The universality and immutability that is ascribed by traditional Islamic scholarship to societal gender roles and spousal relations, rights, and responsibilities espoused in the Sharīʿa regulations and stipulations of the revelatory era assumes an ontology that is fixed and static. This paper asserts that this assumption is false, and the opposite is true – ‘apparent’ existence is dynamic and in a constant state of flux. In view of this, the purpose of Sharīʿa regulations and stipulations is to facilitate the existential growth of the individual and collectivity. Hence, as people grow rationally, morally, and spiritually, and/or time and place change, societal regulations and stipulations that are suboptimal in facilitating such growth must be reformulated.
This paper surmises that (i) the Sharīʿa regulations and stipulations of the revelatory era governing societal gender roles and spousal relations, rights, and responsibilities were formulated in accordance with ‘God’s bestowal of faḍl (existential merit)’ upon the men and women of the revelatory era; (ii) the notion of ‘God’s bestowal of faḍl refers to the existential aptitudes he bestows upon individuals, collectivities, or genders in any given time and place; (iii) the existential aptitudes of individuals, collectivities, or genders are subject to change with the growth of humankind; (iv) thus, the Sharīʿa regulations and stipulations of the revelatory era governing societal gender roles and spousal relations, rights, and responsibilities, which were formulated in accordance with the existential aptitudes of the people of that era, are neither universal nor eternal; and (v) therefore, societal gender roles and spousal relations, rights, and responsibilities enshrined in the Sharīʿa regulations and stipulations of the revelatory era are mutable and ought to be subjected to periodic appraisals.