ARAB WOMEN (REVISED)
Victims of Islamic Gender Discrimination
On April 4, this year, (2006) Kuwaiti women made a history by voting and
contesting in a local by-election for the first time, after the parliament
granted them suffrage last year. “Today is the biggest feast we have been
waiting for more than 40 years”, said Ms Khaledah al-Khadher, one of the two
female contestants, while opening her mind to the journalists at a polling
station in suburb of the town Salwa. “This is the first time Kuwaiti women can
show the men that we are capable, it is important that we do our best and leave
the outcome to Allah”, she added. In the said by-election, nearly 28,000
voters, including 16,000 women, have cast their ballots to elect one MP from 8
contesting candidates, including two women.
It may be recalled that in the first week of December, 1999, jubilant
orthodox mullahs and their supporters came out in the streets of the Kuwait City
to celebrate the defeat of a bill in the Kuwaiti parliament that sought for
women’s right to vote and contest in parliamentary election. The incident was
enough to understand the unwillingness of Arab’s male chauvinism to allow full
citizenship to their woman folk. It may be mentioned here that, among the
conservative Gulf countries, only Kuwait has an elected legislature while
dictatorship in some form or other exists in the rest. While dissolving the
parliament in May 1998, Kuwait’s amir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad al-Sabah issued a
decree granting women the same political rights as enjoyed by men. But the newly
elected, parliament rejected the decree in the last week of November, 1999, by a
narrow margin of 32-30 votes. It took another five years for the bill to be
tabled again in 2004 and fortunately it could gather more supporters this time
as sundry conservative members of the parliament crossed floor, joined the
liberal camp and helped Kuwaiti women win their voting right.
It should be mentioned here that Kuwait is not yet a model of democracy
either. The head of the state is still hereditary who appoints a 15 member
cabinet and nearly half of these ministers are belong to the ruling Al Sabah
family. The Parliament has recently been expanded from 50 elected MPs to 65, yet
the MPs don’t have the right to embarrass the cabinet ministers in the
Parliament with tricky questions. But they have the right to use the Kuwaiti
press, freest in the Arab world, to air their grievances.
Nearly a century ago, the arch-conservative Arab world began to think
about women’s rights when in 1899, Qasim Amin, a celebrated Egyptian author,
published a seminal work blaming oppression to women as the root cause of
backwardness of the Muslim community throughout the world. It should me
mentioned here that in 2001, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
appointed an inquiry committee consisting of Arab intellectuals and scholars to
investigate the cause of dearth of creativity and backwardness in the Arab
world. The committee took one year to publish its report, called the “Arab
Human Development Report 2002” (AHDR 2002) in the first week of July, 2002.
The authors of the said report also pointed out that the oppression of women is
one of the major causes of backwardness of the Muslim community. “It (the Arab
world) does not treat its womenfolk as full citizens and this suppression of
women is another vital reason that makes the Arab world backward”, says the
report. “How can a community prosper if it stifles half of its production
potential”, the report asked.
On 13th-15th June, 2004, religious leaders of Saudi
Arabia assembled in the city of Medina to discuss how the lives of the women
could be improved. Though the Saudi media highlighted the meeting, called
“National Dialogue”, as a free exchange of views between men and women, the
presence of women was practically invisible. However, the said meeting prepared
a list of 19 recommendations and forwarded the same to the Crown Prince Abdullah
on 15th June, which is yet to be enacted. In fact, who ever tries to
go through the Islamic scriptures, finds that merciful Allah is not so merciful
to women and is extremely reluctant to give them freedom of any kind. Who will
then plead for their freedom against the will of Allah? It is Allah, Who in His
revealed book has permitted every male believer to have four wives, to beat his
wives if it seems that they are unfaithful and finally to kick them out of his
house by easy oral divorce (or Triple
Talaq), without any alimony. Allah’s discriminatory and unmerciful
treatment to women becomes more clearly manifested when He denies the entry of
women into mosques in this world and to His paradise in the next.
As a matter of fact, in Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive a
car, sail a boat or fly a plane. They cannot go out-door with hair, wrists and
ankles exposed, or to travel without permission from a male guardian. From
primary schools to the universities and in banks, restaurants and in other
public places, women are kept strictly apart. A woman who dares to anger her
husband, risks divorce or being hanged. These suppressed women therefore want
more freedom, more education, more jobs and more voluntary organizations dealing
with their issues. Above all, they want human treatment from the society and not
just the rights. The 19 recommendations that went to the Crown Prince, if
enacted, would uplift the condition of Saudi women to a great extent. Many
apprehend that the male chauvinism, which is at its worst today in Saudi Arabia,
would strongly resist the implementation of the said recommendations.
But the situation is improving. Now among the students of Saudi
universities, 55 per cent are girls. Female life expectancy, which was 52 years
a decade ago, now has increased to more than 70. The number of children borne by
the average Arab women has fallen by half in past 20 years.
Particularly, in Oman, fertility rate has dropped from ten births per
woman to fewer than four. The age at which girls marry has also risen
dramatically. A generation ago, 75 per cent of Arab girls were married before
attaining 20, but today, many delay their marriages till 30. But, on the
contrary, the percentage of Arab women who wear some form of hijab, or veil, is
on the rise and the number vary widely, from 10-20 per cent in Lebanon and
Tunisia, to about 60 per cent in Syria and Jordan, to nearly 80 per cent in
Kuwait and Iraq and 100 per cent in Egypt. It should be mentioned here that
Koran says that women must dress modestly and nowhere it is written that they
should be covered from top to toe in black. Recently a comment by the renowned
film actress Sabana Azmi in this regard made the Fanatic clerics crazy.
Ms Azmi, while receiving the coveted International Gandhi Peace Prize on
October 10, 2006, in the House of Commons of the British Parliament, said,
“The Koran speaks about women wearing clothes to cover her modesty and she
does not need to cover her face”. The comment infuriated the orthodox clerics
who declared her a non-Muslim. “Who authorized Azmi to interpret Koran. Her profession is to sing and dance. She has no right to
misled Muslim women”, fumed Syed Ahmed Bukheri, the Imam of Delhi’s Jama
Masjid. But the author of this article is convinced that, Ms Azmi’s
observation was correct. Recently the renowned Islamic scholar Dr. Zakir Naik,
president of the Mumbai based Islamic Research Foundation, in an article
(Islamic Voice, Bangalore based weekly, December, 2006 edition) has supported Ms
Azmi’s view. With the help of so many quotations from various Islamic
scriptures he could have shown that, it is not compulsory for a Muslim woman,
while going outdoor, to cover her face.
In a similar manner, there was nothing like female circumcision during
the time of the Prophet, who introduced the practice among the male followers
only after migrating to Medina. Previously the practice was confined only among
the Jews and Muhammad introduced it among his followers due to his conviction
that it makes a man more brave and valorous. So there was no question of
circumcising women and even today, the practice is confined only among the
Muslims of Egypt and Sudan.
Once upon a time, Egypt was the Arab’s pioneer in women’s rights.
“The Liberation of Women”, the first Arab feminist manifesto was published
in Cairo, more than a century ago, in 1899. And by 1920s, women were dropping
veils; by 1960, the country had more female doctors than many in the West. They
won the right to vote and entered politics in 1956 and they could also secure a
ban on the despicable practice of female circumcision. At that time, a new bill
called the “Personal Status Bill”, that sought to establish absolute
equality with males, was in the pipeline. But unfortunately then came the war
with Israel and the move died.
In those days of political
turmoil, a conservative tide spearheaded by the Islamist fundamentalists
snatched away most of the rights women had won so far and under a constitutional
amendment in 1980, Islamic law was enshrined and as a result, women were reduced
to the status not better than pet animals of males. For example, the practice of
female circumcision was reintroduced. In medical term, it is nothing but a
surgical operation that removes the part called clitoris of the female genital.
At present, hundreds of Egyptian girls die every year due to excessive bleeding
that follows the trauma. In 1994, the American television channel CNN telecast
such an operation worldwide and sparked a heated debate
in the Egyptian parliament. Egypt’s topmost religious authority, Mufty,
appealed to the members of the parliament to vote in favour of banning the
practice. But the fanatic Islamist leader of the Al-Azhar University, Gad al-Haq
Ali Gad al-Haq, promulgated a fatwa directing the Egyptians to continue
the practice and the parliament also honoured his fatwa.
As a result of these gruesome
developments, women’s rights movement in Egypt has lost steam. With the
Islamic law on their side, Egyptian men now divorce their wives with simple oath
or triple talaq, while women have to seek a divorce in the court of law,
a process that generally takes several years. At present, a third of the
Egyptian women are reported to be beaten by their husbands and in such a state
of affairs delay in getting a decree of divorce from a cruel husband remains
nothing but punitive torture. Furthermore, a divorced mother, according to
Islamic law, enjoys the right of custody up to the age of 12 years for the girls
and 10 years for boys, after which the child must be surrendered to their
father, even if he is a brute and a sadist.
It is much publicized by the Islamists that the Koranic law protects
women’s right to property. But, in fact, it is also discriminatory, and allots
them only half of the share of what a male relation gets in inheritance. They
are the victims of discrimination even in the court of law and their testimony
is considered half as weighty as men’s. It should also be mentioned
here that, Islamic criminal law is also discriminatory. For example, a man who
catches his wife in an act of adultery and murders her can expect a maximum jail
term for 3 years, while his wife, in a similar circumstances, would face a full
life-term sentence. Furthermore, according to the Islamic law in Egypt, a
woman does not have the right to pass on her nationality and as a result, nearly
80,000 Egyptian children, most of whom are products of brief (mutah) marriage
to the Gulf Arabs, have no nationality. In fact, according to W. Muir, the most
renowned biographer of Prophet Muhammad, this mutah or temporary
marriage, sanctioned by the Koran, is nothing but prostitution. It may be
mentioned here that in India, especially in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh (AP),
rich and aged Shaikhs of Arab countries come to marry (mutah)
young Muslim girls by paying lucrative
mehr ( a kind of dowry that the groom has to pay to her guardian
or parents). Last year, AP police arrested a 73 year old Arab, Mohammad
Jafer Yaqub Hassan al Jorani, for marrying three teen age Muslim girls in quick
succession within 7th to 24th
May, 2005.
Yet the picture is not all bleak. More and more Egyptian girls are now
receiving education and between 1970 and 1998, the number of girls attending
primary schools rose from 50 to 72 per cent. In Oman, the number of school-going
girls has more than quadrupled since 1970.
In Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and United Arab Emirate, more women
than men are now attending universities. Especially, in Kuwait and Qatar, women
make up about 70 per cent of the students. Female education has been
dramatically improved in the Arab countries and at present, women literacy rate
is 80 per cent in Tunisia and 100 per cent in Jordan. Still, only in 3 out of 22
Arab countries, women have the right to vote and in Yemen, the illiteracy rate
among young women is 54 per cent, which is three times that of men. While Arab
women are working as ambassadors, Government ministers, top business executives
and even army officers (in Bahrain), barely 6 per cent of total workforce in
Saudi Arabia is female. While a fifth of Algeria’s Supreme Court judges are
women and they hold 15 per cent top judicial posts in Tunisia, baby girls are
twice as likely to die as baby boys in Egypt. And “honour killing” (killing
female relations suspected of tarnishing the family honour) is still
a social custom in the Arab world. For example, more than 20 young women
are still murdered by their relatives every year in Jordan.
Undoubtedly, Tunisia is the most advanced and progressive among the Arab
countries. As far back as 1950, secularist Tunisia granted women the full
equality with men – polygamy was banned and women were allowed to vote,
contest elections, divorce their husbands, work in any profession and etc. But
male attitudes have not really changed. Many marry village women as additional
wives and incidents of wife-beating still remains very high.
In 2004, Morocco, by the initiative of the foreign educated King Muhammad
VI, adopted a progressive family status code which grants both sexes equal
rights to seek divorce and to argue before a judge for custody of children. It
also has placed such tight conditions on polygamy as to render the practice
virtually impossible. On the other hand, Algeria’s family status law 1984,
gives men the autocratic Koranic right to divorce by oral talaq,
with no obligation to the divorced wife. And the Koranic law of inheritance has
been enforced. But in a 2002 survey carried out in 7 Arab countries by Zogby
International, a NGO, 50 per cent of respondents considered the improvements of
women’s rights a high priority. Most surprisingly, firmest supports came from
Saudi Arabia, a country that is famous for its extreme phobia regarding ikhtilat, or mixing of sexes.
So, it appears that the attitude of even Saudi Arabia to its womenfolk is
changing. In fact, in May 2004, Saudi women were granted the right to hold
commercial licenses and, as a result, Saudi women now own a quarter of $100
billions deposited in Saudi Arabian banks. In 2001, women won the right to have
their own identity cards and since January 2004, Saudi Arabian state television
has started recruiting female newscasters. Kingdom’s best known TV personality
now happens to be a woman, named Rania al-Baz, whom her husband once beat almost
to death. She, instead of staying silent, what her mother and grand mother would
have done, invited photographers into her hospital room to tell her tale and to
show her broken face to the world. Now she has formed a group to combat the
abuse of women in Saudi Arabia.
Today, 1.3 billion Muslims account for nearly 32 per cent of the world
population, but this 32 per cent Muslims publish less than one per cent of
world’s scientific research papers. Countries belonging to the “Organisation
of Islamic Countries (OIC), according to their share of world population, should
have 4 million scientists and engineers, but in reality, the figure is only
200,000, merely 5 per cent of the expected figure. Furthermore, the Muslims have
little contribution in the high-tech fields like computer software or
information technology. Islamic countries, to be at per with the world’s
budget, should spend 4.7 million per year for higher education and research. But
they spend as low as $120,000. Many similar studies have revealed severe dearth
of creativity in the Muslim world. The authors of the “Arab Human Development
Report 2000” have rightly traced the root cause of the said backwardness of
the Arabs in the oppression of their womankind.
In this context, one may recall that in 1996, Islamist fanatics butchered
300 girl-children in Libya for pursuing the un-Islamic practice of attending
schools and in Afghanistan, fanatic Taliban government once closed all schools
and colleges for girls and forced women to remain indoor. In December, this
year, Taliban gunmen killed two women teachers for educating girls, along with
their mother and their grandmother. A couple of months ago, a girl was brutally
killed by the fanatic Muslims for attending school and another girl student
Kulsooma of class IX was blinded by
throwing acid in Kashmir. So it appears that the condition of Muslim women is
worse in India, with 40.6 per cent literacy, than their Arab counter parts.
And it can safely be said that, so long the Muslims will continue to
oppress their women, the prospect of their advancement in civilization would
also remain bleak. ”As we all know, birds have two wings. Unless both the
wings grow equally, the bird cannot fly. Similarly, the society has two wings,
man and women. Both have to be developed equally. Then the society will fly”,
says his Excellency, our President, Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam.
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