two-thirds of American mosques, women pray behind partitions or in separate areas, not in the main prayer hall; some mosques do not admit women at all due to the lack of space and the fact that some prayers, such as the Friday Jummah, are mandatory for men but optional for women. Although there are sections exclusively for women and children, the Grand Mosque

Masjid al-Haram

Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām is the largest mosque in the world. Located in the city of Mecca, it surrounds the Kaaba, the place which Muslims worldwide turn towards while performing daily prayers and is Islam's holiest place...

in Mecca

Mecca

Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...

is desegregated.

There is a growing women's movement led by figures(such as Asra Nomani) who protest against their second-class status and facilities.

Justifications for segregation, despite clear Islamic rules against this, include the need to avoid distraction during prayer, although the primary reason cited is that this was the tradition (sunnah) of worshipers in the time of Muhammad.

Sex segregation online

Muslim website developers have created websites that practice sex segregation of men and women. Such social networks enable users to interact with people of the same gender and restrict interaction with the opposite gender to a certain extent.

External links

QuranicPath | "Lower their Gaze" does not Mean to Avoid Eye-contact or to not Interact

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.