Women’s Domestic Role Based on Islamic Teachings (Classical Fiqih) and Local Culture

: Islam and Feminism, both are perceived as incompatible. However, this view is sadly only generated by the Western when they see Islam in the Middle Eastern. It even misleads when the Western has been only looking for particular countries which practice conservative and textual Islam. In reality, Islam put women in a respectful position, and though Islam has different points of view from some points in feminism, it does not mean they are against each other. This research is a qualitative research, the resulting data is descriptive data. The main source of data is secondary from fiqh books which explain the verses that are relevant to the theme of this research. From our findings, we found that our culture and Islamic teaching have relatively similar points of view on women’s role in domestic reality. However, the conservative approach is coming from misunderstanding and, people's attitudes to mixing Islamic teachings with their Khawarij culture which is not a real Islam yet because people from outside of the Islamic world do not understand, they tend to think it is a real Islam which is giving Islam a bad reputation.


A. Introduction
Feminism has translated into equal opportunity and an equal chance for every woman in the world.However, the word 'equality' itself has been problematic.How do you define if a woman is not treated equally or not?For example, in the military, almost 80% of armies are men, is it because of discrimination or it is just what it is?
We need to trace back to other studies.Barbara and Allan Pease said in their famous research, men, and women are built differently and it is okay that they are different 2 .The problem is that people tend to think men and women are of the same build.No, they are not, but it is okay.Yes, we have women who are at the top of leadership but they are more masculine than women in general because masculinity-as Allan and Barbara-mentioned are a vital requirement at the top of leadership 3 .If there is an Alpha Female, it is a form of oddity and not will happen regularly.
Allan and Barbara Pease even go further to mention that just because most world leaders are not females, it does not mean that there is widespread discrimination.Even if we look closely, not many women are interested to go far and becoming top leaders.It is just not triggering their interests. 4It is just that women are not attracted to the political field as much as men and it is okay.
1 UIN Raden Mas Said Surakarta, Indonesia | email : daenisaid17@gmail.com 2 Allan Pease and Barbara Pease, Why Men Don't Listen & Women Can't Read Maps: How to Spot the Differences in the Way Men and Women Think (U.K.: Hachette, 2016).
3 Monika K. Sumra, "Masculinity, Femininity, and Leadership: Taking a Closer Look at the Alpha Female," Plos One 14, no. 4 (2019): e0215181. 4Richard Darcy, Women, Elections, and Representation, vol. 1 (U of Nebraska Press, 1994). 2 However, this is not widely accepted.This research based on psychology and scientific method does not sound to some feminists.Yes, we do not want to nullify that there are some kinds of discrimination towards women politically.Yet, we in reality should accept that women are not particularly interested in politics.
Some feminists even are still in debate about the traditional roles of women in society 5 .That a woman will have the same excitement if they are sent to war; drafted and pushed unwillingly to a war?Will their nature and set of skills be useful for a war?This a serious question that we can throw into debates.If, a woman, decided not to pursue her career, does it mean that she is not a feminist?
Is it mean that she is a misogynist or at least supports it?Is it wrong if a woman wants to choose a more traditional role without attention and highlighted whatsoever so the woman can be labeled as an agent of change?It needs to be clarified eventually.
In Indonesia, we have this own perspective on feminism, it is introduced by Kartini mostly but Indonesian women are attracted to learning about it.She defined Although she did not mention that she promoted feminism, her view on feminism is about the same opportunity, same equality to choose, and freedom to be whatever women want to be.This is why the perspective of feminism is more accepted these days 6 .
Notwithstanding, it is accepted that the most important part of feminism is choices, especially free choices.From Kartini's perspective, feminism is all about choices and responsibility, plus of Ironically, in the feminist world today, many women had been pushed for something that they did not want.Women who made a choice often had to face harsh punishment socially.For example in China, women who decided not to get married would be labeled as a left-over women or Shengnu 8 .In the U.S., people do not welcome a female president, even Indonesia has the first female president earlier than the U.S. Hillary Clinton recorded a surprise loss to Donald Trump, a guy with zero political experience.How did it happen?Because there are some kinds of prejudice like women cannot think logically, they are emotional and they could not make their own rational choices, and so  on9 .Women are perceived as evil being if not controlled and it was mentioned in many sources such as in myths, fables, and even historical stories.See?How a woman can destroy one kingdom like in the story of the Trojan horse?Or a story of a woman who can turn into a witch and do bad things like using cats to hypnotize people or other evil things.Here is the reality that we grew up with a perspective and an idea that women bring problems.However, somehow, one religion nowadays is accused of discriminating against women more than other kinds of religions.Which in this case Islam.
Islam has been accused of downgrading women for a very long, exactly around post 9/11 era.
Somehow, wearing a hijab is degrading to women and one Islamic perspective is being used to judge the entire Muslims.For example in this chase is Wahabism in Saudi Arabia is being used to be a valid point to accuse Islam as a religion that not friendly towards feminism.Meanwhile, most Muslims live in Indonesia and most of them are allowed to take a job, allowed to drive, and allowed to choose their career path10 .Here we have a problem, at least, in this introduction, I want to emphasize two main issues here.
First, Feminism is not well defined.Even feminists mostly only have one keyword: equality.
However, not all feminists have this clear perspective or one agreement about what kind of equality they want since there are multiple debates about other things such as the nature of women and the reality that happened.
Secondly, the accusation of Islam as a religion that is anti-feminist is not fair since Islam has been judged by the action of a few Muslims, and not by a fair trial.So here, I tried to discuss the real Islamic perspective on women and it can be done by exploring and learning about classical Fiqh which is a method to learn Quran fairly.And by learning classical Fiqh, hopefully, we will be ended up getting a real Islamic perspective towards women and not based on prejudice only.
Here we will do research based on the main idea that we want to know the real Islam and learning from classical Fiqih is the righteous way to understand the reality of Islam.
There are several relevant articles to this research topic, including "Women in Careers from the Perspective of Islam."This article discusses financially independent women who pursue careers.
There are two perspectives within Islam regarding women's careers: those that prohibit it and those that allow it.Women in careers have positive impacts such as alleviating the family's burden, providing understanding and explanations to the family, and advancing society.However, there are also negative impacts such as influencing children's education, exhaustion in serving the husband, and the potential for marital chaos.11 Another article titled "The Position of Women in Domestic and Public Spheres from a Gender Perspective (An Analysis Based on Islamic Normativism)" discusses the gender perspective in Islam concerning the domestic and public realms.The concept of gender equality is understood as the roles and responsibilities of men and women resulting from social construction that can change over time.
In Islam, there are no detailed regulations regarding gender roles.Islam allows certain areas to be regulated by human reason based on evolving demands.However, this perspective is considered not to deviate from the spirit and teachings of the religion itself because the universality of the religion has been acknowledged since the beginning.Carelessness can lead to the loss of wisdom, universality, and ease of religion.12Furthermore, an article titled "Islamic Justice in Gender Issues" discusses the issue of gender equality in Islam and its influence on Muslim thinking.The author states that since the discourse on gender emerged in Islam, there have been efforts to incorporate the concept of gender equality into Islamic teachings.Some Muslim thinkers argue that Islam shares similarities with the concept of equality brought by feminism.However, the author highlights that the concept of equality often diverges from or even contradicts the concept of justice.There are fundamental differences between the two concepts.Firstly, equality tends to focus on quantitative equality without considering the differences between men and women, while justice considers meeting individual needs according to their characteristics and capacities.Secondly, the orientation of equality is to dismantle patriarchal culture and demand equality and freedom, while justice seeks to achieve a balance between patriarchal and matriarchal cultures so that men and women can harmoniously fulfill their roles as khalifah.Thirdly, feminism views men and women as separate entities, while Islam sees them as complementary pairs.Therefore, the concept of gender equality cannot be equated with the concept of justice in Islam. 13is article has a different focus and unique aspects compared to the mentioned articles.It

B. Classical Fiqh Perspective on Women
If Islam discriminates against women, why then Arabs women follow Prophet Mohammed at the beginning of his teaching?Even most of Mohammed's followers are women and he was supported by his rich wife, Khadijah.On contrary of people's perspective that Islam is discriminating against women, Islam is helping women out from discrimination especially discrimination because of Arabic culture.In the old Arabic culture, women are assets and property, it is not strange that if a dad dies then his wives can be inherited by his sons.It is not an uncommon practice to kill baby daughters.
Islam came and fought against those kinds of discrimination.
Do not marry former wives of your fathers-except what was done previously.It was indeed a shameful, despicable, and evil practice.
(An-nisa 22) ˹Also˺ forbidden to you for marriage are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your paternal and maternal aunts, your brother's daughters, your sister's daughters, your fostermothers, your foster-sisters, your mothers-in-law, your stepdaughters under your guardianship if you have consummated marriage with their mothers-but if you have not, then you can marry them-nor the wives of your own sons, nor two sisters together at the same time-except what was done previously.Surely Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.(An-nisa 23) Classical Fiqh is a method of learning the Quran based on the Quran directly.While we have this prejudice, the Quran itself shows how they perceive women 14 .Quran put women in respectable positions, but not in the same way from a Western point of view.Classical Fiqh, especially on viewing women can be seen in these verses and how it is translated.
So their Lord responded to them: "I will never deny any of you-male or female-the reward of your deeds.Both are equal in reward.Those who migrated or were expelled from their homes, and were persecuted for My sake and fought and ˹some˺ were martyred-I will certainly forgive their sins and admit them into Gardens under which rivers flow, as a reward from Allah.And with Allah is the finest reward!" (Ali Imran 195) From this Surah, we learned that Islam is promoting equal education for both men and women, so it is strange that in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and several Islamic states, they banned women from pursuing education.What happened in those countries is more likely because of their identity as Arabic states not because they are Islamic states.In Indonesia, where most Muslims live, they are accepting education towards women and if we see the history of Mohammed, it is a history of a man who was supported by a strong woman in this case, Khadijah.
Minor perspective towards women might be can be traced back to Surah An' Nisa 34 which contain permission for men to discipline their women.It has been reflected by various Fiqh interpreter such as Al-Syamakzhari who believed that men have various strength point that makes them 'better' than a man such as physicality, mental and other qualities.From Indonesia, this kind of perspective was also declared by Fiqh intellectuals such as Syeikh Nawawi.This is misinterpreted because yes on one side a man has a right to be a leader naturally in Islam but they are not having unopposed rights towards women.They have their limitation and only can perform some kind of punishment if there are some circumstances; they cannot just do whatever they want just because they can.It is very different compared to what the Western most believe.Karen Armstrong, a famous religious scholar, has mentioned in his book about Mohammed 15 .
Mohammed was a wise man and avoid conflicts and acts of violence if it is possible.However, the difference between Mohammed and other religious leaders is that he was strict on the rule.For example in a story of a daughter who stole something, Mohammed cut her hand and he famously said even if the thief is his daughter he will cut her hand.It showed how strict Mohammed is on law and Islamic values.However, it is not mean that Mohammed could not open to adopting other values.KH.Husein Mohammad is one of the religious scholars that we can talk about.He is a man, but he is famous for his feminist approach to Classical Fiqh.It is not some kind of quite usual but here he is with his unique perspective and he approached the Quran text based on the context when the verse was given to Mohammed 17 .For example, why a man is a leader in Islam?This is because war, a strategy to win a battle, is a quality that is demanded a lot during the prophet Mohammad's time.So, it is making more sense to involve a man in the leadership.Same as, if we talk on the Jew and Arabic society, they are intensively masculine societies.So for newcomers, let's say a female prophet would not be taken seriously.However, we move on, to a new era where women can have a pivotal role in society.This is a matter that needs to be emphasized and Islam is supporting this new role.
Yes, there are some borders for women's role in Islam.HR.Bukhari for example mentioned that in Quran it has been said that the leader must be a man because the term Wallu Amrakum (The one who leads you all) emphasized how important a man to be the main leader or it is is called alwilayatul-kubra or al-imamatul-uzhma.However, the question then is, in what degree woman cannot be involved on leadership? 18Here, the reality is, a woman still can lead on several degrees though not at the top of the leadership.
The one who does not want a woman to be a leader at all is arguably very strict and not open to a context.Usually, we call it Khawarij.The Khawarij is equal to the pharisee in Christian belief.
They want to be the only rightful ones, they do not want to open any discussion.They are arguably the ones who see Jihad as a bloodshed battle rather than another context which more relevant to today's situation 19 .Jihad from Khawarij's perspective is irrelevant to other Islamic nominations respectively.Here we need to discuss Jihad further.
Jihad is not only mean that you defend the name of your religion.Jihad is about a struggle to bring image and respect for Islam.Bringing Islamic pride should not be based on battle only because war is only bringing desperation and problems.There are alternatives rather than goes to war 20 .
Defending Islam dan bringing glory to Islam can be done in various ways such as through education and humanitarian development.This is sadly not part of things considered by Khawarij and here The women are allowed to work and it was from Quran and there is a perspective too from classical Fiqh, especially from M. Quraish Shihab23 .Some people have their perspective that woman should only leave their home on two occasions only when she wanted to visit her parents or she accompanied her husband to his funeral.This perspective is quite actually inaccurate since the woman who should do those particular things is the woman who commits infidelity.If the woman morally has good behavior, she should not supposedly have the limitation to go or to move anywhere she wants.
The interesting thing is Islam did not put strict rules on women.Islam even admits that women have three roles in the family which are mother, wife, and lastly, in public themselves.Since we discuss domestic issues, I focused on two roles which are: a. Women as Mothers In Family, women have a special place to be a mother, and in Islam, mothers are coming first and their kids should prioritize their mothers.There is even a saying that heaven is under the mother's feet.Of course, women's special rights come with their obligations to be the main figure for kids to teach about love and passion on the side of Islamic teachings.Women as mothers are also been freed from the obligation to be the breadwinner of the family but they for sure should respect and treat their men respectfully.Even in some Islamic teachings perspectives like Syafi's and Hambali's, there are various views, especially on how much the husband should give to their woman.
It is just a different perspective but women have their rights.Syafi'i mentioned that men should give women as much as they earned and not like there is a certain standard that men, like or not should be fulfilled.Meanwhile, for Hambali's there is a standard that men should fulfill for their women.Both have their supporter on this matter but it is not the opposite view24 .
Yet, here we still have the debate about why women should do a certain role in the home compared to their male counterparts.Again, it is a matter of context because in the past, the reality has been much different and women cannot have a choice in their careers but today they have a lot.
They can even go today and help their family as the breadwinner25 .However, Islam emphasize the importance of putting women in their strength sectors like compassion and domestic management.
Talking about the role in the Islamic perspective and Indonesian culture, we should understand that sociologically and based on history, we are an agricultural society, and the values and habits we have is brought up to the exact point now.So actually, we should not be surprised that in this reality we have a collaborative culture that matches Islamic teachings.
As a mother also, women have the role of preparing men (their sons) to be able to fulfill their obligations and face challenges26 .This is important matters because then women are the key elements for preparing men mentally.It is interesting because we then find a line between Islam and Indonesian culture.Even based on my findings, in several parts of Sumatra, women get prioritized on education rather than their male counterparts because they will interact with their kids more and educate them more.It is the same in Islam where the men will go around for external businesses and women will need to deal with children and help them with their manhood.

b. Women as Wives
In Islam, women have certain roles; obeying the husband blindly is not part of the role.It is interesting when we see Muslim women's roles in the Middle East which more or little obey their husbands in stricter ways.We think it is part of Islamic teaching when in reality it is not.It is more about the inheritance of Jahiliyah era, which is more make sense.In fact, in Karen Armstrong's book, she emphasized how much Mohammed put a role in Khadijah.Khadijah was even the first to rise in terms of financial independence 27 .So, it can be said that Mohammed never put a woman's role as a wife limited.In Quran, Classical Fiqih, there is a saying: Here, it is a strong point that Islam elevated woman's position in society28 and is very different compared to Jahiliyah culture.In some ways actually, Islam put women as equal partners and even integral in men's success.Mohammed would not be able to build his community if it is not because of Khadijah.Khadijah who had been a successful businesswoman even since not met Mohammed yet is a mentor and helps Mohammed to understand leadership and organize people around him.
Khadijah surely is not a model of a woman who lives like most middle eastern women 29 .
If we compared it to our culture, we found it interesting.We are a very patriarchal community but we have a lot of room for strong women.Let's see how Soekarno has been supported by Inggit Ganarsih for a long time.Even Soekarno learned about values that he fought for in Sundanese culture, Inggit Ganarsih origin.Marhaen, the farmer that Soekarno met is a Sundanese farmer and has put a lot of influence on Soekarno, especially in making Indonesia socialist30 .
If we talk about Soeharto, it is not many differences.He is heavily influenced by his wife who is a part of Solo's royal family.Tien helped Soeharto in his earlier career.Soeharto then can get position and wise advice from his wife.Soeharto himself put Tien in a respectable position.
It is not different with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono who was assisted heavily by his wife, Ani Yudhoyono.What lesson did we learn?We learned that there is a connection, the same line between the Islamic view and our cultural view.We are similarly patriarchal, however, we both in a way giving a chance for women to shine.
How about Polygamy?Again, it is not part of the teachings since Mohammed himself put a lot of heavy requirements on men who want to practice polygamy.Similarly in Indonesia, polygamy is perceived as a bad habit in our culture31 .However, it is still permissible in numerous heavy requirements.It is not that different than in Islam.
We could not say that Islam degraded women just because of polygamy because Mohammed himself married mostly widows to keep their pride.After all, no one takes care of them.

D. Conclusion
Based on our culture and learning from Islamic teaching, we conclude that there are no degrading remarks towards Muslim women.Muslim women are well respected, they can get an education and they are important for the kids' future and they are helpful.Even Mohammed himself could not rise to success if it is not because of women.Women could not be more important than this.
They are the axis of the Islamic family and without them then Islamic values are not promoted well course knowing the consequences of the choices.It makes sense if we consider what kind of reality Kartini lived was, women were in a difficult situation and not knowing what they face or what kind of risks they could face because of their choice.Even Kartini herself was a victim and an example of a woman who did not know what the consequences of her action were; she died when she delivered a baby 7 . 3 examines the domestic role of women based on Islamic teachings and local culture, not only discussing the perspective of gender equality but also emphasizing the roles and responsibilities of women in the domestic realm based on classical fiqh and local culture.The article explores how Islamic teachings and local culture influence the role of women in the domestic environment.This contributes to a new understanding of women's roles in society, particularly in the context of religion and culture.Additionally, the article connects the understanding of classical fiqh with local culture to examine how women's roles in the family and household are understood and implemented.Thus, this article contributes to a deeper exploration of women's roles in society based on Islamic teachings and local culture.It helps complement insights on this topic and offers a different perspective compared to previous articles that mainly focus on gender equality in Islam in general.

Saiddaeni
Women's Domestic Role Based on Islamic Teachings (Classical Fiqih) and Local Culture ٍۢ

Saiddaeni
Women's Domestic Role Based on Islamic Teachings (Classical Fiqih) and Local Culture DOI : https://doi.org/10.52051/ulumulsyari.v10iVolume 11 (1), 2023 Islam contrary to what has been said in the book 'Clash of Civilizations' by Samuel P. Huntington, could adapt and match with other values 16 .