mending his shoes, cleansing the utensils, and so on.
The Holy Qur’ān lays the greatest possible stress on kindly and good treatment towards the wife. “Keep them in good fellowship” and “treat them kindly” is the oft-recurring advice of the Holy Qur’ān (2:229, 231; 4:19, etc.). So much so that kindness is recommended even when a man dislikes his wife, for “it may be that you dislike a thing while Allāh has placed abundant good in it” (4:19). The Holy Prophet laid equally great stress upon good treatment of a wife. “The most excellent of you,” he is reported to have said, “is he who is best in his treatment of his wife” (MM. 13:II-ii). “Accept my advice in the matter of doing good to women,” is another ḥadīth (Bu.67:81). In his famous address at the Farewell Pilgrimage, he again laid particular stress on the good treatment of women:
“O my people! you have certain rights over your wives and so have your wives over you … They are the trust of Allāh in your hands. So you must treat them with all kindness” (M. 16:17).
In one ḥadīth which enjoins kindness to women, the woman is compared to a rib: “The woman is like a rib, if you try to straighten it, you will break it”39 (Bu. 67:80). The rib is bent in its make and not straight, and it serves best its purpose in the state in which it is created, and so of the woman it is said that being like a rib she serves her purpose best in the state in which she has been created: to straighten her, i.e., to make her work just as the man pleases, or to try to make her possess the sterner qualities of man, is to break her down. As already pointed out, the temperament of man differs from that of woman in one respect. Man is stern and harsh, therefore largely unyielding; it was necessary that he should be so, so that he might be able to face the hard struggles of life. The woman who is meant to bring up the children has been so created that the quality of love preponderates in her and she is devoid of the sternness of man; she is therefore inclined to one side sooner than the man, and on account of this quality she is compared to the rib. Her being bent like the rib is adduced as an argument for being kind to her and for leaving her in that state.
39 In another ḥadīth (Bu. 60:1: 67:81). instead of like a rib the words are khuliqat min dzil’-in, i.e. “she has been created of a rib.” The meaning is still the same, that is to say, her nature or temperament may be compared to a rib. It is the woman in general, not Eve. that is spoken of here nor is it said that woman has been created of the rib of man. In Arabic, we often say a certain thing has been created of so and so, meaning that the temperament of that thing is so. Thus the Holy Qur’ān says: “Man has been created of haste (min ‘ajal)” (21:37), the significance being that the characteristic of haste is prominent in him.