Masculine and Feminine

Question:-

It is claimed that much of the condition and affairs of a society can be explained by what they worship. The Pagan religions were based on Nature worship, and therefore, on Mother Earth and Goddesses. When Christianity came it replaced, through a struggle and persecution this with a male God, the Father in Heaven, thereby changing the whole culture and the direction of development of civilisation. How does Islam fit into this scheme?

Answer:-

Though there is some truth in what you say, it is not wholly true. Paganism certainly also had male gods and there was worship of female saints in Christianity, especially of Mary, mother of Jesus, who, because Jesus was regarded as a god, was called "Mother of God".

It is true that what human beings worship provides the values they pursue and determines the conscious efforts they make and therefore, how they modify themselves, the society and the physical environment. In order that their energies be channelled into the most useful directions and the community should reach the highest level of development, it is necessary that the correct goals should be clearly understood. The greater the distortion the further will be the community away from the correct goal. From this point of view consider what the majority worship today, who their heroes are - the film and pop stars, sport personalities, people called celebrities who tend to be morally bankrupt or depraved and have a negative developmental effect on society, specially impressionable young people. That which people worship, idolise and pursue in reality, rather than what they say or suppose they are doing traps or frees them.

Ever since human beings became conscious, there has always been a difference between heaven which represents the ideal and perfect, the spiritual and transcendental, the destination man strives for and earth which represents the actual, the physical, the limited and imperfect. Heaven is the source from which the fertilising or vitalising power descends, e.g. the light and energy into the earth which is the receptacle and gives form. Therefore, heaven is male relative to the earth which is female. This is referred to in the Quran as follows:-

"And among His signs is this, that you see the earth barren and desolate, but when We send down on it the rain, it stirs to life and swells into growth: verily He Who gives it life is the Quickener of the dead; surely He has power over all things." 41:39

See also 6:100, 57:20

The male is represented as a rod and the female as the receptacle or cup. They are also represented as the vertical line and horizontal line respectively, forming the cross which represents both the human and the struggle within him between the spiritual and the physical and his duty to reconcile the two and learn. The male is also represented by a triangle with the apex pointing up while the female is represented by a triangle with the base upwards. The two together form the Star of David. In Islam the Star within the declining crescent moon also represents this struggle.

The distinction between Heaven and earth is also the difference between Consciousness and Matter or body and its mechanicalness. But the combination of the two produces a third factor that can be identified with energy, behaviour, life or mind. This can be regarded as the "Son" of the other two. Within the mind, however, the same distinction also exists depending on which factor is dominant. Religion can be regarded as all that which the mind deals with. It too, has a heavenly and an earthly aspect. The heavenly aspect is the spiritual aspect concerned with Gnosis, that which has been called the Inner Mystery and remains Esoteric. The earthly aspect is the Exoteric, concerned with the organisation, law and dogma, with forms rather than perception and understanding. However, some particles of spiritual teachings do enter the worldly life from time to time and are interpreted within its conceptual framework and this constitutes the Mesoteric aspect of Religion which can be regarded as responsible for the advance of culture and civilisation. The Gnostic aspect has the following interdependent characteristics:- (1) The purpose of the religious discipline is human spiritual development, the return to one's fundamental origin and source rather than conventional notions of worship. (2) An emphasis on knowledge by direct conscious experience rather than logical, verbal or intellectual thinking. (3) Unimportance of dogmatism, ritualism and institutions, though these can be means rather than ends. (4) It is correct understanding, motive and practical demonstrations that count rather than principles. (5) The symbolic or psychological interpretation of scriptures. (6) Emphasis on self-knowledge - He who knows himself knows God in accordance with the idea that the Spirit of God is man (Quran 32:9)

It should be noted the Quran contains both the literal legal aspect of Religion, the Exoteric also known as the Shariat and the spiritual, allegorical aspect that informs the Esoteric stream or Haqiqat. (Quran 3:7) It also has the Mesoteric aspect that is often quoted and expounded in Islamic literature particularly by the Saints and other learned men and attributed to the Tariqat. Note that the Quran mentions three sources of knowledge: (1) Verbal Reasoning - the Lore of Certainty (Quran 102:5) (2)Experience - the Eye of certainty (Quran 102:7 (3) Gnosis - the Truth of Certainty (Quran 69:51).

Many of the Pagan, polytheistic religions are connected with the Religions of Ancient Egypt and India. In Egypt, though religious ideas underwent change and diversification over hundreds of years, one way of looking at it as follows:- There was a supreme God called variously, Ra, Amun or Aton, who had or created, among others the male god Osiris, represented by the sun who reigned during the day, and a female goddess Isis, represented by the moon which reigned at night. These two had a son, Horus, also called Mercury or Thoth, the bringer of civilisation and enlightenment. In other cultures these gods and goddesses reappear as Dioysus, Attis, Adonis, Athena, Venus, Ishtar, Mithra and other names with a similar mythology. The Pharoahs who reigned over Egypt were regarded as incarnations of Horus. We have a Trinity here which was also taken over and adapted by Christianity. The icon of Isis with child Horus in her arms and the disc of the sun, representing Osiris behind them became Mary, representing the Holy Spirit, with the child Jesus, the Son in her arms and the disc of the Sun behind them representing the Father. In some Gnostic systems the Holy Spirit is identified with Sophia (wisdom) and regarded as the feminine aspect of God.

Under the Roman Emperor Constantine, himself a worshipper of the Sun God Mithra, as were his military officers, who wanted to unite his empire under a single doctrine and stop the conflict between the Pagans and the growing number of Christians, Christianity incorporated much the Pagan doctrines, myths and practices, including the idea of the death and resurrection of their god, and the celebration of Christmas and Easter. It is true that the sun provides all the energy, the light and heat that controls things on earth and that the cycles of Day and Night and the changes of the Seasons, Winter and spring are connected with the apparent dying and resurrection of the sun. This, however, appears to have been understood at a higher level among the Priests that guarded the Inner Mysteries, as symbolising a more general process that could be adapted to human evolution. In contrast, the Quran tells us that Abraham discovered that the Real God transcends the Sun (Quran 6:76-80).

Under Constantine the present New Testament was compiled by a small selection of books from a great number that suited the newly centralised organised Church. All other gospels were excluded and destroyed or repressed and people who adhered to them were excluded from the Church, such as the followers of Bishop Arius who did not believe in the Trinity or the Divinity of Jesus but understood the phrase "son of God" as symbolic so that those who obeyed God (Matthew 7:21-23) and followed the instructions Jesus brought from God could become, like him, also children of God (John 1:12). This important idea was lost in favour of a Jesus cult. In particular Gnostics were pronounced heretics and persecuted and they went "underground" becoming secret societies. The foundations of present day Christianity were laid by Paul who departed from the Hebrew Law despite Jesus affirming it (Matthew 5:17-18) and by Eusebus, Irenaeus and Tertullian. However, it seems true from the fragments of numerous apocryphal gospels and early Christian documents, recently discovered near the Dead Sea and Nag Hamadi, that the ideas in these books are usually incompatible with the doctrines created by the Church on the basis of the canonical gospels. Christian Gnosticism can be regarded as the continuation of the Pagan Inner Mysteries, and Islamic Sufism can be regarded as a continuation of this. There is a connection between these and the hidden spiritual aspect of the other religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism and this constitutes the Esoteric Stream.

In Islam God is not like any created thing, but He is the creator of the male and female, and these are part of and symbolise a more general concept of the pair that can be found throughout nature, of active/passive, positive/negative, matter/antimatter, electon/positron, electro-positive/electro-negative elements and so on. They are co-operative complimentary pairs, not conflicting ones. Men and women can be regarded as various combinations of the masculine and feminine principles and characteristics.

"And that He it is Who causes death and gives life; and that He created the pairs, the male and the female." 53:44-45

"Glory be to Him Who created pairs of all things, of what the earth grows, and of their kind and of what they know not." 36:35

"And He created you in pairs? And made your sleep for rest? And made the night to be a covering? And made the day for livelihood and activity? " 78:8-11

"The Originator of the heavens and the earth, He made pairs for you from among yourselves, and pairs of the cattle too, multiplying you thereby. There is no thing like unto Him; and He is the Hearer, the Seer." 42:11

Also see 13:3, 39:6, 43:12, 35:11, 22:5

We are required to transcend the pair of opposites in order to reach the Creator. However we do so through fulfilling the nature in which we are made and not by flouting it.

"And of all things have We created pairs, that you may reflect (or receive instruction). Therefore flee unto Allah, surely I am a plain Warner to you from Him." 51:49-50

"Then set your purpose for religion as a man upright by nature - the nature made by Allah in which He has made men; there is no altering (the laws of) Allah's creation; that is the right religion, but most people do not know." 30:30

"And do not covet that by which Allah has preferred one of you over another. The men shall have what they earn, and the women what they earn; but instead (of envy) ask Allah for His Bounty, verily, Allah is All-Knowing." 4:32

"O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord, who created you from one soul, and created there from its mate, and scattered from the twain a multitude of men and women. Be careful of your duty towards Allah, in whose name you claim rights of one another, and the wombs that bore you; verily, Allah is Watcher over you." 4:1

"O mankind! Surely We have created you male and female and made you tribes and families that you may know each other; surely the most noble of you with Allah is the one among you most righteous (careful of his duty to Allah); surely Allah is Knowing, Aware." 49:13

Whereas the Bible, the Old Testament, tells us that Eve was created from the side of Adam and the Fall of man was caused because Satan tempted Eve who then tempted Adam, this is not the position of the Quran. The Bible story is probably symbolic and refers to the negative or passive side of man being prone to temptation and misleading him. According to the Quran:-

"And we said: O Adam dwell, you and your wife, in Paradise, and eat there from amply as you wish; but do not draw near this tree or you will be of the transgressors. But Satan made them backslide there from and drove them out from what they were in, and We said: Go down, one of you the enemy of the other, and in the earth there is an abode and a provision for a time. And Adam obtained certain words (revelations) from his Lord, and He relented towards him, for He is the Relenting, the Compassionate. We said: Go down there from altogether and per chance there may come from Me a Guidance, and whoever follows My Guidance, no fear is theirs, nor shall they grieve." 2:35-38

In Islam marriage, the re-combination of male and female which is also creative is regarded as half of Religion. The child is a perfect blend of both parents. Marriage is part of the Spiritual discipline that returns us to Paradise and God and indeed, sexual union has been regarded in many faiths as a shadow, example and symbol of union with God. It is this that is also distorted in justifying celibacy on the grounds of marriage to Christ or the Church. Consider a blank sheet of paper X. If we take out something +A from it, then we are left with a hole -A in it. If then we unite +A wih -A we also unite it with X. This is of course to be understood symbolically and spiritually.

In general, it is the physical, social and psychological conditions of life that dictate which ideas, values and characteristics, the masculine or feminine, will dominate a society and its culture.

The suppression of the feminine in Christianity can be traced partly to each of the following often inter-dependent factors:- (1) The difficult physical and social environment in which people had to make a living and protect their families. This is still true of many countries in the world. (2) The Jewish faith in which women played a minor role. (3) The previous military orientated Mithra worship from which Christianity imported much. (4) The fact that in Christianity God was male as both father and son. (5) Perhaps mainly because the apostle Paul had taught the conflict between the physical and spiritual aspects of man, making monasticism and celibacy a means of spiritual excellence by suppressing the physical desires and needs, often through mortification of the flesh in imitation, they believe, of the suffering of Christ. The result was that women were seen as a temptation of the flesh that needed suppression. The guilt caused by the desire were projected on to women. (6) The story of the Fall of Adam owing to temptation by Eve confirmed this view.

Islam, on the other hand, does not suppress the physical and the worldly but regards them as instruments and means of learning, but does require conscious control.

The suppression of the powerful force of sexually only causes it to re-emerge in an unrecognisable perverted form. The result of this has been sexual perversions, fanaticism, irritability, tension, disabling guilt feelings, projection of blame, hysterics, oversensitivity and intolerance, campaigns against other faiths and against anyone thought to be a threat to weaken their faith or aims or a temptation, and the mass persecution of women as witches. Celibate Priests and Nuns have indulged in homosexuality, abuse of children, adultery, fornication and infanticide of the results and have suffered from over indulgence in substitute appetites and obesity. Another consequence of this was that having reached an intolerable extreme, the pendulum swings to the other extreme and from sexual repression and prudery in the past, it has led to over-indulgence and perversion. This is not the case in Islam where a balance is to cultivated in order to transcend the cycles, and where the motivating, unifying and creative force of sexuality is freely but responsibly confined within marriage. The Society then becomes a network of interconnected families that require no externally imposed unifying force. Islam does not approve of celibacy or monasticism but considers the problems and challenges of life as sufficient opportunities for learning and development.

But apart from this it has led to all kinds of artificial dichotomies and conflicts that have plagued the Western World and through them the rest of mankind, between mind and matter, idealism and materialism, intellectuals and manual workers, masters and slaves, owners and workers, employers and employees, controllers and controlled, managers and managed, state and community. The consequence of this has been all kinds of contradictions, the departmentalisation of life and the loss of unity and the awareness of unity. On the other hand, it has allowed the development of each department of life which the limitations of the mind could not otherwise have dealt with. This development unfortunately also removed the pressure for mental and spiritual expansion. But the signs are that this un-Islamic tendency is now being reversed.

Owing to the advance in education, organisation and technology and the population explosion that requires birth-control, there has been an Emancipation of women and we have Femininist movements. However, the conditions of life, the educational system, the economic and political systems and to a large extent the cultural system had been created by men to suit men. In order to fit in women have had to adopt male values and the feminine characteristics were still devalued. That is the reason why women find it necessary to enhance and flaunt their physical attributes in order to re-assure themselves and to control men. They are still exploited though in a different way. The conditions of life have become much harsher, competitive and isolating. The relationship between people has become remote and formal and requires more laws and controlling mechanisms.

Women were regarded as inferior because they were more prone to gossip, rumour and scandal mongering, inability to keep secrets and confidences, superstition, gullibility, impressionable, controlled by emotion and feeling rather than by thought and reason. But their virtues were ignored as were the vices that men were prone to. It is, of course true that masculine and feminine characteristics are different because the female is constructed physically and psychologically to bear and rear children. They are therefore, softer, gentler, more tolerant, co-operative, less competitive, have greater endurance, are more practical and less doctrinaire, have greater sensitivity of feelings, are more socially orientated and their attention and energy is more spread out and less intense than those of men. Male physical and mental strength tends to be more intense and concentrated but over a shorter period. This is because men are free from the responsibilities of pregnancy, lactation and intimate care of helpless children, but have to deal with the world of things and ideas where greater power, control, aggression and competition are required. But the same characteristics that are useful in some situations can be useless or harmful in others. This can be compensated for by the other sex. Men and women complement and complete each other. Islam recognises the difference and the complementarities of the sexes (Quran 2:187). But this is not the case when the culture, ideology or value system in a society encourages the suppression of inherent characteristics in favour of the opposite ones. This leads to several kinds of psychological and social malfunctions which also adversely affect the environment with which human beings interact as is becoming increasingly clear.

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