Now that we have looked at the state of women’s rights in Muslim countries and at what the Qur’an and Hadith has to say about women’s rights it is time to look at the final issues. That being what has happened to Muslim countries and what the causes are for such mistreatment of women’s rights. We shall also have a short look at the treatment of women throughout history.

So what went wrong in Muslim countries

This is a question many people ask in and out side of Muslim circles, but there is no short answer. Some say that after Islam reached its peak and broke up is when it first started though there is no evidence either way to say truthfully if this is the case. If we take a look at the regimes in place in most of these 'Islamic' countries we find that they where never actually voted in but forcibly took control of the country despite what anyone else thought about it. An example of this would be with the Taliban. This regime came in to power after the Afghan and soviet war using weapons they had received through America to aid their fight with the invading soviet forces¹. Most examples of women being mistreated come from Afghanistan. Though to be fair the Taliban actually took over from an even worse regime² which was what is now the northern alliance. Another example would be Iran. When the population protested and over threw their leader in Iran the American government gave him aid and support to put him back in power to stop the forming of an Islamic government and to keep stability in the area. One of the many things he did was to force women at bayonet point to remove their hijab's, which for Muslims who choose to wear Hijab would be like having a member of congress in the USA taking over the country from the government with force and then making all American women remove their bikinis when they go to the beach because he liked what he saw on Spanish beaches and later finding out that he was supported by Spain in doing so. Because of this, outrage against the Shah in Iran led to the backing of extremist groups which eventually found their places in influential places in the governmental system resulting in the extreme laws used in Iran today.

In other countries such as Pakistan³ and Bangladesh popular support resulted in their governments coming into power, yet they are as corrupt and un-Islamic as those whom took control by force regardless of support from the people⁴. Even though the people living in these countries may want a shar'ria law⁵ based country the government will not allow it as it will mean less power and money for the government. To keep the people happy they will say we will impose Shar'ria law at some stated period of time in the future, but when the time comes the government changes its mind

Pakistan’s government is always saying that it is working towards a Sharia law driven country yet never gets round to it. To be fair though in the case of Pakistan women’s rights is not that bad in the cities, it only degrades in the village communities usually. Though this does not excuse it happening one has to remember that though it has a central military run government most of the country has its own laws and the government has no real control over small village areas, especially in militant parts like the region called Bhutan⁶. Another thing to bear in mind is that Pakistan usually gets bad press, as all the good things about Pakistan never gets reported in the media. Pakistan in the cities is a country that has almost equal rights for women for education and jobs. Like western countries there are still some places for improvement concerning jobs, and many a Pakistani will point out that from a city perspective it is up there with any other modern country, and that at least they have had a female President.

While there is room for improvement in providing an education for all children and teens, many people actually view its educational system as far superior as that of the wests. This is because children in schools are not placed and advanced through school life according to there age, instead they progress according to intellect. It is quite common in Pakistan to see a 14 year old who is not very intelligent with a class of 12 year olds, and a 9 year old who is intelligent in a class of 15 year olds. Take the case of 10-year-old Arfa Karim Randhawa whom at the age of 9 is believed to be the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in the world⁷. This is due to her being granted further learning from the Applied Technologies institute⁸ nearby where she lived.

Another course for lack of women’s rights are from Muslims them selves. When ever some thing un-Islamic happens the scholars and other Muslims tend to put their head in the sand like an ostrich and hope people’s attention goes away. For example when a women is stoned to death in Pakistan or Afghanistan no one in the global Islamic scene stands up and says that this is Un-Islamic and that they condemn such action. There is a Hadith that relates to this it says:

Many Muslims do not know what actually is right and wrong in Islam, they follow blindly what others say and never ask 'where does it say that'.

The biggest course of lack of human rights comes down to education of Muslims about their own faith and the pressure to conform to social norms based on culture. In many Muslim countries it is frowned upon for people to read the Qur’an in anything other than the classical Arabic it was revealed in. The problem with this is that it means you get Muslims who do not understand a word of classical Arabic reading the Qur’an in classical Arabic so they have to rely on scholars and other people to tell them what it means. An example of this can be taken from England. It is common practice in England for religious families to send their children to Qur’an classes at their local Mosque. On its own this is a great thing for Islamic children but while they are being taught to read Classical Arabic they are not taught to understand what it is the words actually means. The primary reason behind reading the Qur’an in only classical Arabic is that when translating the Qur’an in to other languages it looses some of its meaning and so becomes open to interpretation which can lead to people being led astray on certain issues. Unfortunately it has not set in to people’s minds yet that reading the Qur’an in a language you don’t understand is more damaging in terms of keeping and following Islamic thought and laws than reading a translation. After all a translation can have foot note and a running commentary to help give the proper meaning.

Given below are a few key ideas that need to be thought about and put in practice if the oppression of women is to be bought to an end.

Thankfully in some countries women themselves are fighting for their rights granted to them in Islam. In Iran there are groups of women who are getting laws changed that are un-Islamic by arguing with the scholars and elite class that rule the country by showing them what the Qur'an and Hadith says. While this may be slow it is some thing that needs to be encouraged and supported by Muslims and the global community instead of being ignored as which is happening now.

Women a historical Perspective

It would be invaluable to take a look at history and see how through the ages different civilizations have treated women. In India, for example, subjection was a cardinal principle. Day and night women had to be held by their protectors in a state of dependence. The rule of inheritance was agnatic, that is, descent was traced through males to the exclusion of females. In Roman law a woman was, even in historic times, completely dependant. If married, she and her property passed in to the power of her husband, and like a slave, acquired for his benefit. A woman could not exercise any civil or public office? could not be a witness, surety, tutor, or curator, she could not adopt or be adopted and she could not even make a will or contract. If we where to take a look at Athenian, Scandinavian, English and many more civilization we see that women were all oppressed in similar ways through out the ages.

looking at Mosaic Law we can see that even it has been influenced by these times. The right to divorce was exclusive to the Husband, the woman was betrothed and the woman’s consent for marriage was not required. The position of the church, until recent centuries seems to have been influenced by both the Mosaic Law and the thought that was dominant at that time. In the book Marriage East and West pages 80 and 81 says:

Let no one suppose, either, that our Christian heritage is free of such slighting judgments. It would be hard to find anywhere a collection of more degrading references to the female sex than the early Church Fathers provide.

It goes on to explain that woman was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. She should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman. She should live in continual penance on account of the curse she has bought upon the world? She should be especially ashamed of her beauty, for it is the most potent instrument of the devil.

One of the worst of these attacks can be found in Tertullian which will not be printed here.

All This being said though, that was then and not today, and what happened then, does not excuse what happens now. The point being made here is that all religions believed that women where less than men, but changed there view points in the 20th century. The question this raises is, is Islam the same as the other religions back then, or is it different, and in either case how has it changed its attitude towards women. This also leaves open the following question, is Islam just needing to catch up with modern times like the other religions or has it back tracked its human rights for women over the passing century’s?

Cultural practice not Islamic

To finish of this article we will now look at the real culprit of lack of rights in Muslim countries. As already mentioned earlier all 'Islamic countries' are actually a mix of Islamic law, cultural law and the rulers own laws. In fact there is actually no real Islamic country as such as to be Islamic it has to be under a Sharia law based system without cultural influence and rulers own laws. As seen above all of the preconceptions on Islam are not actually Islamic practices, so if that’s the case, where do they originate from?


The answer to that is in culture. The one thing that all Muslim countries and most of Asia have in common is a strong cultural influence dating back thousands of years. For example lets take a look at India, like we did with the Islamic countries at the start of the entry.

India

Like Pakistan, India has honour killings taking place in remote villages, but India's laws against honour killings are better implemented and so is less known of in cities than that of Pakistan. India has a have prostitution system with girls being stolen, slaved, given or taken as payment for some debt and placed into brothels. Infanticide still takes place in India but is now done via scans and abortions. This is due to the fact that there is the dowry system that when a girl gets married she brings gifts for her new family. Unfortunately in some areas of India it has become practice to beat and torture the girl so her family will give more stuff, failing that they will kill her. Due to this the Indian goverment has banned the Sonograph in India, though it can still be found in some shadier parts of India.

Here is a short questions and answer section between Rik Bailey and Fatima Banu, a girl living in South India:

As this shows India still has issues with women’s rights just like the Islamic countries, and just like Muslim countries these problems do not stem from the countrys Religions like Hinduism and Sikhism, it is due to a shared culture that has dominated people’s thoughts for a long period of time. The main difference between women’s rights in Pakistan and India is that India has a far more active stance on stamping out the old cultural taints than Pakistan has at the moment. But its not just in the east that women’s rights are abused for example there is a major white slave trade in women as prostitutes in Europe and domestic violence on women is increasing each year in most western countries, and so as such highlights how lack of women’s rights can't be pinned on to one group, but rather that all groups need to work together on eliminating the abuse of women’s rights in all countries regardless of colour or belief, and more importantly respect of each others unique colour and beliefs.