Saturday, March 10, 2012

Arab Spring and the Muslim women


I might not have been in my senses to see that Egyptian uprising is all about people, democracy and freedom; at least not in the sense we understand democracy and freedom. (I was told thrice like this.)

Like in other aspects, Arab spring is turning out to be Arab winter for most Muslim women. Sure, Muslim women took part in uprisings and that will be their last successful participation in the future to come as Islamist parties have already announced, after winning elections, any law contradicting Sharia will not be allowed.

Only ignorants blame these Islamist parties because any opinion poll taken in Islamic countries tells the real problem: overwhelming majority of Muslims want Islam to play a larger role and firmly believe that Islam is the solution to all the problems afflicting their societies. No wonder then, Muslim women will find more legalized discrimination against them and more restrictions on them.

To understand what role Islam has towards Muslim women, one needs to look at what Prophet Mohammad said in his farewell sermon:
You have rights over your wives and they have rights over you. You have the right that they should not defile your bed and that they should not behave with open unseemliness. If they do, God allows you to put them in separate rooms and to beat them but not with severity. If they refrain from these things they have the right to their food and clothing with kindness. Lay injunctions on women kindly, for they are prisoners with you having no control of their persons.You have taken them only as a trust from God, and you have enjoinment of their persons by the words of God....                
(Ibn Ishaq in biography of Prophet Mohammad, page 651)
What ever he said was in accord with what Koran says on women.(One can read this: What Prophet Mohammad said regarding women)

Women on the back foot in the Arab Spring

Other, such, similar stories from Islamic nations:

Women deplore restrictions in male-dominated Iraq 

Women treated worse than animals in Pakistan, says govt ally

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