Islam: Oppression vs. Freedom

As seen as above women must cover up so that the shape of their body cannot be seen with the only places that they can show are hands, face and feet. They are unable to wear strong perfume, heavy make up, bright colours or masses of jewellery. This is so that they do not lead any males to looking or being attracted to them… But why must the women cover up and not the men… isn’t that a form of sexism?

Well, Muslims believe that as men are less able to control any desires etc they may have it is women who should cover up in order to stop any sin being committed.

Now on a more serious note and a 100% factual note, the question of where the voices of conservative Muslims to fight for what they believe in are? Has arisen. Sarraji Umm Zaid, a American convert to Islam once said “When we stay silent in the face of injustices, non Muslims begin to wonder if we really care about our women as much as we claim to”.  She along with many others believes that a lot of attention has been focused on the issue of Muslim women and Human rights since September 11, almost all of it by Non-Muslims.

Once again, images of women swathed in black veils or blue burqas are de rigeur, as the media soberly reminds us that Muslim women are not considered equals to men in Islam, and that they are oppressed even by the moderate regimes in the Muslim world.

From the Muslims, we have one of two reactions.  The first is the reaction of the “liberal, reformist, secular” Muslims.  They believe that Shari’a oppresses women, and that we need to completely overhaul it, or toss out sections of the Qur’an that are “uncomfortable,” or institute secular forms of government that separate the sacred from the legal all together.  These are the same Muslims who equate hijab with oppression, and who support the denial of free speech rights to “Islamists” (all the while, crying for their rights to free speech in countries where it is denied).  They take their political thought not from Islamic sources, but from feminism, socialism, and capitalism.   Naturally, it is to these Muslims that the Western media turns when it wants a “Muslim” perspective on “Muslim issues.”

On the other side, we have the organizers of the mainstream conservative Muslims, the leaders of our civic societies, advocacy groups, and associations.  When presented with instances of women’s oppression in the Islamic world, these Muslims, almost always men, respond defensively.  They cart out examples of women’s oppression in the Western world, or worse, they address the issue by lecturing the questioner about the virtues of the Ideal Place of Women in Ideal Islam.  In other words, they treat the ideal that we are all aspiring to as the reality on the ground.  Pressed into taking a stand on real life issues, they retreat in anger.  “That’s culture, not Islam, it has nothing to do with me as a Muslim,” they sniff.

Meanwhile, real Muslim women suffer at the hands of societies and governments who would harm them in the name of Islam.

 Who speaks for them?  Most often, it is the United Nations, human rights groups, and feminist organizations, led by people who have no foundations of knowledge in Islam, and who often have a real antipathy for Islam.  While the Feminist Majority Fund was selling swatches of “burqa” and petitioning the government for action on behalf of Afghan women, the leaders of our Islamic societies stayed silent.  Publicly, many Islamic leaders and organizations disassociated themselves from the Taliban, but other than denying them entry into the Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC), they took no action to petition the Taliban for change from an Islamic view, or form any sort of Islamic opposition.

Weirdly, however when a Muslim woman’s Islamic rights are violated, many organizations are eager to speak out and petition.  For example, when Merve Kavacki was denied her seat in the Turkish Parliament because of her headscarf (and later stripped of her citizenship), Muslim groups were quick to condemn the Turkish government, as they should have.  In many Western Muslim circles, Merve has been elevated to a symbol of the struggle muhajabat women face in secular societies.

Yet there is a resounding silence when the issue being raised is Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), honor killings, forced marriages, the unequal application of hadd punishments on women, or the denial of education to girls and women.  All of these wrongs are perpetrated on women in the name of Islam.  While it is true that many of these violations occur across cultural and religious boundaries, the only action often taken by conservative Muslims is a condemnation of the action because it is “cultural” and not Islamic.  Meanwhile, women continue to be murdered and little girls continue to be mutilated.