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Muslim Women in Indian Society – an article

Updated 15 March 2010


Asgher Ali Engineer from Mumbai, India has written an article to reflect upon as Women’s Day was 8 March 2010:
 
8 March is Women’s Day, a day which women celebrate as a day of their empowerment and a day of their rights. As I read in newspapers about achievements of women I painfully remember the plight of Muslim women in India, their lack of empowerment, their grinding poverty, their illiteracy and various restrictions imposed on them by their parents and husbands in everyday life.
 
When I deliver lectures on rights of women in Islam, participants invariably ask me about actual plight of women in the Muslim society today. I have to do lot of explaining the reasons of their sad plight. There are certain factors for which Muslims cannot be blamed like poverty. But there are certain factors for which Muslims have to own responsibility like imposing restrictions, which have nothing to do with Islam. These restrictions are rooted more in social customs and traditions of the past but legitimised in the name of Shari’ah.
 
Muslim women are suffering both from internal and external oppression. Muslim men practice what they themselves believe is Islamic and oppress their women and refuse to entertain any thought of change. Many
educated Muslim women thus start believing there can be no liberation within Islam and seek their freedom through secular laws. I conduct workshops for rights of Muslim women and when they listen to what is
written in Qur’an, they say they never thought Qur’an liberates them. They thought Islam enslaves them. Thus those who attend our workshops become activists for their Islamic rights.
 
Some of the problems that Muslim women face are of a social nature and are common to women of all religions in India. All women face problem of social conservatism as they are reduced to secondary citizens to
men. Men are thought to be bread winners and decision makers across religions in India. But the only difference is that among Hindus this situation is fast changing at least in urban areas. Women are becoming self-sufficient and, in some cases, are also decision makers. But the situation is not so bright as far as Muslim women are concerned.
 
Non-Muslims generally think Muslim women are oppressed and face many restrictions. This is largely true but the matter is much more complex. There are reasons for Muslim women facing such odds in India. Mostly
are artisans and self -employed and sociologically speaking they have a restricted world -view and live in their own universe. Then there are those Muslims who live in rural areas and are engaged as agricultural labourers and related operations. They tend to be even more conservative.
 
These sections of society do not know what is written in Qur’an or hadith, much less what are the problems with hadith or different schools of law. For them what the Imam of their masjid says is Allah’s hukm (injunction) and must be followed else, they will be confined to jahannam (hell). The Imam of the mosque also comes from a poor family and has, in most cases, very limited knowledge of theology and Islamic Shari’ah. His ‘fatwas’ are based on ignorance. The ‘fatwa’ issued by the imam of village mosques in case of Imrana (that she should marry
her father-in-law who raped her) had absolutely no basis in Shari’ah. The media also tends to give undue publicity to such matters.
 
Thus, it is important to understand the role of society as much as that of religion. Women are oppressed not so much by religion as by society. In order to bring about change in the plight of Muslim women it would
be equally necessary to bring about change in socio-economic conditions of Muslims in India. If Muslims remain poor and illiterate, it will be very difficult to improve the conditions of Muslim women.
 
Source: communityonfriday.net
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