In Muslim circles, oftentimes the conversation surrounding the role of men and the role of women centres around what one gender should do for the other. However, without having a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between men and women in Islam, it can leave room for oppression, misunderstanding, and/or one party not fulfilling their rights. Furthermore, with the increasing discussion in the public domain about gender role expectations, it becomes even more imperative that Muslims discuss the relationship between the sexes. We must look back at the Prophetic tradition to equip ourselves with this knowledge so that we can fulfil the rights of one another and live amongst one another harmoniously.
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Historically, women in almost every society were subjugated, oppressed and deemed inferior to men. The role of women oftentimes centred around fulfilling traditional gender role expectations. There was very little room for women in the public sphere and their role was often reduced to serving men. Allah (swt) makes it clear that both women and men were created to serve and worship Him.
“And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me.” [51:56]
Now, humans are social beings and because we are, we have relationships with others and this is why there are rights, responsibilities, and roles that both men and women have in relation to each other and in relation to how they deal with others (ie. parents, children, relatives, neighbours etc). In speaking about the relationship between men and women Allah (swt) frames the genders as partners rather than rivals. He states that “the believing men and believing women are allies of one another…” [9:71]. Both sexes are responsible for establishing a healthy family and a just society. Both are also equally rewarded for the good they do. Furthermore, our Creator tells us that He has given preferences to men in some situations and preferences to women in other situations so as to teach us not to want what Allah (swt) has given the other.
In the Quran, Allah mentions, “And do not wish for that by which has made some of you exceed others” [4:32]. In addition, we cannot discuss the relationship between men and women without discussing Surah an-Nisa, Verse 34. Often deemed a controversial verse by non-Muslims & Muslims alike Allah (swt) states that,

“men are in charge of women by rights of what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend for maintenance from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in the husband’s absence what Allah would have them guard…” [4:34]
In Arabic the word “qawam” is used, the role of qawam comes with a lot of responsibility. Allah (swt) has told men that they are the maintainers (provide for women from their wealth) and protectors of women. In Islam, every leader is required to be just. Whether you are a leader of a nation, a company or the head of a household. In the context of the family unit, men have been given a position of trust and they must honour that by remembering that Allah (swt) will question them on how they dealt with their family. Over and above that, the term qawam is not an unconditional statement of male authority and superiority over all women for all time. Nor does qawam mean that a woman is incapable of providing for herself.
Islam emphasizes through the Prophetic tradition that women have a right to be able to receive an education, to work, to buy, sell and own property, to enter into contracts, to initiate marriage, to choose a spouse, to initiate a divorce, to engage in civic life among many other things. It becomes clear upon reading the Quran that “women are seen as equal to men, but the degree to which that is honoured is largely cultural. While some cultures encourage men and women to take on the same roles, others promote a more traditional, less dominant role for the women.” [Global Connections]
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE
The husband-wife relationship is one of compassion, cooperation, and complementary roles. Allah purposely created the two genders for a reason. He designed us in such a way where we would have some shared similarities and also some differences. Allah also establishes that women and men are equal in worth but that they have distinct, though equally important roles. Men are required to take care of their family financially and because women give birth, their primary role is taking care of their children and family. Does this mean that a woman is stuck in the home? No, a woman can work, volunteer, be a board member, participate in civic life as long as her family life does not suffer at the expense of her job/other activities. This also means that although men are held responsible for financially providing for their family, their family has a right over them as well. They should not work excessively long hours and not spend quality time with their family. Men must remember that raising the children is not the sole responsibility of the woman. It is the responsibility of both the husband and wife, even if the woman may end up shouldering more of the responsibility.
A union built on both spouses recognizing the areas the other is better in and working together to build a stable family foundation is imperative to the overall success of the family.
However, some in our society may deem this outlook disadvantageous to women as they may perceive it to be falling in line with the traditional gender roles of the sexes. Those of us living in the Western world are living in societies that are pushing this agenda that there should be no gender distinctions and that the genders are the same. Many believe that gender roles should cease to exist because these roles are socially constructed and have very little biological basis. I would argue that although from a young age, boys and girls are shown images of appropriate male and female behaviour, that gender roles themselves are not the issue; the issue is when people in a relationship stick rigidly to gender roles without allowing for room to determine their own roles for themselves. Marriage is about cooperation after all. In regards to the argument that gender roles do not have a biological basis, I would argue that various studies have shown that men and women are biologically different. Gender roles serve as a framework for how men and women should dress, behave, etc. It’s not bad in its entirety, but it can become a tool of oppression when one person limits the freedom of another on the basis of subscribing to a gender role.
As Muslims, we must recognise the ways in which our upbringing and experiences shape how we view the relationship between the sexes. We must also look at ourselves and see the ways our views and outlook differ from the Prophetic tradition on this matter. Allah has given us the formula to follow and to navigate the relationship between a husband and wife. By understanding the rights, responsibilities and roles of men and women in the family unit it can lead to more cooperation and understanding.

4. Islam and gender

The discourse on sex and gender in the Muslim world is not an easy thing to describe. It should be borne in mind that there is not one discourse, and that they do not define actual relations. Besides, discourses are neither stable over time nor undisputed. In this section, I compare two discourses on gender and sexuality, firstly the orthodox discourse (Sabbah 1984), comparable to what Mernissi calls the explicit theory of female sexuality (1975), and secondly, the implicit theory and its extension into the erotic discourse. I particularly deal with the way the female body is constructed in these discourses.
In the explicit religious discourse the sexes are perceived as complementary. Men are providers for women and in exchange for support, women should be obedient and serve their husbands. They should keep their virginity and after marriage, loyalty, chastity and complete dedication to their husbands are prerequisite for securing maintenance. Women are seen as weak and as easily overpowered by men. They therefore need protection against the strong desires of men. In the orthodox discourse women are not perceived as lacking in passion, although it is less intense as men's, but they are not capable of resisting men.
Male desire is conceived as strong and capricious. Yet, it must be gratified in the legal context of marriage lest zina', illicit intercourse, takes place (Mernissi 1975: 17). Classic Islam defines the wifely duties in terms of women's obligation to provide sex over and above their obligation to reproduce and mother (2). Women cannot refuse to perform the conjugal duty (Naamane-Guessous 1990: 194) (3). They should fulfill this duty so as to prevent men from committing illicit intercourse. Yet, this also protects themselves against their husbands marrying a second wife. Only women who know how to please their husbands are capable of assuring their attention and support.
The powerlessness of women can potentially be inverted if they manage to seduce and ensnare men. Orthodox scholars acknowledge this danger and since men are primarily created to worship God, they warn against female seduction and particularly against attachment to women. God requires the believer's total love and all of his capacity for emotional attachment: "Emotional attachment divides man's heart, and Allah hath not created man with two hearts within his body" (Quran Surah II: 165).
Mernissi argues that implicitly in the religious discourse women are feared for their disruptive potentials. Women are capable of creating fitna (4) chaos provoked by sexual disorder (Mernissi 1975: 4). According to the implicit religious discourse, both sexes have an active sexual nature and female desires should be gratified as well. If women are not sexually satisfied they create fitna by enticing other men than their husbands. Hence: "The virtue of the woman is a man's duty. And the man should increase or decrease sexual intercourse with the woman according to her needs so as to secure her virtue" (al-Ghazali in Mernissi 1975).
The need to satisfy the female desire and the difficulties men have in fulfilling this duty is the topic of the erotic discourse (Sabbah 1984). The erotic discourse is an extension of the implicit theory and deals with female desireas mirrored in men's thought. It is an attempt by religious scholars to counsel the believer in the righteous conduct towards sexual desire. The orthodox discourse mainly focusses on the strong male desire, the implicit theory recognizes the active sexuality of both sexes, and the erotic discourse is chiefly centered on the aggressive nature of female passion. Female desire is active in the implicit theory, but it becomes aggressive and threatening in the erotic discourse. In the erotic discourse there is thus a reversal of roles. Men are impotent and weak whereas women's passion is insatiable. They resort to cunning, qaid, in order to reach their sexual gratification. Yet, despite the difference between these constructions of gender and sexuality, it is striking that they converge in their definition of women as primarily sexual beings. The female body is highly sexualised. Whether the female body should be confined and covered, or unleashes its aggressive sexuality, in both cases the sexual aspect of the female body is cardinal (5). Women cannot refuse to perform the conjugal duty (Naamane-Guessous 1990: 194) Whether women passively try to keep their legal husband's attention through being desirable or actively seduce other men, in both cases their sexual dimension is central. In both discourses the female body is reduced to the sexual aspects.
According to Leila Ahmed (1992), who traces the changes and varieties of discourses in the history of Middle Eastern Arabic women, it was in the Abbasid era that the word woman became almost synonymous to slave and object for sexual use. Marketing of women as commodities and objects for sexual use was an everyday reality in Abbasid society. It is no wonder that Muslim scholars of that period, such as al-Ghazali, mainly define women as sexual beings. This period was however constitutive for the formulation of Islamic law and thus had a profound impact up till today.
Sabbah argues that: "Muslim culture has a built-in ideological blindness to the economic dimension of women, who are ordinarily perceived, conceived and defined as exclusively sexual objects. The female body has traditionally been the object of an enormous erotic investment, which has clouded (if not totally hidden) woman's economic dimensions" (1984: 16-17). In addition, it has led to the general eroticization of relations between the sexes. As a result of this, working outside the home by women is often experienced as erotic aggression.
Women are thus generally viewed as sexual beings. Whatever women do, they are first and foremost perceived as enticing bodies. They and their bodies seem to have only a sexual dimension. Working in the male public space is generally perceived as an erotic invasion. The male body, although sexual in the presence of a female body, has several dimensions, for instance, in the economic or political field. Women, in contrast, even if they do not move and dance, but simply walk or work in the male space, are perceived as sexual beings. Even if they use their bodies as productive instruments, they are perceived as sexual bodies.
This construction of gender and the body pertains to all Egyptian women. Female entertainers differ from "decent" women because they publicly use their bodies instead of hiding their shame as much as possible. They publicly employ the power of their bodies. Instead of using their feminine powers in the licit context of marriage, they tempt male customers in public. They thus employ the sexuality of their bodies out of wedlock which is a grave sin.
Entertainment is a particular sensitive field to work in for women because the body is focal. Female performances are inevitably tantalizing. As mentioned above, in strict religious opinion, female singers are also haram.. Listening to the voice of women can evoke tempting images. Especially since female singers are not only audible but also visible, the bodily dimension of their performance has become more prominent. Dancing, however, is quintessential a bodily expression. Dancing is thus by definition a sexual activity. Unlike, for instance, actresses, dancers not only put their sexuality on stage but they even move their sexual bodies. Moving sexual bodies in public, in exchange for money, is almost identical to prostitution.
I had an interesting interview with a sheikh of a small mosque. I asked him whether female folk dancers, who are fully dressed unlike belly dancers, are less haram, he resolutely replied: "no, they also move." I then asked him why male dancing is not haram. The answer was easy: "A man's body is not shameful," and regardless of how it moves and shakes, "it cannot excite." Although this seems to be an exaggerated denial of the sexual dimension of the male body, it illustrates the stress that is put on the productive dimension of the male body. A dancing male body is performing a job, a dancing female body is moving sexual instincts.
In how far is this discourse about seduction, sin and shame shared by the ones most involved, that is, female performers?