I always thought it was a fact that Eve was made from Adam’s rib. In ‘religious talk’ that would mean it was agreed upon (by scholars) or that there was something directly from Hadith or Quran we could point to and say, “Eve was created from Adam’s rib”. But, no —at least, not exactly. There is and has been room for interpretation from classical scholarship (1) that she may not have literally been created from his rib but that this saying is metaphoric. That all we know for sure is that Adam woke up and Eve was by his side.
This nuance intrigues me. Not merely for the general interest in scholarly interpretation and disagreement but because it points to a larger philosophical issue concerning women, who we are, and what we’re here for.
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Women; Created for, created to, created from
Adam awakening and seeing Eve by his side
From the perspective of Adam, and men thereafter, Eve (i.e. women) were created for them. A helpmate, a companion, a source of physical pleasure, and an extension of himself. What has angered, disappointed, and confused men from the very beginning is that this is both true and not true. God says in the Quran, And it is among His signs that He has created for you wives from among yourselves, so that you may find tranquility in them, and He has created love and kindness between you. Surely in this, there are signs for a people who reflect. (30:22) (2) Yet despite women’s role in relationship with men that is not all we were created for nor all we are in relation to them.
From Adam’s vantage point (3) Eve was for him. But who was Eve from her own vantage point?
Eve awakening by Adam’s side
Unlike Adam, Eve was created in both her own independent creation (this is whether we accept that she was made from Adam’s rib literally or metaphorically) and in relation to another. Eve was both her own and someone else’s. She belonged both to community —so to speak, and to herself. She is a part of Adam, as she is also a fellow human being, but she is also distinct from him. She gets to see the world both through her own eyes and through his. She gets to experience her existence as both a part of a whole and a whole in itself.
Who did Eve see herself as when she lay by Adam’s side, either watching him sleep or awakening to him observing her. Unlike Adam who had to learn the name of things and his place in the world —above them as Khalifah, Eve had to find her place not only above all of creation but also beside and below Adam. That is, Eve was created with humility. Meant not only to serve and worship God but also to serve and be subordinate to her husband’s leadership while simultaneously holding all of creation in her care.
Women as a category of people
It is often said and shown (4) that women relate more to people and men more to objects. When we look at the context of Eve we see that this leaning is inherited from her original predicament —is it any surprise that we relate more to the other than to objects? When our mother, the first woman, woke up not merely among things but besides another human? While Adam learned the name of things, Eve had to learn Adam and learn things through him and his knowledge. Women began our journey in relation to men while men began their journey in relation to things.
While Adam learned the knowledge of things, Eve learned through both her own senses and through Adam’s knowledge. Did Eve first learn through her senses and then from Adam’s knowledge? Did she explore her surroundings before Adam gave her the lay of the land? Or did she simultaneously learn through him while learning through herself?
A woman’s way of knowing has always been relational, both through herself and through others, she knows. And this way of knowing is not (always) an ‘either/or’ it is perhaps often a ‘but/and/in consideration of’.
While we say that Eve was below Adam in subordination to his leadership it can easily be said that she was above all of humanity in relationship —perhaps even above Adam himself. While Eve relied on Adam as the first man and first human, Adam relied on Eve as the vessel through which all of humanity would be recreated. Without Eve, Adam was as good as dead, with Eve he lives on.
This too is a predicament for women. We must lower ourselves to men -giving them the title and honor of leadership, while maintaining awareness that their very existence is reliant on us.
Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash
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Further Reading/Sources:
- Was Hawa’ (Eve) Created from the Rib of Adam? https://seekersguidance.org/answers/general-counsel/was-hawa-eve-created-from-the-rib-of-adam/
- Ar Rum, 30 https://quran.com/30/21?translations=18,19,20,95,17,21,22,85,34,84,101
- When we speak of ‘Adam’ here we speak of the idea of Adam as a stand-in for the first man on earth and not Adam as the specific man who was a prophet of God, peace to him. Beyond revealed knowledge, we have no idea what Adam thought *in reality,* about when he saw Eve beside him.
- Men and things, women and people: a meta-analysis of sex differences in interests https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19883140/
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