Interview: Women, Households, and the Hereafter in the Qur'an

Dr Karen Bauer: We might assume from a modern perspective that there can be no fairness or justice without social egalitarianism. And yet, if we look around ourselves, we know that our societies are anything but egalitarian. You know, try buying a property in London, for instance. We do not actually live in egalitarian societies, even today. However, it can be easy to mistake what the Qur’an takes for granted, which is that seventh century Arabia is inegalitarian, for a promotion of inequality in society. And that’s not at all what is going on. What’s going on in that text is not promoting inequality in the world. It’s promoting equality and salvation for the next life. And its recognition that there is inequality in the world.

Prof Feras Hamza: I think there is a tendency in contemporary thinking: for some reason, inegalitarianism, the lack of equality for all, somehow excuses individuals perhaps from being morally responsible. As though, that if only we were all equal, we could then be better moral beings. And I think the Qur’an says: well actually, the individual has free will and they have agency, even if they don’t think they have agency. Even if they’re in the most destitute of socioeconomic situations, there’s always that moral agency of choosing the good, thinking of the good option, and so on. And I think that’s an important point: we perhaps are more inclined to think of the importance of egalitarianism because then it makes us equal to be empowered to then think about morality and ethics and law and everything else in that kind of categorized way. And I think the Qur’an is different from that.

Dr Karen Bauer: Of course, the Qur’an, it presumes a certain social structure. It presumes male-headed households and it presumes a social structure of patronage by which there would be a pater familias in a house (a male head of household) who would be patron for poor and disenfranchised people in the society. So, women become a prime example of vulnerable people who are cared for within those social structures of households.

Feras Hamza: And I think, just to build on that, once the Qur’an establishes its ambition to recalibrate the role of the patron or the head of the household as a role of looking after vulnerable individuals, not just the women, but of course everybody else in the household. I think the really subtle move that is not appreciated that the Qur’an makes is that once it speaks to those heads of household, the elites of the time can say: your duty is one of care, because what’s involved in that care is potentially a mutual or reciprocal benefit, which is that of doing pious acts and gaining in piety which then has a reward in the hereafter. Then that becomes a paradigm for anybody. And so, then anybody can become a patron of piety. And that’s the effect of the subtitle of our book: “A Patronage of Piety”.