On Shura-cracy, Gender and Equality in Islam

Whenever the concept of Shura is mentioned, attention goes very quickly to the Quranic chapter titled Shura, in which the concept is mentioned as one of the qualities of the believers and without any specification of how, when and where to be used. The second mention of "Shura" in the Quran which draws attention is the one in the third chapter (Aal-Imran), the historical context of which was purely political (has to do with war). This may sound a chauvinistic style of reading the Quranic text that clouds men from readily remembering the mentioning of the same concept in Chapter Baqara, in relation to weaning a child (I acknowledge a woman drew my attention to it). But I don't think this would be(more than partially) true.

The first reason is that the (most prominent) practical explanation of Shura concept through the actions of the Prophet (PBUH) in his interactions with the people around him was purely political and mostly to do with war. The second reason is that there is an independent concept in Islam dealing with the issue of marriage; that of "Al-taradi" (mutual agreement). This is a bit different from Shura in that Al-Taradi involves only two persons while Shura can involve many.

Speaking of speciality in the role of different genders which amounts to differentiating between humans based on their gender doesn't in any way mean that woman should be subservient to man. In fact, I always believe that no human being should be subservient to another regardless of their gender or sex. And when I speak about speciality in relation to gender, I am not using it to dismiss equality, but to establish the fact that the relationship between man and woman is complimentary. (I basically consider the relationship between husband and wife too delicate to be properly defined by the word equality, which I consider inadequate. But if we must use the word "equality", I can accept that they are equal but in different ways which means the same thing as they are complementary rather than equal. But I prefare not to use it for there is never two equal humans; not even of the same gender, not even twins) and which is quite different from equality before the law. 

To answer your question, yes! Our physiological differences define our obligations towards Allah. It determines who among us is allowed to skip some prayers and who is not. In matters of finances, the witness given by a man stands for that of two women, while in issues to do with virginity, pregnancy and the likes, the witness of a single woman overweights that of men no matter how large is their number based on the text of and literature of the Islamic tradition. But the mistake most people make is to think of these as criteria for prioritizing a gender over another. It is purely a matter of speciality in a role not that of priority of gender.

Having said all these, allow me to state that I strongly believe that chauvinistic reading of the Quranic text is as dangerous as is feministic. God is not biased and never take sides.