What is the position of women in the Qur’an when juxtaposed next to the Hadith? And here, I am not referring to Hadith from the Sihah Sitta (i.e. six most authentic sources of Hadith). Much of woes of Muslim women will be resolved if we follow the Qur’an rather than the Hadith that fall outside the Sihah Sitta.

I wish our Ulama reflect on the contrast between how the Qur’an treats women and how they are cast in the context of the Hadith. Women lost in the Hadith, what they had gained through the Qur’an. Today if the world thinks Islam treats women unfairly, it is because we follow the Hadith rather than the Qur’an, at least where women are concerned.

In the pre-Islamic period, women had a very low social status and Qur’an lifted them far above what anyone then would have expected - a reality our Ulama never tire of reminding the laity. But within a few decades of Qur’anic revelation, women returned to their pre-Islamic status in a fiercely male dominated society - a state of affairs legitmised by the Hadith.
 
Those who narrated the Hadith never thought for a moment how they were contradicting the Qur’an, convinced that the former served a social purpose. The Qur’an engendered ideals and values, but as society could not rise to that level, it dragged Islam to a suitable equlibrium, with the Hadith serving vested interests.

It was not easy to avoid the cultural values and customary practices found in non-Arab societies when people of these regions embraced Islam. The position of women in these regions was arguably no different from what it was in pre-Islamic Arabia. Separately, when one embraces a religion which originated outside that region, he/she cannot be expected to automatically caste away his/her own cultural values and social ethos.
 
It is a well-known fact that Islam spread far and wide much faster than the Shari’ah laws were compiled. In fact, various schools of thought (madahabs) came into existence in different regions where Islam had spread. Even before the Arabs could grasp the full significance of Islam and adjust their lives to new values and ideals, Islam had already spread to various parts of the world, right up to China even.

It is also interesting to note that various companions of the Prophet (PBUH) had also spread to these parts of the world and these very companions in many cases married local women and adopted the cultural values of the region. Being companions of the Prophet (PBUH), they were also sources of Islamic knowledge and those who converted to Islam would flock to them for guidance and hence, a number of Hadith were narrated by these companions relying on their memory and understanding.
 
The Qur’an was compiled during Prophet’s (PBUH) life-time and when some deviations from standard recitation were noticed (on account mainly of tribal dialects), Hazrat Uthman had wisdom to compile standard copy and destroyed all others and thus, the Qur’an was saved from textual fallacies. All other copies of the Qur’an were prepared from this copy.
 
The Hadith, on the other hand, were compiled two to three centuries after the death of the Holy Prophet and underwent much change with the passage of time. Although there was chain of narrators, there was every possibility of changes in text with different narrators, added to their differences in cognition and cultural background. Unfortunately for the Hadith tradition, the honesty and integrity of the narrators became the only criterion, rather than its conformity with the spirit of the Qur’an.
 
Also, there were those who did not hesitate to produce a Hadith to legitimise some action that benefited the powerful and influential. Thus, while there never arose any serious argument about the Qur’an’s authenticity, the same cannot be said of the Hadith.

In fact, many problems could have been avoided if the Hadith had not been internalized by such large numbers. It was for these very reasons the Prophet (PBUH) had discouraged any compilation of the Hadith. But the Hadith became a socio-cultural and socio-religious necessity given the vastly different circumstances affecting Muslims worldwide.
 
The pitfalls of an over-reliance on the Hadith resulted in the development of doctrines that even stood in contradiction to the Qu’ran. Many Shari’ah injunctions were developed on this basis. A litany of questions arose on whether a Hadith was da’if (weak) - whether it was narrated by only one or by several narrators or if its variations or whether those narrators were da’if and so on. In fact, large swaths of the Hadith literature is full of these controversies. Different sects relied on different Hadith to legitimise their positions and many controversies originated out of an excessive reliance on the Hadith tradition.

In fact, Hadiths were also used to lower women’s status as Qur’anic ideals and values in regard to women could not be accepted by societies which treated women as subordinate to men. Men in any case wanted to retain their preponderance and superiority. Most of the Qur’anic verses on women are not explained in the light of other Qur’anic verses (the only reliable methodology to understand real intent of the Qur’an), but in the light of Hadith which degrade women.

It is unfortunate that many of our Ulama are not prepared to critically evaluate Hadith which are patently in opposition to the spirit of the Qur’an. On the contrary, they keep on quoting unreliable Hadiths to keep status of women low. It is precisely for this reason that non-Muslims think very adversely about Islam and suggest that Islam has ‘suppressed’ the dignity and status of women.
 
The time has come for Muslim women to evaluate the Hadith literature critically and refute fatwas issued on the basis of misrepresented Hadith. We need great scholars of Islam among the women who can take independent positions. Where are such women?