The Situation of Women in the Second Message
The Second Message of Islam lifts women to an equal status with men in all fields. But the field in which the effect of this advancement of women is paramount is the field of marriage laws. Here the Second Message of Islam redefines marriage, on the legal plane, as a contract between two equal partners, entered upon by their own free will, with equal rights for both partners for equivalent duties, and dissolved, should the need arise, by agreement between them.
Spelled out, this means that there is no longer any guardian who signs the marriage contract on behalf of the bride. Instead, the bride signs for herself. Also the right of divorce will be equally shared by the couple and can be used by either in a specified manner which involves the mediation of two arbiters, one representing the husband and the other representing the wife. In this way any effort to share up the marriage relation about to break will not be spared, and at the same time the private affairs of the couple will not be disclosed before a large audience which is not the case now when divorce takes place before a court.
Furthermore, polygamy, which meant in the First Message that a husband can marry up to four wives with the proviso that he should be equally just to all of them, will, in the Second Message, be strictly prohibited, except in very rare circumstances, and under certain specified conditions such as the case of a barren woman, or the case of an ill wife who can not perform conjugal duties.
These are some of the legal implications from the Medinese to the Meccan level. But another dimension of marriage which is greatly affected by the impact of the Second Message of Islam is the one which concerns the institution of marriage, under assault everywhere, its functions and the great role it plays in the enhancement of every individual’s happiness, freedom and spiritual development.
According to the Second Message of Islam, marriage is no longer thought of as a union between a pair primarily entered upon for the sake of reproduction in order to propagate and preserve the human race while sexual gratification comes in only as a means to facilitate the performance of the this function. This outdated concept of marriage is, of course, a remnant of the days when man was not considered as an end in himself, but rather a means to other ends.
Now, the Second Message of Islam accords marriage the highest place of honor amongst human relations, and redefines it in a way which makes it a most important means for the rediscovery of our best selves. How this redefinition of marriage is effected, we do not propose to enter upon here. But, suffice it to say, in this context that the primary function of marriage is now thought of to lie in the deepening and broadening of life in a way which produces direct communion with Allah, or say with the source of genuine and certain knowledge which helps the individual in his fight against fear, his biggest enemy, and in his search for perfection. Of course, there are secondary and tertiary functions of marriage which, for the sake of brevity, we are going to omit.
But for marriage to perform such functions, it must be entered upon by individuals who have attained a certain degree of spiritual development and mental maturity. This brings us to a very important and integral part of the Second Message of Islam, namely the individual method with which it equips everyone to rebuild and remold his character in order to develop his total personality and attain absolute individual freedom. But the greatest enemy of freedom is fear. So, we are going to let the question of marriage, its meaning and its laws, rest here and proceed, instead, to discuss the problem of man and fear before proceeding to discuss the concept of absolute individual freedom and the individual method for attaining it.
