Masculinity & 'Uboodiyyah

You cannot separate what being a man is from what being a Muslim is. A good Muslim is by definition a good man. That includes, of course, the responsible exercise of his qawama over his wife and with qawama as a guiding principle in his approach and behavior and attitude towards women in general. You can maybe summarize it as because of his qawama, he is protecting his wife from others, and because of qawama, he is protecting other women from himself. A man may display all of the stereotypical traits of masculinity but not be a good Muslim or maybe not even be a Muslim at all.

And none of these traits make him an exemplar of from the Islamic perspective. The first words ever spoken by man were The foundation of masculinity is knowledge, recognition, and acceptance of man's role and relationship to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Ultimately, every man only has one relationship, and that is his relationship to his creator. All of the interactions that he has with other people are just ways in which he manifests his relationship to Allah. His perspective, if his behavior, if his attitude is not informed by his connection to Allah, then his masculinity is an illusion.

And it doesn't matter if he's brave, if he's confident, if he's dominant, or if he's rich. If he does not understand himself as being a slave of Allah, he's not a real man. If all of his bravado and swagger in the dunya end with him shivering and screaming and being humiliated on Yom el Tayyama, we do not call that masculine. Meanwhile, a mild mannered quiet man who is derided in the dunya for being a beta male may encounter the day of judgment without fear. So which of the two is a real man?

Masculinity is inextricably bound to to Allah with the constant self scrutiny of the and a supreme sense of accountability. A man is not motivated to pursue his rights, but to pursue what is right. If that happens to include securing his own rights in the process, then so be it, but that's not what drives him. If pursuit of what is right requires him to have courage, firmness, or harshness, then he will be courageous, firm, and harsh. But only because his duty demands it, not because those qualities announce his manhood.

He is what he needs to be to fulfill his Amana, no more, no less. In so doing, he may be praised or he may be reviled. People may be pleased with him or they may hate him, but his sole concern is pleasing his to the best of his ability with no concern for the approval of others.