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.
