CAMPAIGN AGAINST SHARIA LAW: The role of women in Islam
It is widely believed that the role of women in Islam is subservient and I shall attempt to investigate the matter in this article. There is no doubt that Islam is a patriarchal and misogynistic ideology which denies the emancipation of women and this is evident in the way Muhammad treated the women in his life. Women are treated as second class citizens as men are classed to be superior. Quote from the Quran – ‘ Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend (to support them) from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient (to Allah and to their husbands), and guard in the husband’s absence what Allah orders them to guard (e.g. their chastity, their husband’s property). As to those women on whose part you see ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them’
Criticism of Muhammad had been in existence since the 7th century and he was frequently demonised during the Middle Ages. In modern times, criticism has also dealt with his sincerity in claiming to be a prophet and the laws he established such as those concerning slavery or his many marriages.
In recent times, many who have criticised Muhammad have received death threats by hard-line Muslims and this has even led to some being convicted by court and sentenced to death for blasphemy.
Contrast this with the way Jesus Christ is blasphemed by both Christians and other religions alike and it gives the sense of proportion to the unjust system.
Muhammad was widely rumoured to have had 11 or 13 wives/concubines that he visited on a regular daily basis, one of them ‘Aisha’ is of particular interest. She was thought to have been only 6 years old when betrothed to Muhammad although many texts suggest she was 9 years old before the marriage was consummated. Even though you would think that being a wife of such a powerful leader was an honour, no special privileges were awarded to any of the wives or concubines. They were there simply to fulfil the duty of servitude to their husband. Quote from the Quran -’ They are content to be with those (the women) who sit behind (at home). Their hearts are sealed up so they understand not. ‘
It is on this basis that many Islam men feel they are superior to women. Polygamy is encouraged to ensure that as many children are born out of the union of marriage as possible. The younger a woman is then the more children she may bear seems to be another factor in the reason that paedophilia is tolerated.
As women are primarily to be mothers and housekeepers then it is also thought within many Islamic nations that to educate females is a waste of time. Women are not encouraged to seek work outside their domestic duties and to bear children is supposed to be an honour for them. As a result of the lack of education, women are taught not to question their role in life and thus guarantee the status quo. Men control every part of their life including the way they dress outside the home and most of these rules stem from the Quran – ‘tell the believing women to lower their gaze (from looking at forbidden things), and protect their private parts (from illegal sexual acts) and not to show off their adornment except only that which is apparent (like both eyes for necessity to see the way, or outer palms of hands or one eye or dress like veil, gloves, head-cover, apron, etc.), and to draw their veils all over Juyubihinna (i.e. their bodies, faces, necks and bosoms) and not to reveal their adornment except to their husbands, or their fathers’
In order to understand the process by which a state is changed, I will look at the formation of the state of Pakistan and what happened there when Islam became their major religion. Pakistan was formed when India was split up in 1947 at the end of British rule. Pakistan and Bangladesh were the Muslim majority areas, whilst India retained the majority Hindu areas. Subsequently, a lot of people in the ‘wrong areas’ migrated to be with their co-religionists, but India remains pretty tolerant of different religions, including Christians, whereas Islamic Pakistan doesn’t.
Problems began in Pakistan when it became a homeland for Muslims, this caused one million deaths and many more injured. Women became special victims: countless were raped, mutilated, forcibly captured and sold into prostitution, hundreds of thousands became untraceable. Whilst islamification projects have always been engineered in the pursuit of greater power alignments. It must be noted that even under General Zia, the disempowerment of women and all non-Muslims was the outcome of islamification and until martial law in 1977, women’s issues were victims of gross negligence and a paternalistic view.
The majority of rural women seem to be petrified in another century and are untouched by events and developments outside their immediate circles which are tightly controlled by traditional male gatekeepers of the family and community. A few exceptional women have always occupied positions of pre-eminence but these are from very wealthy backgrounds and are tolerated as exceptions. Such women do not affect a structural configuration that only enables a miniscule minority to excel and condemns the majority to a life of unchanging deprivation. The struggle for gender equality has been waged from a narrow class-base of the relatively more privileged and although robust and vociferous, is numerically very small.
In general, the rigidly upheld customs of a gender-segregated patriarchal society impede women’s mobility and block access to information, health, education and employment opportunities. In collusion with male family gate-keepers, decision-makers in traditional community dispute-resolution/self-governance mechanisms help to perpetuate such misconceptions by blocking knowledge of rights under the law as well as access of the poor and less powerful to state benefits. The general state of ignorance about state laws as well as religious precepts allows players using the rhetoric of ‘Islamic justice’ to silence potential opposition while mobilising support.
Zia’s version of Islam was regulative, punitive and extractive and it sought to rescind women’s rights and undermine justice. The new Islamised laws lent religious weight to brute force. Legal changes in 1979 with a few religiously inspired criminal laws banded together as the infamous Hudood Ordinances that introduced inhuman punishments like amputations,. public whipping and stoning to death. The laws criminalised consensual sex (zina) and also covered a number of sexual crimes including rape and abduction, theft, drunkenness and perjury.
Fundamentally flawed, the law caused immense injustice. Rape and other sexual crimes were confounded with zina, that is consensual sex outside marriage, and the police authorised to decide which section to register a complaint under. Hence, parents attempting to annul their daughter’s ‘unsuitable’ marriages by filing complaints of abduction, found their daughter instead accused of having committed zina and jailed when police failed to find documentary proof of marriage and any evidence of coercion. In a travesty of justice, rape survivors unable to provide sufficient evidence to convict the accused, were themselves sentenced for zina because they had ‘confessed’ to the sexual activity, or because they were pregnant. Disturbingly, the laws eliminated the provision of statutory rape and, because girls were held to be liable as of ‘puberty or 16 years, girls as young as nine were therefore prosecuted as adults. Inconsistencies between the zina laws and the provisions of Muslim family law enabled men to use the zina laws to penalise and persecute women they had orally divorced. Quote from the Quran backs this up – ‘And those of your women who commit illegal sexual intercourse, take the evidence of four witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them (i.e. women) to houses until death comes to them or Allah ordains for them some (other) way.’
The Hudood laws had the most damaging ramifications in practical terms; other new laws had less visible impact but carried the message that the status of Muslim women and all non-Muslims was half that of Muslim men. Incredibly, the original proposal priced human life: adult male Muslims weighed in at 30.63 kilograms of silver; Muslim women and all non-Muslims were valued at precisely half that amount. This was later amended but the message was clear: only Muslim men were truly human, all others ‘half a human.’ Underlying these laws was the intent to terrorise the populace and to brutalise their sensibilities. Amended blasphemy laws making it possible for anyone to construe anything as blasphemous and this led to numerous attacks and the murders of several Christians. Bigotry and violence continued long after the demise of Zia and his regime. Thus, in retrospect, the most damaging legacy of the Zia period may not be the laws, but the reshaping of the social fabric that reconfigured people’s psyche and everyday norms, such as the premise that all citizens were not equal.
Permeating the entire state edifice, changes simultaneously seeped into society to water the roots of the worst bigotry. If previously, open discrimination – to say nothing of violence – was at least considered politically incorrect, that modicum of restraint was swept away thanks to state measures that lent legitimacy to the worst elements of civil society. The laws, directives and propaganda proposed in the name of Islam, including ostensibly gender-neutral measures, ricocheted through society producing an ever tighter web of control over the state’s female population and non-Muslims.
A number of seemingly cosmetic ‘Islamisation’ measures, e.g. propagating dress codes for women and mandatory recitations from the Qur’an at every function, were critical to a reorientation of society. Accompanying the laws, this apparent ‘window dressing’ imperceptibly but inexorably tweaked society into a new state-sponsored ‘look:’ readjusted societal norms fit ever more constrictive rules of appropriateness that, forwarded as religious, put non-conformists on the defensive. A severe clampdown on the independent print media through heavy censorship and intimidation helped muffle and muzzle dissent and alternative views.
Islamiyat was made compulsory in all schools, passing an oral and written Islamiyat test a requirement for higher education (including for technical and science subjects) and for all public sector jobs. Rewritten textbooks ensured a ‘correct’ perspective: the founder’s speeches were censored; history refashioned as an ‘Islamic’ narrative overriding inconvenient truths. The ulema’s wholesale opposition to Pakistan, for example, was omitted and religious actors were instead projected as the country’s standard bearers. (These textbooks remain largely unchanged.)
Sexual mores were a particular focus: from the Hudood laws to apparel; from decision-making on marriages to the imagery of women, tightening controls were justified by Islam. Early on, the government questionnaire solicited opinions on the ‘correct’ status of women in an ‘Islamic society’ and licit illicit activities. The notion of a ‘Pakistani woman’ was replaced by that of an ‘Islamic woman’ who dressed in a particular manner,was educated – if at all – in certain subjects and preferably in segregated institutions, and who was largely silent as well as invisible. ‘Islamic dress’ was prescribed for women.
Gender segregation was a central pillar: ranging from prohibiting joint male-female stage shows and performances in colleges, to seeking to ban male gynaecologists and male doctors from autopsying female cadavers. Female athletes were prohibited from competing in the presence of males. As in most instances, implementation was imperfect; authorities conveniently ignored male maintenance crew and judges in ‘women-only’ national games. The primary intent seemed to be the imposition of a new ethos rather than the enforcement of each particular measure. State monopolised television and radio relentlessly promoted the new gendered ethos. The government campaign to end obscenity and vulgarity (a favourite topic of the religion right) managed to suggest that women per se were somehow obscene.
All women on television (newscasters, hosts and actresses in commercials or television plays etc.) had to cover their heads at all times – even when shown to be asleep in bed. Women who refused to comply were dismissed. Directives prohibited TV scripts in which women opted to leave marital homes. Clearly, ‘good’ women submissively accepted all manner of abuse, be it physical, mental or emotional. Women’s employment options narrowed. Foreign Office women were no longer posted abroad, some were actually recalled. Recruitment in nationalized banks slowed down and female bank employees found promotions blocked. State broadcast media extolled the virtues of the good self-sacrificing woman, domestic or domesticated and blamed ‘other’ publically visible women (particularly working women) for the disintegration of societal norms and values. Foreign scholarships were channelled to male students only.
The resultant oppressive atmosphere insidiously encouraged a public belief that individuals were entitled to take direct action whenever any woman transgressed their personal conceptions of ‘Islamic morality.’ With state propaganda seemingly licensing any male on the streets to admonish, even physically assault any woman he regarded as being improperly dressed, sexual harassment in public spaces spiralled. Over-zealous teachers refused to teach girls not ‘properly attired’; others segregated their classrooms; a few refused to teach female students at all. An entire generation grew up on propaganda suggesting that women’s only place was in the home, their role that of reproduction and motherhood, and their status and rights in all aspects subservient to men.
Even the fact that a woman was elected as Prime Minister in 1988 still nothing improved life for women as any changes required a larger majority than her government had and there became a shift towards indirect military rule, so the laws instigated by Zia were largely unchanged. More important than the specifics, however, was the transformative impact of a woman head of government that instantly eased the hitherto oppressive atmosphere. Women re-emerged from relative obscurity. Sharply contrasting with the Zia years, state broadcast media launched numerous programmes promoting women’s rights and/or highlighted their problems. These ‘soft’ measures provided relief to women but Bhutto’s short tenures, less than three years each, could not be expected to make more than a minor dent in the societal attitudes entrenched under Zia.
Consequently many of the rules of behaviour and dress of women have been accepted as the norm and women are still treated as second class citizens in virtually all of the states where Islam is the predominant religion.
Sharia Law is simply an enforcement of these traditional beliefs and the introduction of this alien law into areas of the UK is abhorrent to any decent citizen. Women have historically fought to protect our rights to freedom, equality and justice. Emily Pankhurst and the suffragette movement gave their life to allow women the opportunity to vote alongside their male counterparts. Are women now expected to give this all up to appease the ‘infidel’? Are British women really going to take all this lying down and admit defeat? Well, I can tell you here and now, I wont and I will fight on with my dying breath to ensure that my children and grandchildren are afforded the same equal rights as I have. Britain may well have been too tolerant in the past to allow newcomers to dictate and force their way of life on us, but enough is enough now. It is time to stand up and be counted for the sake of our country. This beloved isle of ours has been built upon Christian values and anyone who does not like it has plenty of other countries in the world they can call home. Nobody forced them to live here and they are free to leave whenever they want to. Finally, I well may be opinionated but most of all I am proud to be an English Christian Woman.
