Fighting Fire With…Logic

Each day, it seems, more nonsensical information about Islam and Muslims floats onto the horizon through our mainstream media, whether it be television, radio, or print. The more drastic and extreme the allegations, the better…no matter how spurious or ill-informed. There are so many misconceptions, so much misinformation to battle, that often I know not where to begin. But I must at least begin.

And I must begin fighting these fires with logic, for when we fight back with fire and stoop to the levels of our attackers, we are only branded as raving lunatic. So logic will prevail and hopefully, with Allah’s grace, we will show the world the true face of Islam and the strength of the Muslim ummah.

Today I will begin with a topic that is often highlighted and put in bold print when Islam and its adherents are mentioned – that of the rights of women and their place in the social fabric of our world.

Almost daily does some self-proclaimed expert come onto the scene and pronounce the evils of Islam against women. Yet, here I am, a highly educated, strong, confident, radiant, energetic, advocate of women’s rights who not only follows Islam’s tenets, but who embraced this way of life through my own volition and choice. So how can these two positions be squared? Is Islam a culprit of repressing women? Or is there something we are missing?

I assert to you that Islam, far from repressing women, had as one of its main principles, the elevation and glorification of women. Here are just a few things that Islam brought in the 7th century, during a time when the “Western” world was debating whether women had a soul or not.

• The prohibition of female infanticide.
• The order from the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) that fathers not only preserve their daughters’ lives, but also stop the age-old tradition of favoring their male children over their female children.
• The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) constantly telling his adherants to respect their mothers above all other people in their lives.
• The marriage of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to Khadija, his employer and one of the most powerful entrepreneurs in all of Arabia, signaling the acceptance and encouragement of women to enter the business/corporate world and be leaders both at home and in the marketplace.
• The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) engaging in a foot-race with his wife, Aisha, signaling the encouragement of women to engage in outdoor physical activity and recreation.
• The Shari’ah regards women as the spiritual and intellectual equals of men
• Islam came to rid the world of the concept of arranged marriages and to allow women to choose their husbands and even keep their own name if they wish
• Islam came to dictate that both men and women should receive the same education in both secular and religious subjects
• Islam gave women the right to vote, to hold public office, and to have strong influence over administrative and governmental functions
• Islam came to give women the right to inherit, to own property, to enter into contracts, and to make bequests as individuals
• The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: “The most perfect believers are those who are best in their manners and daily conduct. And the best of the believers are those who are best to their wives.” Islam tells us that Allah (God) created marriage as a partnership and put love, mercy, and tranquility between husband and wife.
• The Qur’an addresses men and women equally as believers and adherants to the faith and does not distinguish between their merit and responsibility as creations of God

These are just a few of the myriad ideals that Islam espouses that were truly revolutionary at the time that they were revealed and remained singular in their progressive nature for over 1200 years.

Now you may read all this and say, “Yes, you claim that Islam gave women all these rights, but we have the Taliban in Afghanistan putting burqas on women, we have the Morality Police in Saudi Arabia punishing women for showing their ankles or a strand of hair, we have female genital mutilation rampant throughout Africa, and women in Muslim countries don’t have the right to vote, the right to own property or get equal education or serve in public office…..”

And to all this I would say, “I know. You are right.”

BUT THIS IS NOT ISLAM.

The evils, the repression and abuse of women throughout the world cannot be attributed to Islam. Islam is not the culprit. The people that oppress and subjugate women may be Muslims and claim to be adherents of the religion, but the way they act toward women is not a religious phenomenon. It is a cultural construct.

Either these people don’t know what Islam really says about women or they knowingly choose to scew the truth about Islam to suit their own cultural traditions and political aspirations.

But all the things that people around the world do that oppresses women cannot be attributed to Islam because Islam and the man who brought the message in the 7th century both came with such strong force to elevate and glorify women that any other interpretation and presentation on the topic is just flat wrong.

So much attention has been brought to this subject in the past 5+ years, but what of history? What of the past 1400 years? Promoters of Western liberalism will claim that their worldview is not only different from the Islamic world view, but that it is also superior to it. I cannot differ more strongly on this issue.

When we look into history over the past 1400 years, and if we are very honest about the subject of women’s rights, we will see that Islamic civilization has a legacy much richer in the granting of women’s rights (and civil rights in general, regardless of gender, race, or religion) than that of Western civilization.

Just twenty years before the first revelation of Islam to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), there was a council of prominent Western religious scholars who convened to discuss whether women had a soul. Are you kidding me?

From the time of the Prophet Muhammad in the late 7th century, women began owning business and property, getting world class education, voting in open elections, serving in public positions in politics and military units, and earning the respect of their contemporaries as some of the most distinguished scholars of the time. People would travel for hundreds and thousands of miles to learn from some of the Muslim female scholars of the middle ages. All this during a time when all of Europe was in its dark age and women were considered chattel.

During the Moorish age and the Ottoman Empire, women rose to new heights, servings as governors of provinces and attaining positions in elected office. All this while French and British “enlightened” thinkers still were pondering the intellectual inferiority of women.

The horrible disintegration of women’s rights in the “Islamic” world has only come after Western colonial powers entered into the picture, drew imaginary lines to make separate countries out of this once awesome empire, and imposed their socio-cultural norms on the peoples living from modern-day Algeria to Turkey.

Our Muslims in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe have suffered from a lack of education, oppressive governments, and colonization. We are suffering, and yes, there is abuse of women and oppression of women. Yes. But these broad, sweeping accusations and allegations against Islam as a religion are completely unfounded and unproductive. The abuse that takes place against women is also against Islamic principles. Islam came to bring mercy and love and tenderness between men and women and to bring them together as partners in their efforts to glorify Allah.

The great Western liberal culture has only gained huge strides in women’s rights in the past century. So who are these people to judge others, who have had less education, less freedom, and less opportunities than we in the mighty West have had. Why does the West look so highly upon itself while looking menacingly down upon others? Does it not realize that only 93 years ago did women in this great United States gain the right to vote?! 93 years! While Muslim women have had the God-given right to vote for almost 1500 years?! Does the West not remember that only just a shade over a century ago did women gian the right to own property in this country? Whereas women have had the right to own property in Islam for over fourteen centuries?!

Why does the West not look to Islam as a model of justice and liberation of women? Why does the West not urge the Arabs and the Asians and the Africans and all the people of the world to model Islamic principles for how women should be treated? Islam is the prototype of the women’s rights movement! Islam is the cornerstone of the elevation of the mind, body and soul of women!

So go ahead….knock Arabs, knock Africans, knock Asians or whatever ethnic cultural group you want to knock about how they treat women. Hell, knock Americans, because caucasian men are the largest group of culprits of abuse against women. Just go to the ER on Superbowl Sunday one year. The glorious “West” with its liberal social structure talks a good game, always chiming about women’s rights, but when it comes down to it, Western men beat and oppress their women too. Oh, and I’ll remind everyone that it’s the West that hasn’t had a female president. Those brown-skinned crazy Muslim people over in Pakistan and Bangladesh and Indonesia have elected women as prime ministers and presidents. Hmmmmm. So don’t be so fast to knock Islam. Islam is not the problem. Islam is the solution.

~ by raggiungere on February 27, 2007.