Is the Hijab really a choice? And is there equality between men and women in Islam?

 You can listen to an audio recording of this essay here: 

Is the Hijab really a choice? And is there equality between men and women in Islam?

“A feminist is any woman who tells the truth about her life” - Virginia Woolf

I recently read a thread of tweets by a woman named Sarah Mughal Rana. Sarah is a Pakistani Muslim living in Toronto Canada, she wrote about her frustration with how Muslim women are portrayed in Literature. According to Sarah, the stories written by and about Muslim women often focus on how these women are oppressed and forced to wear the Hijab, these works of literature Sarah is criticizing often highlight the unequal treatment of women in Islam, branding it as a misogynistic faith. Sarah wants more stories about how Muslim women choose to wear the hijab, and on the beautiful journey, a Muslim woman embarks on to reach the conviction that it’s better for her to cover her hair and dress modestly. She also claims that Islam treats men and women equally, and Muslim families don’t favor their sons, and always respect their daughters. Instead of continuously telling the upsetting story of arranged marriage, where a Muslim woman is forced to marry a man she doesn’t know, want, or like, Sarah wants Muslim Romance stories, claiming that there is a “Halal” way of being romantic in Islamic culture without any physical or sexual contact between a man and a woman, which Islam prohibits.  

I started my response to Sarah’s tweets by saying that I’m glad her family practices a more tolerant Islam, however, what she wrote about not forcing the Hijab on women, and equality between men and women in Islam is simply not true. As I started to post my responses to Sarah in 280 characters posts that Twitter allowed me, with proof from the Quran and Prophet Mohammed’s Hadith, Sarah blocked me. I wasn’t surprised by Sarah’s reaction. It’s not the first time a Muslim shows intolerance towards people who disagree with them, and I should know I renunciated Islam many years ago due to its intolerance and oppression of women.

I’m originally from Kuwait, a Muslim country, I was raised in Kuwait by two Muslim parents and was taught Islam everyday in the Kuwaiti public schools, throughout my education and in law school where I got my law degree I had to learn Sharia Law and memorize the Quran and the Hadith. I say this in order not to be accused of arguing from a Western person’s perspective who knows nothing about Islamic except reading a book or two by Westerners who view Islam as hostile and misogynistic.

Let’s start with the basic facts:

Islam does not treat men and women equally, in Islam daughters inherit half of what sons inherit. Men practice polygamy, women cannot. Husbands can, and often do discipline their wives by beating them. Muslim men can marry non-Muslim women, Muslim women are prohibited from marrying non-Muslim men. Divorced Muslim mothers who remarry lose the custody of their children, that’s why most divorced Muslim women never remarry, while divorced Muslim men almost always do. A Muslim man can divorce his wife whenever he wants, without a reason, and without her knowledge. Divorce can only be granted by the husband, this means that a Muslim women can ask for a divorce but it’s up to a husband to grant it or deny it. If she seeks the courts, she must also convince the court of why she’s pursuing a divorce, if she claims physical violence she must prove this, if the husband is not providing for her and her children, she must prove this, unlike the man, the woman has to have a good reason for divorce either physical abuse or lack of provision. The portion of the male body that should be covered for modesty is from the belly button to the thigh. While a woman must cover her whole body, allowing only the face and the hands to show in order to meet the criteria of modesty required in Quran and Sunna. Hence the familiar photo that always makes the rounds on social media where the Muslim man is happily swimming in a refreshing, cool looking blue ocean wearing nothing but swimming trunks, while his covered up wife, veiled from head to toe in black garbs sits on the shore and under a hot sun watching him, and slowly melting in the heat.

This is regarding unequal treatment stated in the Quran and therefore basic to the faith. Now let’s look at more restricting and harmful practices that affect Muslim women (in the Hadith) Hadith is everything the Prophet Mohammed said and ordered his followers to do:

Islam permits marriage to child brides as young as nine years old. Hence the Prophet’s marriage to Aisha when she was nine years old. The Prophet Mohammed said in a Hadith: “If I were to order anyone to bow to anyone else, I would order a wife to bow to her husband.” The Prophet also said in another Hadith: “If a man is praying and a donkey passes by, or a black dog passes by, or a woman passes by, his prayer is rejected” Women being equal to donkeys and dogs that invalidate prayer. The Prophet also said “Teach your children to pray by seven years old and if they are not praying five times a day by the age of nine, beat them” this last Hadith does not exclusively harm women, but proves the hard handedness of Islamic teaching, the faith that claims to be merciful and peaceful. In Islam Abortion is forbidden and homosexuality punishable by death,

Now let’s focus on the Hijab and women’s modesty:

Women are ordered in the Quran to wear a veil, and dress modestly, and not to show their beauty in order not to be molested, harassed, and raped by men. This is mentioned in more than one verse in the Quran, but I will focus on verse no. 31 of Surat Al Noor. Let’s talk about this for a moment, what was the occasion that prompted this order for women to cover up? During the time of the prophet, a thousand and four hundred years ago, there was no plumbing, women who needed to relive themselves in the night had to go out to the outskirts of the village, this gave predator men an opportunity to attack them in the darkness when its hardest to identify these predators and hold them accountable. When the problem was raised to the Prophet, he claimed that God sent him the Quranic verse ordering women to cover up as a solution.

Unfortunately, in many cultures, we are still having the same argument today about rape. Women are attacked and raped by male predators and blamed for the way they were dressed. Feminists have pushed hard against this, rape is not a woman’s fault no matter what she is wearing, miniskirts don’t cause rape, rapists do, especially when we know that modestly dressed women get raped too, children get raped, and men get raped.

The fact that Muslim women were not safe from rape and molestation on their trips to the toilet during the time when Islam was in its prime, when the Prophet was personally teaching his followers virtue and piety, proves that Islam failed to protect women, and that Islam does not empower women, but holds them responsible for men’s attacks on them, and emphasizes the misogynistic, false, and harmful insinuation that men are unable to control their sexual urges, emboldening men to continue to harm women under the excuse that they are not veiled. It also proves that Islam has failed to teach men chastity, righteousness, and morality.

Actually Islam goes further than just blaming women for rape and harassment. Islam teaches a woman that if she entices a man with her beauty due to her immodest way of dressing, and he begins to fantasize about her, she is punished for his fantasies. A woman is not only responsible for what a man actually does to her, but what a man imagines and dreams of doing to her. This harms women, it makes them live in constant fear of men, it makes them hate their bodies, and practice self-policing. It emboldens predator men who claim they cannot control their sexual urges when they see unveiled women. The Quran tells men to lower their eyes, i.e. not to look at women and therefore be enticed by them. This is harmful, the more Islam hides women from men, the more women are covered and veiled, and men’s desire of them is demonized and suppressed, the more men and women are prohibited from socializing together due to what might happen if they did, the more predator like men behave, the more unbridled their lust. And the more they are inclined to molest and rape. Boys from a very young age should be taught to respect women and never attack them regardless of what they choose to wear, or what they choose not to wear. But this is not taught in Islam.

Despite the fact that Pakistani women wear the Hijab and dress modestly, Pakistan where Sarah is originally from, struggles with extremely high rates of rape. 93% of Pakistani women experience some form of sexual violence in public places in their lifetime according to a statistics published in 2017. The Pakistani Prime Minister has called in September 2020 to toughen punishments against rapists and offenders, after a woman was robbed and gang rapped in front of her children on a major highway. This confirms that it’s not the modesty of a woman’s attire that refrains men from rape but more serious laws and tougher punishments against rapists. No such laws were installed by Islam.

 

Now let’s look at forcing the Hijab on women. Most Muslim women are forced to wear the Hijab, but force doesn’t always sound like “if you don’t cover up we’ll kill you.” Although this happens, a lot. Force takes many forms, shapes and sizes: Force can sound like “Allah awards modest girls and punishes immodest girls” and “we want you to cover up because you’re precious and we know what’s best for you.” And “good men don’t choose unveiled women for wives, they prefer pious modest women.” This is also known as Benevolent Misogyny. In school a Muslim girl is taught from a very young age - usually seven or eight, that not only will she burn in hell if she doesn’t wear the veil, but her parents will burn in hell too, for not guiding her to the right way. Any young girl would be influenced by this, of course she doesn’t want to burn in hell, of course she doesn’t want her parents whom she loves to burn in hell because of her. In textbooks teaching Islam to young girls, there’s always an image of the ideal Muslim girl wearing the Hijab, and a long loose dress that covers her body all the way down to her toes, this also influences young girls to cover up. In many Muslim cultures, family members and relatives encourage a young girl to wear the Hijab by throwing her a party and giving her gifts. Seeing her older sister’s Hijab celebrated with a party and presents, showered with words of admiration, love, pride, and acceptance makes any little girl want the same for herself. The bullying and the condensing language a young girl hears her family use against a woman who is not veiled influences her to wear a veil, of course she doesn’t want to be ridiculed like that unveiled woman her family was criticizing. There’s also the need to belong; as humans we do what the members of our family and tribes do, out of fear of being rejected by the tribe. After all the tribe provides us with shelter, food, love, and community, we don’t want to veer away from what is practiced in the tribe, thus when a young girl sees all the women in her family wear it, out of her need for belonging, she will wear it too.  

Muslim girls grow up in a culture saturated with images of an unwrapped lollipop with ants and flies all over it, the message being that an uncovered woman will be taken advantage of by men. Another image is of a peeled orange left on the ground covered with flies, and filthy with dirt and mud. In these metaphors, men are ants, flies, dirt, and mud. Women are lollipops, oranges, and pearls that must be hidden in velvet boxes and locked up inside a safe. It stuns me, this narrative of objectifying Muslim women, and degrading them to mere things, while simultaneously accusing the Western world of objectifying their women by showing their overly sexualized bodies in ads and on TV.

From the age of nine, Muslim girls are taught in school about God’s wrath on impious women. Women had to cover up because men cannot control their urges if they saw a woman’s hair, bare wrists or ankles. Women who don’t cover up will be dangled in hell by their hair, their male guardians will be punished for not teaching them any better. And the Prophet Mohammed’s warning to his followers - after his journey to the heavens, where he spoke to God, and saw hell. He warned women in a Hadith that most dwellers in hell he saw are women, due to their immodesty, and disobedience to their male guardians.

Another way to measure force is this: If a girl can “choose” to wear a Hijab, but will face emotional, verbal, or physical violence from her male guardians if she “chooses” to take it off, then it’s definitely force.

If Islam empowers women, women in the Arab part of Middle East where I’m originally from would not be suffering from high rates of violence and femicide, UN’s statistics show that in Arab countries 5000 girls and women are murdered every year by their fathers, brothers, and husbands; i.e. the men whose duty it is to protect them. Muslims often argue that rape in Pakistan and honor killings in Arab countries have nothing to do with Islam, but that these crimes are due to deep-rooted tribal and patriarchal traditions men practiced before Islam, complex ideologies still hard to abolish. Okay, let’s agree that violence against women was there before Islam, and Islam should not be blamed for it. This means that Islam has failed after 1,400 years to recondition Muslim men into decent human beings who refrain from raping and murdering women.

Islam practices Ambivalent Misogyny, a misogyny that looks like it protects women but is actually restricting, controlling and harmful. It says “Cover up because it’s good for you” and “do as your husband tells you and give up your job, if you obey your husband Allah will reward you”

The first leads to restricting a woman’s freedom of dress and movement, and gives predator men the right to prey on women who choose not to cover up, and the second deprives women of financial independence, there are thousands of examples like this in Muslims cultures.

Muslim women often have Internalized Misogyny, meaning they’ve been breast-fed these ideas about modesty and how it’s better for women to cover-up, and how men are unable to tether their sexual urges, from such a young age, and for so long, they end up believing these ideas are their own, hence it’s common for Muslim women to say “I wasn’t forced to wear the Hijab, it’s my choice.”

Although its the male guardian who enforces the Hijab on a Muslim woman, a male guardian being the executive of Allah’s will in all aspects of life. When I ask Muslim women why they allow men to force Hijab on them, they’re offended and say they don’t do it because men tell them to, they do it because Allah orders them to in the Quran.” When I ask why Allah orders this. They accuse me of blasphemy; a Muslim must obey Allah’s word in the Quran, without asking why, and that Allah would never impose anything on them unless it’s good for them, that’s it’s better for women to dress modestly. This is how Islam successfully continues to oppress women, you’re not allowed to ask why? You must obey blindly, if Allah puts restrictions on your freedom, then rest assured that this is for your own good, and personal interest. Muslim women also continue to accept polygamy practiced by their husbands. I say accept, but it’s not like these wives have any say in whether or not their husbands take second, third and forth wives. Muslim women are taught to accept polygamy because in the past many men perished in wars, and thus it was better for society that the surviving men take on several wives. Women in the past didn’t work, they needed a husband to provide for them, it was also viewed as better for women to live in families rather than be left unmarried and alone the rest of their lives, this might lead them to poverty and prostitution. By allowing women to work, this excuse should not apply today. The other excuse Islam gives for polygamy is that men have stronger sexual drives, in many cases one wife can’t satisfy them, therefore it’s better for the wife that her husband takes another wife, rather than seek prostitutes, have girlfriends, have sex with random women and risk STDs. These reasons serve men’s interests not women’s. Another example of how Islam manipulates women by convincing them that this oppression of sharing their husband with other women is for their own good.

The most oppressive tyranny, is the tyranny practiced on the victim for their own good.

A quick look at arranged marriage. Arranged marriage is force, but force doesn’t always sound like “if you don’t marry him we’ll kill you” Although this happens a lot. Force can sound like “We found someone suitable for you, we’re your parents and have much better judgment than you, and disobeying parents in Islam is disobeying Allah”

No form of romance is permitted between men and women in Islam if we are following the scripture, the Quran and the Sunna; the Sunna is everything the Prophet Mohammed said and did and is the second source of the Islamic scripture, the Quran is the first. According to the Prophet, men are permitted to see the women they want to marry only once, before their marriage, and this must happen in the presence of a chaperon, usually a member from the woman’s family.  

Muslim women who try to marry outside their immediate community, or from a different sect, or someone their parents don’t approve of often face physical violence, and or disownment.

Finally, although I have no interest in changing anyone’s mind, I am a woman who was deeply traumatized and oppressed by Islam, until I denounced it in my thirties, and had to flee my country because Muslim governments kill or imprison anyone who denounces or criticizes Islam, I’ll always honor the stories of women who continue to be oppressed by Islam. Because no woman is free, until all women are free.

What Sarah did when she blocked me was an act of silencing. Women growing up in misogynistic cultures are often silenced by the males around them, the father, the brother, the boyfriend, the husband. They are taught to obey and never object to what men teach them and tell them to do, and if they do object verbally to the control practiced on them by men, they often face physical, verbal, or mental violence. This causes oppressed women to practice the same silencing on other women. This is another form of internalized misogamy practiced by oppressed women). A misogynist man will never allow a woman to disagree with him, and therefore he will silence her, often by using force. A misogynist women will act the same, never allowing other women to disagree with her, and will shut them down. A woman silenced and oppressed by the men in her immediate environment cannot rebel against them due to the violence she might face, and thus practices silencing on other women to feel some kind of power, if she’s a mother, she will practice this on her children. Men do it too, it’s called “punching down”, when a man is oppressed by a stronger man than him, say his father, his boss, or cop, he goes home and oppresses his wife and or his children, as he is unable to push back against the man who has authority over him. Also, Muslim women who are forced to cover up and taught to say “I choose to cover up, it’s my choice” show higher levels of misogyny and policing towards other women, especially towards women who live freely and do not adhere to religious and social restrictions. 

What I hope from women like Sarah, whose family most probably migrated from Pakistan to Canada for a better life, to escape the injustice and intolerance of a Muslim government, and to provide her with a safer environment to grow up in. Is not to defend Islam as it is now and show it in a positive light, when there are clearly a lot of negative things that should be changed. But to call for change; to call for better treatment of women, to abolish the Hijab and other restrictions on Muslim women’s bodies and minds, to hold Muslim men accountable, to debunk the myth that men are unable to control their sexual urges. To abolish polygamy, to change the inheritance inequality between men and women, to stop child bride marriages, to accept the LGBTQ, to allow divorced mothers to remarry without taking away their children, to denounce the verse that allows men to beat up their wives, don’t just say “although the verse exists in the Quran, men are advised to respect their wives” that’s lazy and cowardice and doesn’t stop the abuse and violence men practice on women everyday.

There is room to grow, there’s room to improve. Christianity used to prohibit women from entering the church and used to be unaccepting of the LGBTQ, but Christianity came a long way, there are women priests, ministers and bishops. Many churches welcome members of the LGBTQ and have LGBTQ members in their clergy. I live in the conservative State of Ohio and many of the local churches I pass by every morning fly the Pride flag.

Instead of taking Islam as it is now and slapping a smiley face on it, do the work, call for change. Let women in Islam be Muslim preachers and call for a more accepting feminist Islam, let women become scholars and interpreters of the Quran and Hadith, a position until now reserved only for men. Better yet, move away from scripture and give women power to make decision and create change, rather than continuously silencing them, and expecting them to be followers, fight the way Western women fought for their autonomy and freedom, let women lead in making Islam tolerable.

Make Islam not only work for a Muslim girl who lives in free and tolerant Canada, it’s easy to speak about the beauty of Islam in Canada where women enjoy so many privileges such as, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of choice, and freedom of movement, and protective laws. Most importantly make Islam work for the Muslim girl in the Middle East, the girl who is not allowed to get an education, not allowed to leave the home without a veil, or without a male guardian, not allowed to work and have financial independence, not allowed to choose her husband, not allowed to live her life freely.