Earlier this month saw a unique European Parliament Committee hearing. The Women's Rights and Gender Equality committee is one of 20 committees in the European Parliament made up of MEP's (Members of the European Parliament). It seeks to promote women's rights both in the Union and third world countries and earlier this month in a hearing, sought to study the position and cause of the discrimination faced by Muslim women.
The committee through much discussion and debate came to the conclusion that it is not the Quran which in fact subordinates thousands of Muslim women today but rather tradition and culture. It is these that have been the root cause of the social crimes enacted against Muslim women. The hearing was correct in asserting that acts such as domestic violence, honour killings and genital mutilation have been done in the name of Islam or in the guise of Islam, but have no link whatsoever to the actual authentic Islamic texts. This is hardly a fact that is a revelation to millions of Muslims globally who are used to these misconceptions of Islam being used as a stick to beat the Shariah and Islam with by Western governments, feminists and the Western media. The committee was also correct to highlight that Islam specifically recognizes a host of rights later denied to women in some Muslim societies.
However, what the hearing failed to recognize nor raise was the evident fact that it is the absence of the implementation of the Islamic Shariah by the Muslim governments today that has stripped women of their rights and resulted in severe oppression. Not only are the Muslim regimes, ranging from the Saudi monarchy to Karimov of Uzbekistan, Musharraf of Pakistan and Mubarak of Egypt incompetant in securing the basic needs and human rights of its citizens, they have exacerbated the oppression of women in their countries by allowing and even encouraging such social crimes to take place. These rulers have implemented ruling systems created from a cocktail of freedom, democracy, tribal and traditional cultures that are devoid of the rule of law for women in the Muslim countries. The committee conveniently side-stepped the point-in-fact that it was the implementation of the Islamic Shariah within a Khilafah system in the Muslim world that was the body that protected that "host of rights" for women. It created a society for centuries which instead of oppressing and degrading Muslim women, honoured and protected them in a way history before had never experienced.
The Prophet SAW said in a hadith which laid this out: 'The world and all things in the world are precious but the most precious thing in the world is a virtuous woman' He SAW also very famously said: 'Paradise lies beneath the feet of the mother' Such hadiths illustrate very lucidly how valuable and precious women are in an Islamic society. Thus not only does Islam have nothing to do with heinous crimes such as genital mutilation, honour killings, domestic violence, and gang rape nor the denial of women to an active public life but also actively sought to eradicate these crimes and attitudes over 1400 years ago. Interestingly, the Women's Rights Committee also recognised that secular societies have problems in relation to the treatment of women - the phrase, "stating the obvious" seems to spring to mind here! The idea that secular liberal values as espoused by the European Parliament and propagated to the Muslim world by Western governments is the holy grail for the respect and liberation of the woman is an assumption that is well past its sell-by-date and importantly rarely debated with earnesty and openness. Within secular societies, women have had to fight and still have to fight the system to obtain basic rights like equal pay.
Liberal values such as "freedom of expression" have meant that multinational companies, the media and society have been free to view and exploit women in order to maximize revenues. Although women living in Western secular states of course have many freedoms and rights, one must question how far secularism and liberalism has actually secured a notion of value, worth and honour for women in society. Rising rape and sexual harassment statistics, domestic violence, pornography to the selling of cars and shampoos by alluring beautiful women are all indication of how women are routinely exploited, by the very freedoms they celebrate. The BBC 2 serial documentary 'Am I normal?' clearly laid out the abnormal pressures women within secular societies face - to live up to a narrow and almost abnormal perception of what is attractive. It highlights a reality where women are in fact subjugated by a value system that constricts the woman - both literally and otherwise - into an unrealistic definition of beauty and a one-size-fits-all body mould. Yes liberalism has enabled women certain freedoms, but it is these same freedoms that have for many women, eroded the self-respect, confidence and status in society that the champions of women's rights fight for. Is this therefore what women across the world really want?
The committee was correct in concluding that backward traditions and cultures, most dating back to pre-Islamic times, have oppressed Muslim women. However the assumption that the road to liberation for Muslim women is through secularism, liberalism and democracy is not correct. Muslim women, all over the Muslim world and living in the West recognise that traditional culture has not brought them protection and neither has liberalism and secularism - And there is an another alternative. It is the alternative of the Islamic Shariah as a governance system, implemented by the noble Prophet SAW and many Khulafah after him, which they seek once again. It is Islam that believes that the rights of women are divinely enshrined by Allah(swt) within the Islamic texts and these cannot be changed or negotiated by any citizen, Minister or Leader. It was the Islamic Khilafah which not only gave women the right to vote, work, study, to have the same pay to men for doing the same job and to be an active member of society but also ensured that they were not exploited in any way. And it is the Islamic Khilafah which Muslim women, all over the world are calling for once again, to lift them from the misery of man-made laws and discrimination into the light of Islam.
Allah(swt) says, 'Alif Lam Ra. (This is) a book which We revealed to you that you may bring forth men, by their Lord's permission from utter darkness into Light' TMQ Ibrahim'.
Indeed the debate as to which ideology, which value system, and which form of governance can truly liberate the woman from the shackles of oppression - "Secularism" or "Islam" - is a debate that is well overdue and one that the campaign "Stand for Islam" seeks to create.
|
