Women’s Role in the Rural Development : from the Hadith Perspective

Based on Law No.7 Year 2014 on the Village Governance,  the Village structure had been appointed authority to be directly participated in the planning and implementation of the rural development.  This  was the consequences of the  regional authonomy, so that every area has the opportunity to design their  regional development based on their potentialities, and their own local needs.

The mandate of this law itself also enforced the rural citizen to be participate actively in implementing the development. All citizen must be include, and this involvement should take into consideration the issue of equal distributions  based on various elements, such as groups, ethnicities,  gender, and regional distributions. But, in reality sometimes the participation of the citizen in the development are still dominated by some certain groups, the men. Women are often seen have less capacity than men, inappropriate, and considered to be less important to participate directly  in the development. So often, the marginalization of women in the development utilize the religious doctrines, such as hadith of the Prophet.  Was it true that the Prophet through his hadith had marginalized women in the development of the society? Let us try to the Prophet hadith nearer, with the openness of eyes of the heart to see the women’s role in the Prophet era. 

Prophet’s Treatment to Women 

Many people still have lack of understanding about the Prophet’s treatment to women. There are so many people who had misunderstood about Prophet’s attitude to women. These because of the spread of the mysoginic hadiths (hadiths which contents seem hating women). For example, about the hadith that said about the cancellation of prayer when  a women or a dog passes, the hadith that said about the lack of reason of women, or the hadith that said so many women will stay in the hell, or the unfortunate condition of a group of society that give up the leadership to women. Unfortunately, these kind of hadiths were very popular in the society and spread out systematically through religious education institutions such as pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), madrasah, and majelis taklim (Islamic gathering groups).  These kind of hadith then were taken by people for granted, including by women themselves, without any reviews for centuries. Therefore, the patriarchic social culture, finally find out the strength and legitimacy from these kind of authoritative religious doctrines. 

Even though if we want to see closer to the authoritative hadith books, such as Shahih Bukhari and Shahih Muslim, we will find a lot of number of hadith which talked about women in a more gender friendly and egalitarian. Unfortunately, these hadiths are not popular in the society. 

Abu Syuqqah, one of Islamic scholar from Egypt, had made a breakthrough which is brave enough by collecting the hadiths from the books of Shahih Bukhari and Shahih Muslim that had been related to women. From these data collection process of these hadith, there were six parts of books that collected the hadiths that explained various role of women, both in the domestic areas and public areas, in the religious, social, and even political areas. This achievement was very amazing for the world of Islamic thoughts and knowledge. Unfortunately, the books of hadith collections of Abu Syuqqah are also still less popular in the religious institutions environments of the Indonesian muslim society. 

From the observations of those books, there are some Prophet’s hadiths that showed the active participation of women in the political context, such as in a war. Not a little history that told us about the participation of women as the companions of the Prophet in helping him during the war. For example, a hadith that was narrated by Rabi’ binti Mi’wadz as the following:  

There were also a hadith which is narrated by  Ummu Athiyah that said : 

The similar witness was given by Anas bin Malik: 

The hadiths above showed women participation during the Prophet era, in the context of war both directly or indirectly. Even, some of them was the wife of the Prophet, Aisha. While in another areas, women during the Prophet era was so active, no less than men. As we can see from the figure of Asma bint Abu Bakar who reject the wrongdoing Judge as mentioned in the following hadith: 

The hadith above had shown us about the bravery of women during the Prophet era in giving their opinion for the sake of benefit of the people. In the scholarship activities, not a little we can find the women companions who were participated actively. Some of them were Aisha, Ummu Salama, Athiya, and so on. They involved very much into the scientific assembly held by the Prophet. The also narrated many hadiths that explained the religious laws as well as the Prophet’s attitude to some certain isses. As mentioned as the following hadith: 

If we learn deeper, we will find that there were so many evidences of women active participation during the Prophet era. The Prophet did not prohibit them, but permitted them and even supported them. In the good deeds, women and men has the same opportunity and position. This is stated by Allah through his revelation that given to the Prophet in QS. Al Ahzab 35:

From the verse above, the Prophet must be understood about the position of men and women before Allah. If so, how come the Prophet will treat women unjust or discriminatively? Not only that, the coming of Islam through the risalah (message) of the Prophet became a turning point for the situation of women in the dark history  at that time before. The presence of Islam had proclaimed to the witness of a women as the servant of Allah and as equal human being as men. She has the same responsibility as the Caliphate (the representation of God) on the earth, who carry out duty to worship Allah (ibadatullah) and at the same time has to preserve their life on the earth (imaratul ardh). So, why should the treatment to women be discriminate? 

Women and the Rural Development 

The efforts to the rural development that involve all elements of the village society, actually is the implementation of the vision as the Caliphate of God which become a responsibility for all human being. In which men and women have the same duty to preserve the life on the earth as good as possible. In order, the life of the creature on the earth will continue well, normal, and giving the benefit for all. 

Therefore, the coming of Law on Village, actually become an affirmation to the duty and responsibility of the mandatory of human being as the Caliphate of Allah explisitly. This must be more socialized to the people, especially in the village level  in order to be understood and to be implemented well. Because, most of the people especially in the rural areas often neglect and underestimate the necessary of women participation in the decision making process in the village level or Musrembangdes.  The concrete example that can be seen is when the decision making process of the village program development planning or Musrembangdes, which become a routine agenda in the village level as a Yearly Program Planning. In term of quantitative, the number of women participation only a few. So that, women’s voices often can’t be heard. Or, if some of them participated, their voice qualitatively were still less than men, so they can’t compete their ideas with their male counterparts. So, when the debate happen to determine the policy direction, their voices can be heard or even totally absent. 

Considering the reality, we can not only blame women or men, because actually both of them were only victims from the patriarchal culture and tradition that had been internalized to become public false consideration. This is our responsibility   to raise awareness to the people to repair the situation; especially by using the religious text approach such as hadith as the authoritative religious sources. Several hadiths as mentioned above can become the authentic evidence in treating women as the citizen and equal human being who has responsibility as Caliphate or representation of the mandatory of God on the earth as men. So that, no more reason to discriminate role and responsibilities of women in this life. Both in the village level as well as in the higher level such as in the country level, up to the world. Wallahu a’lam bisshawab.*** 

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