Widows between Islam and other religions and civilizations

 

 

• Widows in Islam is gaining every honor, care, and concern.

 

• Islam maintains the natural disposition of mankind, and most women whom the Messenger (peace be upon him) married were widows.

 

• In India, widows have no right to enjoy the joys of life and may be burnt with the corpse of their husbands.

 

• More than 33 million Indian widows suffer loneliness, poverty, hunger, and need because of the retarded religious beliefs.

 

• Hinduism does not allow widows to remarry again.

A widow is the woman who lost her husband who supports her in one of her life stages. This is a circumstantial matter but it does not deprive her of her right of leading an honorable life. The death of the husband does not mean the end of widow's life and does not mean that a widow lives the rest of her life in the chains of this new title.

 

Reality confirms, in most cases, that when a woman loses a husband, she finds herself alone in front of her tragedy and new responsibilities. In addition to her suffering, another suffering of different kind begins which is suffering the looks of the society to her because she became without a husband, so people count her movements and consonants.

 

Islam and widows:

However, the stance of Islam toward widows differs completely from this look and even differs in regard of respecting the feelings of widows after the departure of their husbands.

 

Since the very beginning, Islam looks with compassion, sympathy, and mercy to them as having special circumstances, needs someone to support them and support their struggle because they have lost their husbands. So, they have to gain the care of the Muslim society which should support them along with their children.

 

According to the tolerant religion of Islam, it supports the positive image of widows which helps them to associate and interact with others in the society instead of sitting alone recalling the past memories which will be a good soil for Satanic insinuations.

 

Honoring of Islam to widows emanates from honoring women in general because Islam equates between women and men in rights and duties and it is Shari`ah does not know any distinction between widowed women and others, moreover, Islam granted widows a great status. Allah (Glory be to Him) says in a Divine Hadith: "I only accept Salah from those who do it humbly to My Glory those who spend the day in mentioning me, and takes care of widows, the needy, and the wayfarer."

 

Widows are included in the commandment of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), moreover most mothers of the believers were widows except `A'ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) which was the only one whom the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) married as virgin.

 

Perceptions of Jahiliyyah (pre-Islamic time of ignorance):

Widows have nothing to reduce their dignity or their status in the sight of Allah and in the sight of people.

 

Moreover, any low looks directed to widows is nearer to the perception of the Pre-Islamic Era than the Islamic view because the death of the husband is Allah's decree and they have no fault in that, furthermore many widows give a good example when they rear their children by their own in the best they can.

 

Widows and the right of marriage:

As Islam considers marriage a genuine right for widows, the Shari`ah permitted marriage for them after the end of `Iddah (waiting period after divorce of death of the husband) which is four months and ten days or delivering the baby if they are pregnant, especially if they are in young age and have children who need care. In that case, they have the right to protect themselves against adultery and complete their lives in light of a natural family.

 

Islam maintains the natural disposition of mankind, therefore it permitted widows to marry.

 

Furthermore, most women whom the Messenger (peace be upon him) married were previously married such as Um Salamah. Marriage is a shield for women and men together and if there are traditions look badly at widows, they are denied by Islam.

 

Islam has made benevolence to widows and taking care of them one of the noblest actions in the sight of Allah.

 

The Islamic Shari`ah commended with the good treatment of widows, moreover Islam exhorted people to marry previously married women and not to leave them a subject for accusation and talks.

 

Widows in India:

This honorable look for widows which Islam grounded its bases and some of them were applied in the Arabian society before Islam differs from the stance of other religions and civilizations. For example, let us take one religion such as Hinduism to see how widows live therein.

 

In the Indian society where most people are Hindu, there is no voice for widows, where they lose their identity and even their basic rights when they lose their husbands. In some cases, citizens burn widows alive with their dead husbands which is the life which some people described as "the life of Sati" in reference to the custom of burning widows with their husbands, but that habit was banned.

 

Hindu widows face a set of social prohibitions: When a man dies, his widow is expected to give up all joys of life and she has no right to marry.

 

Her relatives get rid of her by exiling her to rigid Hindu towns such as the town of Vrindavan in northern India, where a study done by the municipality of (Vrindavan) showed that about 3 thousands widows live there, whereas hundreds live in other towns such as Braszbomi and Geoffrdan which are religious Hindu towns.

 

The Indian widow is called in some cases "Bram" or "creature" not a human being because they cannot be described by humanity but in the presence of their husbands. In some Hindu languages, widows are referred to as an absent inanimate pronoun instead of "she".

 

However, in some other languages they double the sound of the last letter for humiliation or make it similar to the word "whore".

 

Widows according to them is a source of bad omen, therefore they are prevented to attend ceremonies which form an important part of the Hindu life such as the ceremonies of marriage and birth, moreover in some cases they consider their shadows as impure unlike the pure people of the community.

 

As a result of these false doctrines, more than 33 million Indian widows suffer poverty, hunger, and need, as they suffer loneliness because of the retarded religious beliefs which dominate their minds, where the Hindu doctrine does not allow widows to remarry again which force them to live alone in the middle of poverty and need. Most widows live on aid, whereas some of them resort to begging.

 

So, there is a big difference between the mercy of Islam and the stance of other religions and civilizations in regard of widows.

 

References:

• Widows and society -Islamweb- 31 July 2005.

• Widows are a social ruling of capital punishment! Rasha Lutfy, IslamOnline, 17 April 2006.

• Widows in India: Hayat Haba', and Yara Sujan, translation of Ali Hamzah, Arabia Online, 22 September 2006.