When this philosophy of gender was applied to Muslim society the ‘night’ never attempted to become ‘day’. Rather ‘night’ and ‘day’ eternally longed for each other. And so we were never subjected to the abominable phenomenon (that European civilization is now exporting to the rest of the world) of the ‘day’ mating with ‘day’ and vice-versa. Women in such a society not only fulfilled all their sacred functional duties as wives and as mothers, and thus contributed in a significant way to preservation of the health, strength and stability of the family, but, in addition, they preserved both their femininity as well as their fertility. And so the Muslim woman remained truly and enchantingly a woman! An age that produced the celibate priest had obstinately insisted that one had to turn away from woman in order to turn to God. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon him) responded by declaring “Three things have been made dear to me in this world of yours – perfume, women and prayer.” And so Islam rejected both celibacy and the ‘object’ while recognizing woman, like prayer, to be a medium through which a man might journey to paradise.