Part 1 here
She then goes on to Hadeeth, collection of sayings of Prophet Muhammed (Pease be upon him)
Even the Hadis –a collection of the words of Prophet Mohammed, his opinion on various subjects and also about his work, written by those close to him– talks extensively of the purdah for women. Women must cover their whole body before going out, they should not go before unknown men, they should not go to the mosque to read the namaaz, they should not go for any funeral.
Yes he (PBUH) did talk about purdah for women but he never forbade women to go to the mosque to offer prayers. Ms. Nasrin is ignorant of the fact the women going to mosque was banned after his death for reasons of safety (It was not advisable for women to go out early in the morning and late in the night at that time because of few social workers! ). Obviously as I have already pointed out that those commandments are for believing women, no one is forcing her to believe in Islam! She has every right to dress the way she pleases.
She might be interested in reading these (1 2 and 3). By the way how many Muslim women observe hijab? Look around and you will know the answer. Women have voluntarily accepted hijab not just as a symbol of religious identity but also to protect themselves from various forms of evil. No one forced them to!
Other hadeeth and stories Ms. Nasrin concocted up have little truth in them. They are just her rant against the kind of fanaticism she witnessed in her childhood. Sadly she has never seen the beauty of Islam. Bangladesh has nothing to boast about as far as religion is concerned. I lost my family members in the bengali-bihari riots in Dhaka so that doesn’t mean I am going to castigate the whole of Bangladesh or religion. The rioters were pathetic, did they spare Muslims? No! It was shear hatred towards Biharis that fueled those riots. Perhaps this hatred explains the sad plight of minorities in Bangladesh. She is prejudiced against Islam because of acts of few zealots who never represented Islam.
Let rants later on in the article has already been answered by Aqsa
Can I ask u to wake up now? What liberty is the “liberal” west offering to women? Prostitution being promoted in the name of commercial sex! Commoditization of the female body! Degradation of the entire structure of the family! Single mothers! Promiscuity being propagated in the name of liberalization! Well to criticize Islamic states or “fanatic” “extremist” “anarchic” “dictatorships” first look at what the much glorified west has done to the women!
Let’s consider the case of United States of America… the land of the free.
The land where promiscuity is at its peak….
The land where sodomy is at its peak…
The land where incest is considered nothing big…
The land where prostitution is a business, a way of life….
How safe and secured the women are there?
FYI, every 2 minutes a woman is raped there! (Source: U.S. Department of Justice)
What a secured place!
Approximately 28% of victims are raped by husbands or boyfriends, 35% by acquaintances, and 5% by other relatives. (Violence against Women, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1994)
http://www.psicopolis.com/statistiche/rape.htm
Yes those women who are found guilty of adultery are punished in Muslim lands but at the same times men get the same punishment. A rapist gets a death sentence… now before you yell, if proven! Then I must ask you acknowledge the fact that, it has to be proven in “any” court!
Coming to the status of women in islaam, islaam says…
9:71. the believers, men and women, are Auliyâ’ (helpers, supporters, friends, protectors) of one another….
2:226. and for women are rights over men similar to those of men over women.
The Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) said, “Women are the twin halves of men.” Islaam is a way of life and gives a code of conduct to each and every member of a family. Islaam gives a lot of importance to a family and prescribes specific roles to everyone in the family big or small. Islaam ideally wants a woman to be a home maker. She can work and do business but without compromising her family. Our prophet’s wife was a businesswoman herself! It’s mandatory for a husband to take care of his wife and her financial needs but it’s not mandatory for a woman to share her wealth with her husband. It’s entirely the will of the wife… she may or may not assist her husband with her money.
I’m against the very notion that to prove her worth a woman need to do what her husband is doing. How many husbands compare themselves with their wife’s? Why should I compare myself with a man to prove my steel?
Feminism is the biggest abuse to the entire womanhood in the history of mankind. In the name of feminism women were made to shed their clothes which ultimately satisfy the male members of the society. Being an eye-candy is considered something respectful!
I’m asking you what my physical appearance has got to do with my intelligence. You said, fundamentalists force women to wear hijab and governments force them to remove hijab. So if a Muslim is forcing someone to wear hijab, hes an extremist…. What is the free government doing by forcing those women to remove hijab?
They are being liberal!
Who’s going to ensure that only suppressed women are wearing hijab? Continuing on hijab, islaam “prescribes” hijab and those who feel the need….WEAR IT WITH THEIR WILL!
Only one or two cases are hyped to such an extent. And how safely you ignore the crime rate in the west!
Sheer hypocrisy!
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I Me My 01.22.07 at 2:01 am
“In the name of feminism women were made to shed their clothes which ultimately satisfy the male members of the society. Being an eye-candy is considered something respectful!” That is so true. In fact a year or so ago I wrote about a fashion event in Connecticut:
http://iditis.blogspot.com/2005/11/womens-fashion.html
Sharique 01.22.07 at 12:58 pm
Thanks for the link I Me My. To be frank I also agree with your view
Its reallly sad that women actually try to please men and call it women liberalization or modernization. I loved the way Aqsa wrote the above article
Aqsa 01.22.07 at 8:42 pm
I Me My
Great post. i totally agree with your ideas. why should women dress the way men want them to?
This concept of being “sexy” is being promoted in the name of “modernization” and many people like fools are leaving their own identity to be a part of something thats not even theirs!
pi 01.23.07 at 3:07 pm
i agree with most of the things said here. but i really dont think its just the west which causes someone to behave the way they do. you have the freedom to make your choice. and sometimes they may be bad choices. is it the west’s fault that one is influenced by peer pressure. i dont think so. as to the concept of women dressing in a way that is attractive to men, but isnt that everywhere. pple usually dress up so that they can be appreciated. in the east, west wherever.
Red 01.23.07 at 11:34 pm
Thanks for the reasoned and logical arguments against Ms Nasrin’s latest publicity stunt and congratulations for digging up that photograph (Another reminder that the 80’s had terrible fashion) however I find Aqsa’s post deeply disturbing. I fail to see the connection between wearing a hijab and lower rape rates. There is little to suggest that rates of sexual violence against women are any less in the Middle East and in South Asia than in the West. If the number of rapes reported in the U.S. are low, then that is becausde there is less stigma attached to being a rape victim and a more accountable judicial process, both of which ensure most rapes are reported.
It sort of buys into the logic which says “immodestly dressed women” are asking to be raped/molested. Sadly, figures indicate that a burqa clad women is as prone as her bikini clad sister to be subjected to physical and mental abuse both inside and outside her home.
Manas Shaikh 01.24.07 at 12:47 am
This may interest you.
http://achelois.wordpress.com/2007/01/17/lets-burn-the-burqa-gulp/
aqsa 01.24.07 at 12:49 pm
red,
well sharique featured one of my responses to a guy who claimed that muslim women are the most suppressed women on the globe!
one line from his post can describe all that…
“In closing, if you are a woman you are now suffering less discrimination than ever before, unless you are a Muslim woman.”
so i guess now you can understand why my post sounds a bit “disturbing”.
heres the article and my response.
http://desicritics.org/2006/12/19/042258.php
Red 01.24.07 at 11:50 pm
Aqsa
I understand the context of your speech as well, and I sympthasize with it to a great extent. However I fear that by overstating your case and making sweeping generalizations, the people who need to listen will just find another excuse to ignore you.
If Shaarique allows me a bit of self promotion, I would like your feedback on something I wrote a long while ago
http://eastwords.blogspot.com/2005/10/ultimate-victim.html
Sharique 01.25.07 at 9:59 pm
Red,
I am really sorry for not answering you. Just reached home after a 55 hour train ride. Will answer your questions and read your post this weekend.
I Me My 01.26.07 at 9:09 am
A 55 hour train ride!!!! Were you doing a ‘travel Asia’ trip aboard a trans- Himalayan/ trans-Siberian rail?
Sharique 01.26.07 at 11:56 pm
I Me My,
No. Actually my train was 12 hours late and the the total journey without delay was of 44 hours
sporadicblogger 02.01.07 at 10:44 pm
Feminism is the biggest abuse to the entire womanhood in the history of mankind. In the name of feminism women were made to shed their clothes which ultimately satisfy the male members of the society.
This is a contradiction. Feminism is about empowering women (not making women mroe powerful or ‘better’ than men,mind); and shedding clothes for the male gaze isn’t very empowering. But yes, shedding clothes because you want to for yourself and not to be perceived as ’sexy’ would be feminist, and you are welcome to disagree with that
An interesting read. I’m not a fan of Tasleema Nasreen, either.
aqsa 02.02.07 at 9:10 pm
sporadicblogger,
well i said, in the name of feminism…..so and so was promoted.
i dint talk of feminism in itself. im a woman myself and obviously i will stand upto any effort for empowering women.
i guess theres no contradiction now.
“..and shedding clothes for the male gaze isn’t very empowering.”
this is precisely what im saying. just to make sure that the male audience will have a good time why the hell women are asked to drop their clothes?
sporadicblogger 02.04.07 at 1:35 am
ah, I see. Misread that
Thats true enough. Its really amusing how some countries in the west like the US claim to have liberated women, but in actuallity, that is anything but the truth. Women there are repressed in many many ways, the least of which is not the pressure to have the ‘perfect’ body and dress ’sexy’. Hm.
Rah 05.07.07 at 9:53 pm
Hai Nasrin,
I like to know more of your explanation and like to make relationship with you.
looking forward your kind reply
Rah (mujirh@yahoo.com)
Stephen 11.26.07 at 7:47 am
I think part of problem that you are identifying with feminism, is that feminism and the women’s movement, like most all the movements of the 60s, has become subject to commercialism. In the sixties the word “revolution” was a scary word for corporations, now they use it all the time. Granola and futons were ways people made their own food and furniture, now both are found in high-priced boutiques and very few people make their own. The same for what is often now presented as “women’s liberation” means buying things and following the directions of corporate fashion, and for elite women it often means feminizing the face of patriarchy and class oppression without really changing it (which is why poor women in the U.S. never really entered the women’s movement). On the other hand I see women every day in our small midwestern state capital who are practicing feminism having little to do with exposing themselves, as you call it: operating and engineering our local community radio station, running free-trade coffee shops that are actively engaged with peasants in Central America and Africa (in fact I just stopped in one today on a bike ride through a neighboring town and I was the the only man among tables of women knitting and engaged in discussion), women organizing community gardens, farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture, women building rain-water collectors, running rape crisis centers and community-based health clinics, organizing the peace movement, etc. All these are happening in our Midwest city. One reason you, and many young American women for that matter, may have such a distorted picture of feminism in the U.S. is that the commercial media don’t want people to see this powerful current of feminism in the United States because it truly trying to make people, men as well as women, the modest more than the privileged, powerful and because it doesn’t involve buying things.
Stephen 11.26.07 at 11:09 am
Another thing is that you start with certain assumptions which lead you to come up with certain, wrong, answers. You assume that because the American media say American women are liberated — which is presented as being able to go shopping and dress themselves in mass-produced goods that supposedly make themselves into individuals — then it is women’s liberation that is causing the single parent families, divorce, violence and all the other nasty statistics you give. The problem is you are asking the wrong questions and thus it is impossible for you to get the right answer. One could make the case that American women are far more unliberated than 50 years ago. You should be asking what an American woman working longer, two or three jobs has to do with it, when fifty years ago a family could be supported well with the income of one person. Or the decrease of taxes paid by corporations from 40% 50 years ago to 7% now, and of the weathy from 90% to 7%? Or that CEO has gone from earning 50 times an entry-level worker’s income to 1000 times now. Or the shift of 80% of the countries assets to the wealthiest 20% of the population. Or the shift of the major portion of the benefits and subsidies from the working class to the corporations. Or the deindustrialization of the country. And on and on.
Check out the following paper by a medical doctor called Health and Poverty in the United States which clearly presents this case:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=10&ItemID=4647