SPIRIT OF ISLAM DECEMBER 2018

5 Spirit of Islam Issue 72 December 2018 FROM THE EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Dr. Farida Khanam has been a professor at the Department of Islamic Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. A Study of World's Major Religions, A Simple Guide to Sufism are two of the books amongst others, of which she is the author. She has also translated many books on Islam authored by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. Currently, the chairperson of Centre for Peace and Spirituality (CPS International), an organization founded by her father Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, she is a regular contributor of articles to journals, newspapers and magazines. Dr. Khanam has edited Maulana’s English translation of the Quran and has also translated his Urdu commentary of the Quran into English. Under Maulana Wahiduddin Khan Peace Foundation, along with the CPS team, she has designed a series of courses on peace-building, countering extremism and conflict resolution. WOMANHOOD IN ISLAM O MANKIND, fear your Lord, who created you from a single soul. He created its mate from it and from the two of them spread countless men and women (throughout the earth). Fear God in whose name you appeal to one another, and be mindful of your obligations in respect of ties of kinship. God is always watching over you. (4:1) Fear of God and honouring of one’s fellow men — this is the twin foundation of Islam laid down in the Quran in the above verse. According to most of the commentators who have penetrated deep into the meaning of the Quran ‘it’ in the above verse refers to ‘species’. That is Eve was created not from Adam himself — but from the same species as Adam. In several other verses from the Quran the word ‘soul’ has been used to mean ’species’—for example ‘God has created for you spouses of your own kind”. (16:72) Another of His signs is that He created for you from among yourselves spouses, so that you might find repose in them, and He created between you affection and kindness. Thus women and men are from the same species. Biologically speaking, women have not been extracted from the bodies of their