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"In Islam,
superiority is achieved through piety -- not beauty,
wealth, power, position or sex".
-Yvonne Ridley ( Washington Post, Monday, October 23,
2006).
An interesting article on status of women in Islam!
Yvonne, a British Journalist let herself be a captive in
Afghanistan, to study their treatment of women by the
Taliban. She converted to Islam, 30 months after she
returned from Afghanistan.
"Veiled Woman"
by Yvonne Ridley, Washington Post, Monday, October 23,
2006
I used to look at veiled women as quiet, oppressed
creatures -- until I was captured by the Taliban. In
September 2001, just 15 days after the terrorist attacks
on the United States , I snuck into Afghanistan , clad
in a head-to-toe blue burqa, intending to write a
newspaper
account of life under the repressive regime. Instead, I
was discovered, arrested and detained for 10 days.
I spat and swore at my captors; they called me a "bad"
woman but let me go after I promised to read the Koran
and study Islam. (Frankly, I'm not sure who was happier
when I was freed -- they or I.) Back home in London , I
kept my word about studying Islam and
was amazed by what I discovered. I'd been expecting
Koran chapters on how to beat your wife and oppress your
daughters; instead, I found passages promoting the
liberation of women. Two-and-a-half years after my
capture, I converted to Islam, provoking a mixture of
astonishment, disappointment and encouragement among
friends and relatives.
Now, it is with disgust and dismay that I watch here in
Britain as former foreign secretary Jack Straw describes
the Muslim nikab a face veil that reveals only the eyes
as an unwelcome barrier to integration, with Prime
Minister Tony Blair, writer Salman Rushdie
and even Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi leaping to
his defense.
Having been on both sides of the veil, I can tell you
that most Western male politicians and journalists who
lament the oppression of women in the Islamic world have
no idea what they are talking about. They go on about
veils, child brides, female circumcision, honor killings
and forced marriages, and they wrongly blame Islam for
all this -- their arrogance surpassed only by their
ignorance.
These cultural issues and customs have nothing to do
with Islam. A careful reading of the Koran shows that
just about everything that Western feminists fought for
in the 1970s was available to Muslim women 1,400 years
ago. Women in Islam are considered equal to men in
spirituality, education and worth, and a woman's gift
for childbirth and child-rearing is regarded as a
positive attribute.
When Islam offers women so much, why are Western men so
obsessed with Muslim
women's attire? Even British government ministers Gordon
Brown and John Reid have made
disparaging remarks about the nikab -- and they hail
from across the Scottish border,
where men wear skirts.
When I converted to Islam and began wearing a headscarf,
the repercussions were enormous. All I did was cover my
head and hair -- but I instantly became a second-class
citizen. I knew I'd hear from the odd Islamophobe, but I
didn't expect so much openhostility from strangers. Cabs
passed me by at night, their "for hire" lights glowing.
One cabbie, after dropping off a white passenger right
in front of me, glared at me when I rapped on his
window, then drove off. Another said, "Don't leave a
bomb in the back seat" and asked, "Where's bin Laden
hiding?"
Yes, it is a religious obligation for Muslim women to
dress modestly, but the majority of Muslim women I know
like wearing the hijab, which leaves the face uncovered,
though a few prefer the nikab. It is a personal
statement: My dress tells you that I am a Muslim and
that I expect to be treated respectfully, much as a Wall
Street banker would say that a business suit defines him
as an executive to be taken seriously. And, especially
among converts to the faith like me, the attention of
men who confront women with inappropriate, leering
behavior is not tolerable.
I was a Western feminist for many years, but I've
discovered that Muslim feminists are more radical than
their secular counterparts. We hate those ghastly beauty
pageants, and tried to stop laughing in 2003 when judges
of the Miss Earth competition hailed the emergence of a
bikini-clad Miss Afghanistan , Vida Samadzai, as a giant
leap for women's liberation. They even gave Samadzai a
special award for "representing the victory of women's
rights."
Some young Muslim feminists consider the hijab and the
nikab political symbols, too, a way of rejecting Western
excesses such as binge drinking, casual sex and drug
use. What is more liberating: being judged on the length
of your skirt and the size of your surgically enhanced
breasts, or being judged on your character and
intelligence? In Islam, superiority is achieved through
piety -- not beauty, wealth, power, position or sex.
I didn't know whether to scream or laugh when Italy's
Prodi joined the debate last week by declaring
that it is "common sense" not to wear the nikab because
it makes social relations "more difficult."
Nonsense. If this is the case, then why are cell phones,
landlines, e-mail,
text messaging and fax machines in daily use? And no one
switches off the radio because they can't see the
presenter's face.
Under Islam, I am respected. It tells me that I have
a right to an education and that it is my duty to
seek out knowledge, regardless of whether I am single or
married. Nowhere in the framework of Islam are we told
that women must wash, clean or cook for men. As for how
Muslim men are allowed to beat their wives -- it's
simply not true. Critics of Islam will quote random
Koranic verses or hadith, but usually out of context. If
a man does raise a finger against his wife, he is not
allowed to leave a mark on her body, which is the
Koran's way of saying, "Don't beat your wife, stupid."It
is not just Muslim men who must reevaluate the place and
treatment of women. According to a recent National
Domestic Violence Hotline survey, 4 million American
women experience a serious assault by a partner during
an average 12-month period. More than three women
are killed by their husbands and boyfriends every day --
that is nearly 5,500 since 9/11.
Violent men don't come from any particular religious
or cultural category; one in three women around
the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise
abused in her lifetime, according to the hotline
survey. This is a global problem that transcends
religion,
wealth, class, race and culture.
But it is also true that in the West, men still believe
that they are superior to women, despite protests
to the contrary. They still receive better pay for equal
work -- whether in the mailroom or the boardroom
-- and women are still treated as sexualized commodities
whose power and influence flow directly from their
appearance.
And for those who are still trying to claim that Islam
oppresses women, recall this 1992 statement from
the Rev. Pat Robertson, offering his views on empowered
women: Feminism is a "socialist, anti-family
political movement that encourages women to leave
their husbands, kill their children, practice
witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become
lesbians." Now you tell me who is civilized and who is
not. |