The Hidden Face of Eve by Nawal El Saadawi

Author:Nawal El Saadawi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zed Books
Published: 2015-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

12

MAN THE GOD, WOMAN THE SINFUL

Akhnatoun the Egyptian King, social reformer and philo­sopher, was the first to formulate a monotheistic religion worshipping one god – Raa, or Harakhni, who scintillates and shines and burns at the horizon in the form of a great light (Shu) and is enveloped within the sun.1 The thought of Akhnatoun had a great influence on Moses, the prophet of Israel, and this can be followed in the close similarity which exists between verses of the Old Testament and the writings of Akhnatoun. Christianity inherited from the legacy of Judaism, and Islam in its turn built up its system of religious thought, values and precepts on the two monotheistic religions which had preceded it.

One of the famous myths shared by all three religions is that of Adam and Eve. This story, which comes as a part of the Genesis of the Earth, occupies in all its beautiful and significant symbolism a prominent part in both the Old Testament and the Koran.

The first man on Earth, Adam, went as far as denying Eve her ability to bear children and bestowed this power on himself since, as the story goes, ‘Eve was born of Adam’s rib’. This is symbolic and reflects the predominant position that man had annexed for himself in these early stages of history characterized by increasing landownership pursued with lust and greed, slave markets where men and women were sold like cattle, an accentuation of the division of society into classes, accompanied by a ferocious exploitation of unpaid labour and a patriarchal system in its most extreme forms.

The original story of Adam and Eve, as told in the Old Testament and Koran, shows clearly the injustice suffered by woman, and the attempt to mask her situation by religious sanctification aimed at smothering all doubt, all discussion and all resistance. For that which God has ordained no man or woman may question.

My first and therefore vivid recollection of this feeling of injustice goes back to the day when I heard my school teacher reading out to us the story of Adam and Eve. At the time I was still a child attending primary school. I was afraid to express what I felt and kept it to myself.

But, whenever I returned to this story, my child’s mind somehow could neither believe nor accept it. For God is assumed to be just and justice requires that there should be no discrimination between Adam and Eve. God is also endowed with an infallible logic, so how can we explain the glaring contradictions that run like red threads through the texture of this religious canvas? God glorifies the mind of man in his sacred books and makes of him the symbol of thought and intelligence, whereas woman personifies the body, a body without a head, a body whose head is the man. Yet in the story Eve is more intelligent than Adam, able to understand what Adam fails to grasp, and to realize that the forbidden tree bears the most

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