Q: When speaking of the qiwamah of a man over his wife (i.e. his “authority” over her), we need to realize that this is a burden and a responsibility, not an honour and favour. The man’s responsibility is not restricted to maintaining his wife financially, housing, feeding, etc. He is also responsible for looking after her emotional, spiritual and physical needs. Allah’s command is to treat wives kindly and on a footing of equity and what is acceptable. وعاشروهن. Al-qiwamah is in no way meant to turn the husband into some sort of dictator who thinks he is a master who orders and forbids and should be obeyed unrestrictedly. There are so many nuances to look at when we look at these issues. One such nuance is that Allah did not say that males are qawwam over women; rather, He said “men” are qawwam. This is something we need need to think about and ponder; for how many males are not really “men”.
Is this above writing correct? If I feel like for my husband's thinking attitude is harming my imaan, I often think bad of Islam that it favors men over women should I leave him?
A: Some of these words, physical, spiritual and emotional are somewhat vague. It is the fuqaha's work to explain these aspects in detail. The person who comes across these words is bound to misinterpret them. By and large, to reduce the man to a level that he becomes a non-entity or if this is misinterpreted to conform to gender equality concepts amounts to tahreef and distorting the meaning of the hadith and Quraan Shareef.
And Allah Ta'ala (الله تعالى) knows best.
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