1976-May-14

Bilalian News

The Man And The Woman In Islamic Society: Part 2

W.D. Muhammad

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful; Peace and Blessings upon His Servant and His Messenger, Muhammad, forever. Amen. There is no god but Allah: Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The False Start

It is a habit of the Western world to have a big wedding celebration and to shower the newly married couple with gifts. This practice is not good for society. It gives the husband and the wife a false start in life. Life is not a shower of gifts, so why start out like this? It makes the man think that whenever he needs help from the society, society is going to shower gifts down upon him and his wife. In Islam, the couple that is getting married is supposed to give gifts to the guests that come to witness the wedding. If the couple is poor, they just give some sweets to each person who comes to witness the ceremony. If they have more money, they give more expensive sweets, or maybe a little token gift.

In Western society, we fool the couple by making them think that life is a big shower of gifts. If the man gets into this kind of thinking, pretty soon, after the honeymoon is over, he is asking someone to loan him enough money to pay his rent or to pay his car note. Brother and sister, we should not start our marriages like this.

The Requirement Of Financial Strength

A unique characteristic of the Muslim marriage ceremony is that the man is obligated to show that he is qualified to take on a wife by presenting a dowry. If he is not able to present a dowry, the person who is giving the bride's hand to him in marriage can refuse him because he is not ready for marriage. This practice forces those who want to get married to build up some kind of financial strength before they go into marriage. If you go into family life without a penny in your pocket, what is going to happen to your children? What kind of future are you going to be able to give them? What kind of future are we giving the generations to come if we are letting people get married with no thought of how they are going to provide for the children? These practices are the practices of the bad society in which we live. We have to remake this world.

The "Single Person"

The man in Islam should see his own self and his role in the building of the community and in the making of the new world. The Holy Quran says that mankind (society) grew from two beings of like nature (the male and the female) who were created by God from a single person. Some translate the verse to say, "male" and "female", as a physical man and woman or as a physical husband and wife. Others translate it to mean something relating to the concept of the male and female or the husband and wife, but not exactly those kinds of figures.

Arabic grammar renders the word that is translated as "person" to be feminine, not masculine. If the one "single person" is talking about the physical man, it should not be feminine in gender, it should be masculine. According to the language of the Holy Quran, Adam or the person that was first created was not masculine, but feminine. So, this scripture could not be talking about physical people. It is talking about something else of greater importance.

"All Life Comes Up Out Of The Earth"

The creation of the human being starts from a self in man (mind) that has the nature of a womb. This womb then produces another life, and the second life is described as masculine in gender because it rules over the first life as the man in the man in the society dominates the society. The society is seen as a female unite when it is first born. We are not talking about the creation of a physical body. You do not have to go to the scriptures of religion, like the Holy Quran or the Bible, for the creation of the physical human body. You can go to science for that information.

The creation of the physical body is like the creation of any other physical body (animal or plant-life) from the earth. The Honorable Master Elijah Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said that all life comes up out of the earth. He was telling us something then that was very significant, but most of us could not get it because our eyes were not open wide enough. He was trying to take our minds off of the physical person by telling us that all life comes out of the earth. He was telling us not to worry about how we came physically because we did not come by any different means than horses, trees or anything else.

Man: The Supreme Instrument

In the evolution or the progress of man's growth, he has developed such a unique physical composition that he is able to be an instrument that plays a fine kind of "music." Some instruments can only play crude music, but other instruments, because they are more finely tuned and more complex in their design, can play sophisticated, refined music. In the physical creation, the human being was finely evolved physically to be that kind of complex instrument. By complex, we mean that it is an instrument having many parts put together in such a way that when it is looked at and studied, it challenges the mind to understand it. It is multiple in its composition.

It is many sided and there are so many things in its makeup. The scientists of the world who make machines always say that the most wondrous machine is the human machine. They admit that they could never produce anything like the human being. Because the human being has evolved in such a complex form with so many delicate and intricate parts and natures, it serves as a fine supreme instrument. This supreme instrument is able to give off sounds and expressions that are higher, more sophisticated and more valuable than the sounds or expressions that come from any other physical object.

In the physical creation of man, we see a supreme manifestation of physical evolution and physical progress. But, this physical form is not anymore a creation than the creation of plants or animals-they all come from the earth.

The Thinking Form Of Man

Out of the physical human environment of the male and the female (husband and wife) comes a society or the social life. The first human society is almost no different from the animal society. That is why scientist describe the human being as belonging to the animal kingdom. The first form of society is a society that is moved by the five senses or the animal instincts: the desire to get food, clothing and protection from bad weather; the desire to be protected from the harshness of the environment; the desire to have a mate; and the desire to produce offspring. Animals have all of these desires.

The human community does not really start to come into existence until an intelligence creation occurs among the physical male and female. When the man's intelligence manifests itself and he begins to see his intelligence as superior over his environment of physical things, he then begins to translate and transform the things that he sees in the physical world. He translates the physical body of a man into something else. He says, "Yes, this physical body of mine looks like the form of an animal, but there is something inside me that makes me higher than an animal." He has now developed the homo-sapien nature. "Homo" means man and "sapien" means wise or thinking.

He is then a thinking man. It is the thinking nature that elevates the human creature above the ordinary creature. Once the idea is discovered that there is in the human being a thinking form that gives it superiority over other creations, we have the mate for the first form of society or the second creation.

First Society: The "Woman"

First there is the society that only has the nature of a womb, which is symbolized as the woman. Then that womb gives birth to intelligence. Once intelligence is discovered and seen to be superior to the physical natural world, we have the second form of society symbolized by the man. The society is like a female womb when it begins because there is no true leadership over it, there is no head over it, and there is nobody responsible for it. Society, in a animal sense, is just a loose society of people who have no organization or head over them. They are like a female because, in her* physiological nature, she is not a head or a ruler. Her nature is the nature of the womb. She is not looking to be a leader nor is she trying to organize the community. She, like society in its first stage development, is satisfied with the honored position to give birth and to raise healthy children.

Second Society: The "Man"

Once the intelligence nature is manifested in the human being, the intelligence feels that it has a unique destiny, a special future and a job in the society. It takes on the characteristics of the male: the responsibility to guard the society, to correct the society and to punish the society if necessary. So, first there is the form that is the one kind of self in a society that is by description female. The Holy Quran says, "And He created from it, its mate." This means that from the sense (flesh) power or instinctive life, a mate was created for the society that is the thinking intelligent life. To the society that is moved by instinct and by the five senses, the intelligent thinking life functions as a husband does to a wife.

Any man who feels that he has the power of intelligence also feels that he is responsible for the members in his society that do not have the power of intelligence and who are ruled only by the powers of the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and feeling. There are some people who just live by these powers alone. They only trust what their feelings or their senses tell them. They do not have enough intelligence to trust what their intelligence tells them. A society with this characteristic is called a female society and it is the first form in the growth and development of human society. The intelligent thinking society that trusts knowledge is called the male. It develops second and it rules over the female (sense) society.

Man: The "Legs" Of Society

The role of man in Islamic society is the role of a leader or of a responsible head to the society. The name for the man in Arabic is a play on the word which means "legs." If the whole human body is seen as the society, the legs are the supports for the body. If you want to get up from the ground, the legs lift you up. If you want to transport the body, the legs transport it. The legs do this automatically and without a conscious awareness of what they are doing. The legs are so much in tune with the mind that they can act out the will of the mind without the mind having to explain or defend its position. This is the role or the position of the man in our society. He is to support the society, he is to lift up the society when it needs to rise and he is to transport it or move it ahead when it has to move ahead.

The man is supposed to do this in response to only one leadership (one head). Your leg is not going to answer someone else outside of your body. Your legs will not carry you or anybody else until something happens in your body to make them move. They respond only to your head-the leadership that is in your body. There are certain things that the man in a society must learn to do without thinking because he knows that they are right. If he should be walking out of a door and see a sister fall, he should not have to think-he should grab the sister if he can keep her from falling to the floor. If he sees a child about to run in front of a car, he should not have to think-he should grab the child to hold it back from injury. AH men in their basic nature are the-"legs" or the support for the society.

The Strength Of The Woman

You will find this nature of support in women too. The society has so grown and so developed because of influences that affect the society. The thing that really influences the design or the type of personalities that are in the male and the female more than anything else is the sex nature. The sex nature in the woman holds her to the home which is her world. She has to stay there to take care of the first development of society, which is to produce new tender roots (children) for the society.

That particular design in her forces her to spend most of her time at home. The man is free from that kind of tie to the home environment. He can go away because he does not have to stay at home and nurse babies. In going away from the home, the man learns the outer world. Because he has learned that the outer world holds many dangers and pitfalls, he has taken it upon himself to defend the home from these dangers and pitfalls since he is the one who discovered them and he is the one who knows them.

The particular muscles of human strength that are used by the man or the woman will be stronger than their other muscles. The woman has been forced by nature to use certain muscles and nature has forced the man to use certain muscles. The woman is stronger than the man in the home. How many men can stay in the home with children like the woman can? Nature has developed a muscle for the home environment. The same principle has worked to develop in the man a nature that is stronger then the woman's for the world environment. So, again, we see that the man is naturally the "legs" of the society.

Lack Of Respect

In an Islamic society if a man does not have knowledge, he is not punished for his lack of respect for the values in the society or for society's offices, powers or positions. He is just put away-not as a punishment, but he is put away because he is not able to go about free in the society. In Islam, only those who have control of their faculties are held accountable for adhering to the law. Those who do not have control of their faculties are put where they can receive mental care. Those who do not have control of their mental properties do not have to donate as the other believers donate and they do not have to perform other duties required by the society.

They can just come and go as long as they do not disturb the order of the society. But, if they act in such a manner that they cannot be allowed freedom in the society because of the danger that they pose for the society, they are removed from the general society for medical treatment. The living men in the society are the men who have control of their mental faculties. If you are in control of your mental faculties, you come under the rule of law and you have to be punished for not respecting the rules and order of the society.

Intelligence Dictates Respect

Intelligence dictates respect in a man's body. You cannot be an intelligent being and not have respect. You know in yourself that if you do not respect your intelligence power, your kingdom is going to go down in ruin. So, intelligence in the body automatically brings about respect. You begin to learn respect when you begin to respect your own intelligence. You begin to obey that intelligence because you know that if you do not you are going to be out of doors, out of a job, in jail or dead.

A man should be concerned about the order of his intelligence and he should want to keep his thinking mind operating in a healthy manner. Once he loses his thinking mind, there is no telling what may happen to him. He respects it, he tries to keep it in the right order and he obeys the intelligent thoughts that come to him. He listens to them and he submits to his intelligence. If you have ever been on a high hill or a tall building, you know that sometimes you get an urge to jump, but you obey your intelligence.

You do not obey the urge, you obey the intelligent voice that warns you of the danger to your physical body if you jump. It is your intelligence that gets your senses together. Your senses respect the intelligence in your body. If that kind of respect is already in your individual nature, why can't you respect intelligence outside of your physical body in your society? You are going against nature when you disrespect a superior intelligence outside of your physical body that is working for the good of your total world as much as your own intelligence that is operating in your physical body.

Your brother,
W.D. Muhammad