Qawwama is not a privilege

I think men need to spend less time trying to convince each other that they are above women and convincing women that they are beneath men, and instead start focusing on cultivating the virtues that make men effective in their qawama. I think a lot of brothers read the ayah and it boosts their ego, makes them feel like they're entitled to or that they are supposed to impose some kind of subjugation on women as if it's the ayah on Jizya. As As if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, But if you're actually reflecting on this ayah and you have any kind of Islamic mental framework, any kind of Islamic moral frame then for so many reasons, this ayah should hit you like a bucket of ice water. I mean, do you know how alone that makes you? Knowing that your wives are not actually your partners but your dependents and that one half of the human race has to take care of the other half, that basically, no, we're not in this together.

Men are alone in their responsibilities, in their duties, and they have a level of accountability that half of the human population does not have. Do you know that a common trait of the Sahaba was to avoid positions of leadership and authority and judgment? Said that whoever has been appointed a judge has been killed without a knife, and that a man who gives a judgment in ignorance will go to hell. And the same with a man who knows what the right judgment is but gives the wrong judgment anyway for his own self interest goes to hell, where your position of women is a position of authority, leadership, and judgment that you cannot avoid. And we all know that men's judgment is severely impaired when it comes to women, sometimes biologically, hormonally impaired.

If you have any sense at all, you would understand that this ayah is extremely dangerous for you. So who is preparing you to exercise this authority properly? Because what I see more often than not, online anyway, is men urging other men to adopt superficial stereotypical traits of manliness that might seem masculine to an adolescent. You know, be rough and tough, be surly, throw your weight around, keep your woman in check, all that alpha male nonsense. If these people were judges in a Sharia court, they would want to impose the Hudur on everyone, whereas Rasulullah and the Sahaba searched for excuses to avoid implementing the had.

In other words, what I see is young men being taught to cultivate the traits that would disqualify them for a position of leadership authority and judgment. But men are a. Not some men. There is no certification process. You don't have to qualify.

You just have to be born male because men are created with qualities and characteristics with which women were not created. So if you're learning all the wrong things, if you're focusing on superficial qualities of manhood, the irrelevant traits found in the alpha male concept, you will be a bad leader, a bad judge, and you will exercise your authority negligently or oppressively. You know how if you buy a gun and you take a course on shooting and gun safety, or if you seriously train in a martial art for many years, You become the least likely person to ever shoot someone or ever get into a street fight because, number one, you know that you're safe due to your skills and capabilities, and number two, because you have nothing to prove, and number three, because you grasp the gravity of the consequences of using your weapon or your skills. Well, that should be how you feel as a man about being a man. A weapon or a deadly martial skill is not a toy.

It's not for performance. It's not to show off. It's not to use frivolously. It is to be managed with restraint and discipline no matter how much someone provokes you or annoys you, And the same is true with manhood.