Islam & the Modern World · Family, Marriage & Divorce

Men, providing and purpose

Handle with care. Handle with care: never frame male authority as a licence over women. Q 4:34 is about financial responsibility and is explained that way by the classical exegetes.

In short

• 1.ONS data has consistently shown around three quarters of UK suicides are male, and suicide is the leading cause of death for men under fifty.
• 2.Boys now trail girls at almost every stage of Western education, a pattern documented by Richard Reeves.
• 3.Islam assigns men obligations by name: maintenance, protection, prayer in congregation, and answerability for the household.

The claim being examined

Large numbers of young men are disengaging from education, work and relationships, and male suicide remains the leading cause of death for men under fifty in the UK.

The Islamic position

Islam gives men a defined, non-optional role — provision, protection and worship-based discipline — and treats abandoning it as a sin rather than a lifestyle.

Analysis

The figures are official and stable across years: the Office for National Statistics reports that roughly three quarters of registered suicides in England and Wales are male, and male suicide has for years been the leading cause of death among men under fifty in the UK. On education and work, Richard V. Reeves (Of Boys and Men, Brookings, 2022) documents the reversal of the educational gender gap across the developed world and the decline in male labour-force participation, and argues explicitly that the collapse of a socially recognised male role — rather than any innate deficiency — is central to the problem. This is a place where Islam has something structurally distinctive to offer, and it should be presented as duty rather than privilege. Qiwamah in Q 4:34 is standardly explained by the classical exegetes in terms of the man's financial responsibility (the verse itself grounds it in what they spend from their wealth), not in terms of superiority; Ibn Ashur and others emphasise it as a burden of maintenance and protection. The Prophetic report that each of you is a shepherd and responsible for his flock (Sahih al-Bukhari 893) makes leadership a form of accountability. And the five daily prayers, especially in congregation, impose a physical structure on the day that no self-help programme matches.

From the Qur'an

From the Sunnah

Sources

Richard V. Reeves, Of Boys and Men (2022) · ONS, Suicides in England and Wales · Ibn Ashur, al-Tahrir wa al-Tanwir · Richard V. Reeves, Of Boys and Men (Brookings Institution Press, 2022)

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