The modern employment of women's verses and its problems

The modern employment of women's mechanisms and their issues Jamal Al-Banna Models Authored by Dr. Kifah Kamel Abu Hanoud Volume 475 pages, white paper This book was published by Dar Al-Farouq in Amman and Dar Ibn Hazm in Beirut, in the year 1433 AH, 2012 AD. It is authored by Dr. Kifah Kamel Abu Hanoud, and the book spans 475 pages. It was originally a doctoral thesis submitted to the International Islamic University Malaysia in 2011. The book addresses a very important contemporary issue from two perspectives: it deals with the issue of women, and it deals with the issue of modernity. These two issues are products of secularism and have no relation to Islam at all. However, due to the secular media and cultural invasion of our nation, such issues are being imposed on our agenda. The researcher began her first chapter by discussing the concept of modernity, its history, and its cultural features. She concluded that modernity is "an intellectual current with philosophical concepts based on rejecting the past as heritage, values, and principles, to build a new reference framework based on reason and the sanctification of humans in the modernization process it adopts, with a strong focus on individual subjectivity and utilitarian values." Then, in the same chapter, she discussed the features of the modernists' approach in interpreting the Quran. The researcher pointed out that the modernists' interest in the Holy Quran does not stem from faith in it and its sanctification as among believers, but rather from the fact that the Quran is one of the main obstacles to the modernist project because of its centrality in the consciousness of the nation. Therefore, they have worked to demolish and distort it, similar to the Western experience of emerging from periods of decline. Dr. Abu Hanoud reviewed the mechanisms they used to eliminate the authority of the Quranic text and refuted them clearly and simply. The goal behind all this is to make understanding the Quranic text from outside it, not from within it, which results in destroying the fundamental doctrinal bases of Islam, canceling Islamic rulings, eradicating Islamic heritage, and distorting Islamic history. The first chapter concluded with a review of the personality of Jamal Al-Banna, the focus of the study. Jamal Al-Banna's stature does not come from the intellectual value of his religious output as much as from the poor quality of that output. More importantly, he is the younger brother of Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the reason for the secular liberal media's celebration of him, despite the fact that Jamal Al-Banna did not accept his brother's ideology and declared this during his lifetime. The researcher managed to form a good picture of Jamal Al-Banna's broad cultural background, as he built himself through reading. He would read an Arabic book every day and a Western book every two or three days over his 90 years! However, most of this reading was of Western writings, and his collection of Islamic books was small. His public activity was mainly in the labor union field due to his deep and early readings of the socialist experience. As a result, he succeeded in offering new and useful contributions in that domain. But when he engaged with Islamic issues, his shortcomings, incapacity, and deviation became apparent. Jamal Al-Banna's first Islamic writings came after 25 years of work and authorship in the socialist, labor, and liberal thought fields, without any preamble. In 1972, he published his book "The Spirit of Islam," and ten years later, he published "The Two Great Origins." Some justify this transformation by the emergence of an academic generation in the labor sector that displaced Jamal Al-Banna, and by the spread and expansion of Islamic thought during Sadat's era, which was exploited by enemies to strike at the Islamic project because of his deep roots in the Brotherhood! In the second chapter, the researcher discussed Jamal Al-Banna's approach in interpreting the verses related to women. She began by examining the Quranic view of women within the human and social order, and their functional role as explained by the Quran. Then, she presented the intellectual premises on which Al-Banna based his interpretations, refuting them. These premises include: attributing the formation of Quranic concepts to historical factors, calling for the abandonment of tafsir books and Quranic sciences, rejecting the linguistic methodology in tafsir. It is clear that these false premises would lead to disastrous results. Next, the researcher discussed and critiqued Al-Banna's foundations in tafsir: reliance on objective understanding and not interpreting verse by verse; the role of reason, with Al-Banna stating, "We are before the Quranic text itself, and we must think; it is not permissible to be deaf and blind before it, for the reason for which the Quran issued a ruling may have disappeared, and thus there is no justification for applying it." The fourth foundation is the system of values that can be used to derive rulings, such as justice, unlike piety. Based on this, Al-Banna rejects divorce unless it is public, like a marriage contract! The fifth foundation is custom, but he makes custom a ruling over the Quranic text, not a complement to it! The sixth is the employment of the miraculous meaning, and finally, the Sunnah, which he considers only the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم applications witnessed by the companions; his sayings and reported approvals are rejected! According to this, Al-Banna's view is that jurists and tafsir scholars are primarily responsible for the current state of Muslim women, and that the solution is to exclude the opinions of jurists and interpreters and return directly to the Quran. His rulings regarding women are from the section of Sharia in the Quran that is open to growth and development, unlike the fixed verses of creed — which, in his view, are limited to faith in Allah and the Last Day only! Following this flawed methodology, the researcher begins to present practical examples of Al-Banna's modernist understanding of the verses about women, and discusses them: 1 – Verses of clothing and adornment: According to him, there is no evidence for covering the head, and showing adornment is permissible; revealing adornment and dressing immodestly is vulgarity, so modesty is required, not hijab! 2 – Verses of marriage: Al-Banna considers marriage a human invention supported by the Quran, but he criticizes the Islamic controls on the relationship between men and women, considering them a main cause of marital failures! He believes that requiring a guardian for women in marriage is insulting and marginalizes women from society. As for the qiwama (guardianship) of the man over the woman, he sees it was linked to financial support, but now, with women being productive and financially independent, there is no place for qiwama in our world. Divorce, in his view, should not remain in men's hands but should be public, with the woman and witnesses present. 3 – Verses on plural wives: He considers them a temporary phase to restrict open polygamy, but now we have reached a stage of banning plural wives and limiting to one wife only. 4 – Verses of equality: Al-Banna believes that the verses of equality came with full equality between men and women as a pioneering liberating step, but since the era of the caliphs, this has been reversed by scholars and the Salafi perspective. 5 – Relationship between genders before marriage: Al-Banna promotes the idea that practices between young men and women before marriage — less than adultery — are acts of minor sins that can be forgiven by good deeds. 6 – Temporary marriage (Mut’ah): Al-Banna permits temporary marriage, citing the difficult circumstances of youth today. 7 – Women’s inheritance: He considers the fixed division of inheritance in the Quran no longer just today, after women have entered the labor market and financial support is no longer the man's responsibility. Therefore, he calls for amending the Quranic text to achieve justice! 8 – Women’s imamate (leadership) of men: He bases this on the criterion that leadership is based on competence, piety, and knowledge of the Quran, not gender! The third chapter of the book is dedicated to a systematic and moral evaluation of Al-Banna's approach. It demonstrates his deviation from the correct scientific methodology in interpreting the Quran. Instead of letting the Quran and Sharia govern reality, he made reality judge the Quran and the Sharia. He was not honest in transmitting the words of scholars and facts; he makes generalizations without comprehensive investigation and lets personal bias influence his choices. Therefore, Al-Banna falls into confusion and contradiction. For example, he does not see women’s hair as part of awrah (intimate parts) and allows it to be uncovered, then he later insists it must be covered when leading men in prayer! In fact, most of the issues he raises are imitations of secularists who preceded him, such as Qasim Amin and Nasr Abu Zayd! Regarding the moral evaluation of Al-Banna’s vision, the researcher notes that the secular modernist goal behind all this distortion of women’s verses is to promote the Western secular view of women, which is corrupt and based on pleasure alone. This view is exploited in commercial activities in a vulgar sexual manner. In conclusion: the book features deep intellectual content, comprehensive coverage of the topic, clear language, and smooth organization of topics and chapters. It is a genuine addition to the Islamic and Arab library.