Our perspective on the family system and the status of women is grounded in the theory of pairing (zawjiyyat). The formation of the family is based on a universal law of creation—namely, the law of pairing. This perspective stands in direct opposition to the Marxist viewpoint, which holds that movement arises from conflict. In Islamic logic, by contrast, movement emerges from pairing.
Modern Western thought is founded upon humanism, subjectivism, and secularism—that is, the primacy of the human being, the primacy of self-grounding reason, and the primacy of this-worldliness. In these three principles, the primacy of the human being constitutes the very essence of modernity—yet specifically in the domains of animality, lust, and wrath as represented by the human figure portrayed in Hollywood. In other words, if one wishes to observe humanist anthropology, its manifestation appears in cinema and Western societies that constantly speak of challenge, conflict, struggle, and jungle-like modes of existence. The behavior of animals in the jungle is based on conflict, and the secret of survival there is instinctual struggle. Within such a framework, the human being is reduced to a “well-dressed animal” whose foundation is war, conflict, and bloodshed. When the primacy of the human and the primacy of this world are taken as foundational, Hegelian and Marxist theories of conflict naturally follow, and movement and development are understood as arising from contradiction. The theory of transformism in biology is also based on this assumption.
Islam, however, maintains that the formation of the family is based on the law of pairing. Pairing—together with harmony, compatibility, affection (mawadda), and tranquility (sukūn)—is the factor that generates movement and the good life (ḥayāt ṭayyiba). The family is the cell from which society is formed. When the universal law of pairing is the source of family formation—and the family, in turn, forms society—then the foundation of social movement is likewise pairing, harmony, compatibility, and affection. All of these concepts, in a more comprehensive sense, are gathered under the notion of wilāya (communal guardianship/relational authority). This is the definition of family within an Islamic worldview, and it stands in opposition to the logic of the modern world. For in modern thought, the foundation is Hegelian and Marxist conflict and the theory of struggle for existence; there, feminism becomes an ideology of defending women that defines the primacy of womanhood as “woman against man” and as “woman in hostility toward man.” When feminism turns into misandrist woman-centeredness, it takes on its distinctive form. But when thought is based on pairing, affection, harmony, tranquility, and wilāya, the family system becomes established, and neither misandrist nor misogynistic approaches emerge. In this worldview, the family system is a system for the perfection of social life.
If the philosophical foundation of the principle of conflict is accepted, its manifestation as a universal law in biology becomes transformism, and in social life it becomes feminism and misandry. When women adopt a misandrist outlook and men adopt a misogynistic one, society moves toward homosexuality and the family system becomes disrupted. But when pairing constitutes the natural foundation of the family and of social life, then affection and gentleness follow as its consequences.
The Qur’an states: “And that He created the two mates, the male and the female” (Qur’an 53:45), and in another verse: “And He made of it the two mates, the male and the female” (Qur’an 75:39). The fact that all beings are created in pairs signifies the primacy of harmony and pairing in contrast to the primacy of conflict. Whether we regard the universal law of life as pairing or as conflict yields two distinct images of existence and nature; and when two images of existence are produced, two different family systems and two different social systems take shape—whose effects can be observed in modern Western society.
