[Explanation]

The author—may Allah have mercy on him—states: “Chapter: The Husband’s Rights over the Wife.”

After detailing the wife’s rights upon her husband, he next mentions the husband’s rights over his wife and cites as evidence the words of Allah the Exalted:

“Men are caretakers of women by virtue of what Allah has given some of them over others and of what they spend from their wealth. Thus, righteous women are devoutly obedient and guard, in the husband’s absence, what Allah would have them guard.” (Qur’an 4:34)

He then clarifies the basis of this qiwāma (authority and guardianship) that Allah has ordained, saying: “by virtue of what Allah has given some of them over others,” meaning that Allah has favored men over women in intellect, religious commitment, capability, physical strength, and other facets of excellence. The entire sharīʿa is justice; it grants each person what he deserves in proportion to the merit Allah has bestowed upon him. Therefore, since Allah has preferred men to women, men are made their guardians. This provides unmistakable evidence of the superiority of the male sex over the female, and that men are more complete, more virtuous, and more entitled to leadership than women. For that reason, when the Prophet ﷺ was told, “Chosroes has died and a woman has assumed power after him,” he said, “A people who entrust their affairs to a woman will never prosper.” If this ḥadīth addresses only the Persians who installed a woman over them, then it concerns them specifically; and if it is general, then it is general: no people will prosper who place a woman in authority over their affairs. Thus the man is the one who exercises guardianship over the woman. In this is further proof of the foolishness of those unbelievers—Western or otherwise—who have become mere followers of the West, venerating