Islam recognizes man and woman on the basis of existing...

Islam recognizes man and woman on the basis of existing realities and the laws governing the human existence, and is fully cognizant of the fact that they possess appeal and attraction for each other. Although this appeal and attraction applies to all the existential dimensions of the two sexes, yet their most superficial manifestation is their outward attraction for each other.

From the Islamic viewpoint, woman occupies a number of delicate and attractive qualities which, if exposed in a vast and unlimited manner in the society, may not only cause sexual, emotional, intellectual and psychological disorders and ruin the very foundations of the society, but may also lose its healthy and useful effects within that framework.

When sex is allowed an unlimited and uncontrolled sway in the society, it destroys its very foundations based on human relations in a reasonable and solemn manner. So also when it wields its adverse effects on the family that is based on profound spiritual and emotional relations, it shall also ruin its foundations.

This would be the greatest tragedy one can imagine in a society, since most of the social crises in the West that have led to the unrestricted and free sexual activity in all the fields and departments of human life emanate from the same source. It is possible for some people to conclude that the best solution for this problem is to remove woman from the sphere of social activity so that the society may be cured of the plague of her sex-appeal and attraction.

Another group holds the view that we should basically fight against sex-appeal itself, since it is the source of all sufferings and disturbances.

Both these views, the former being forwarded by the dry and fossilized minds throughout the past centuries and the latter held by Christianity, are the product of aberrant thinking and indulgence in fanciful whims, and have tread the wrong path in dealing with woman and the sexual instincts, and, due to superficial and aberrant thinking, have tried to rely on wrong solutions.

Islam repudiates both the above viewpoints, and finds the solution of this problem in the adoption of hijab system by woman, and thus brings woman to society in the most active and best manner without allowing her to be a source of sexual disturbances and disorders.