It has come to my attention that there is a saying among you that girls are like fruit that is to be squeezed and then tossed aside. This saying is a false one. Women are not like fruit that is to be used and then rejected, but rather like fruit trees which may for a long time give fruit that can be enjoyed by someone but which need to be properly cared for. If you wish for a saying to guide your life and your actions, that is the saying that you want to keep in mind. If you think of a woman like a pomegranate to be enjoyed once and then cast aside, you may find yourself having to deal with the problem of little seeds sprouting in all kinds of unusual places that you are responsible for, even if you take no responsibility for them. 

But you will tell me that you have no ability to take care of a woman the way that a skilled gardener takes care of a pomegranate tree. Whose fault is that? You are all adults; you have all come here to Qoms to seek after wisdom and insight and knowledge. How come you did not seek to learn how to treat a woman the way that a gardener prunes and takes care of a precious tree? Perhaps you will tell me that as a poor talib [student] you cannot support a wife, and lack the resources to care for a pomegranate tree. What business do you have seeking fruit without having the means to pay for it? If we want to enjoy fresh fruit in its due season, we must at the very least go out to the market and pay for it. The fruit must have some value to us, unless we are a thief and we seek to steal pomegranates from those who properly own them, in which case we deserve to have our hands cut off as thieves of what belongs to others. If we buy a fruit and are sloppy with it and leave sides which grow into their own pomegranate seeds, how will we justly deny our responsibility for them? We are responsible for our deeds, try as we might to slip away from it. And to the extent that we have value and worth ourselves, we will properly assess the value of others not only to ourselves but to the world as a whole.

It should be obvious to us that women are not mere fruit that is ripe for days or weeks and then rots away. Women are the source of a great deal of pleasure for us that it is right and proper for us to enjoy, and inshallah [God-willing] we will all be able to enjoy this fruit over the course of many years of life as a man. But like a man, a woman requires a lot of time in order to grow and blossom and bear fruit. It is not the work of an instant, or something that can be easily cast aside. A tree does not bear fruit unless it receives proper nourishment from the rain that falls from the heavens and from the earth where it places its roots. It must be cared for, protected from pests, and given the nutrients it needs in order to bear fruit for others to enjoy. It takes time to grow from a seed to a flowering and productive tree, and that is time when it must be cared for by someone. If you care only for fruit, and do not care anything for how that fruit is to be obtained, or how much work it is to care for trees and other plants and to give them what it needs to bring forth crops for our own enjoyment and nourishment, you are yourself without worth and value. The fact that we place no value on others aside from our own selfish enjoyment is no estimate of their true value but instead of our own. Who created us to simply enjoy and take advantage of the good gifts of creation without having in any way contributed to it or cared for it or helped it continue and increase? Even Adam, the father and progenitor of us all, was created out of the earth and was given the job of tending to the earth and its plants for the benefit of himself and for humanity as a whole.

But you will tell me that it is bida [bad innovation] to view women as being precious and worthwhile, as if it was some sort of modern idea that we take from the decadent and corrupt West. I say to you no, we do not need Westerners to tell us that women are worthwhile and valuable. We can know this from our own experience and from our own reading of the Quran and the hadiths [holy sayings]. Did not the prophet have his own wives and take care of them all, praise be to Allah [God]? Did he not tell us, in words revealed by the angel Gabriel, that men were not to marry, and certainly not marry more than one person, unless they could take care of and care for those whom they married? Was not Ali content with one wife, Fatima, daughter of the prophet, praised be his name, so much so that he never needed to bring any other woman into his tent? We rightly praise the piety and righteousness of Ali, and of his love and devotion to the prophet, praised be his name, who raised him as a son and became his father-in-law, but should we not follow his example? It is certain that few men are blessed as he was in having such a treasured wife as he had, but it speaks highly to the value of a man not only in possessing a fine woman but in recognizing and in treasuring the woman that he has been given. Our own scriptures tell us that those people are to be treasured who themselves have recognized the treasures that are in other people. Do we not reject the selfish Qurayish [the leading tribe of pre-Islam Mecca, noted for their idolatry and cupidity] like Yazid for the way that they valued the son of the righteous Ali so little that they slayed him like a dog at Kerbala? How can we ourselves do likewise by treating a woman who has honored us by giving us pleasure as being something useless and worthless to be casually tossed aside like yesterday’s refuse to be added to the compost pile and then forgotten and never brought again to mind, except as a lewd joke to share with one’s friends? Does that not speak badly about our own worth to the world or to anyone who we would want to think well of us?

You seek to take upon yourselves the title of mojtahed [religious scholar and teacher], to teach others the ways of truth and righteousness? How can you do so if you do not know and practice those ways yourself? How can you do more than pollute the title which you strive to possess unless you can show an example in your own conduct of the right ways that you seek to teach? A teacher cannot teach what he does not know. A mojtahed cannot guide people to a truth that he has not sought within his own heart. Were we not all born of women, fed and cared for by them when we were nothing but poop machines, unable to do anything for ourselves and entirely reliant on the kindness and goodwill of those who brought us into this earth? If we came through and survived from the care of those we do not consider to be of any value, how can we consider ourselves to be of any value? If our mothers are of no value, if our sisters are of no value, and if our future wives are of no value, of what value is our own life or our own homes or our own happiness? Reason and calculate it out for yourself, if it is not sufficiently obvious for you already.

You may tell me that the girls and young women you see around you are not of an elevated nature like Aisha, beloved of the prophet, praised be his name, when she was but a child of nine, nor of the prophet’s daughter Fatima, beloved of righteous Ali and mother to his glorious sons. Whose fault is that? Is it not the responsibility of us as men to care for and train and bring up those women who we are responsible for protecting, for leading, for caring for and providing for, for teaching and instructing and guiding? If women have grown up silly and ignorant, whose fault is that? It is our fault for not having taught them how to live soberly and righteously. If women have grown up not to value themselves but to throw themselves on any worthless boy who will have them and tell them lies to deceive them, whose fault is that? It is our fault for not having raised them to understand their own value, nor warned them that there are many worthless boys who will lie to a girl to tell her that she is valuable and special and then, as soon as the pleasure of union has been forgotten and as soon as the longing for intimacy has been sated, toss them aside as worthless and useless to them and wholly unworthy of seeking lasting pleasure in holy marriage. Many such worthless boys I see in this audience today, who tell each other of their lurid escapades and who speak of women in gross and disgusting ways, viewing them as mere receptacles to be used and abused, flattered when necessary and cast aside when inconvenient or no longer necessary for the moment. And you have the gall to say that to treasure and respect women, to view them as being of worth through their entire lifetime as the source of lasting pleasure and as beings who are not only honorable themselves but whose proper care brings us great honor is bida and comes from the corrupt West, when your conduct itself springs from the corrupt and immoral Great Satan and its perverse culture as well as the jahiliyyah [pre-Islam age of ignorance]. Will you not repent of your own blasphemies and your own corruption?

But say you come to me and tell me, “Mojtahed, I have a temporary wife here in Qoms who loves me, cares for me, keeps my house for me. How am I to properly take care of her for her generosity to me?” You have done well in so doing. I would counsel you to appreciate the sacrifice that she has made of her own honor and dignity in being willing to love and care for a poor student like yourself, who has no fortune, no glorious name, no prestigious position, but only out of her concern for your own needs. She has sacrificed much for you, she may even bear you children and serve you as both wife and maid. Should you not do what you can to repay her sacrifice to you by giving her honor and praise, and taking her in holy marriage when you are able to fulfill your obligations as a husband? Is she to suffer loss because she gave you the service of a wife before you were worthy of it and could take upon yourself the duties and responsibilities of a husband? You will bring great honor to yourself by treasuring the wife of your youth, by showing that you are a man of honor, who does not simply view people for what they are able to do for him, but shows loyalty and respect for the honor and service she has shown you while you were merely a poor student, and who in turn is worthy of being praised and honored as your cherished wife when you have finished your studies and taken the honorable position within society that is your due as a learned scholar and wise teacher of the right way of living. By honoring others, including those whom have loved us when it was easily within their interest to reject us as unworthy, we bring honor to ourselves. Let us therefore seek our own honor and that of others, to view women as a cherished tree worthy of care and protection, and not merely fruit to be tossed aside once we have taken all that we want from it to sate our momentary hunger.