Gender egalitarianism in the Qur’an

How does the Qur’an argue for the spiritual egalitarianism of all people, male and female, rich and poor, despite the major social inequalities in its milieu, and why does that spiritual equality matter? Dr Karen Bauer and Prof Feras Hamza discuss gender equality in this life and the next in their new book: Women, Households, and the Qur’an: A Patronage of Piety, available now. www.iis.ac.uk/publications-li...
Transcript:
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.