'My mother was threatened with harm. But we won't be silenced'.Dear Muslim men,
I
still remember the day my mother was told her life was in danger. Her
right to exist on this earth was suddenly being questioned because she
decided she was exhausted. Exhausted for all her sisters, mothers and
daughters who are unfortunate enough to have been born with another X
chromosome rather than a Y.
What were her demands? Merely a space
to pray in the mosque. Despite knowing she was potentially putting
herself on the line, she stood her ground to claim what has been
snatched from us. This did not happen in a faraway land, but here in the
UK, and the heinous crime my mother committed that warranted such a
savage response was requesting her God-given rights.
She should
have been smart enough to know not to ask for something that may
threaten the towering, carefully constructed, religiously disguised
pedestal that has cradled the male ego for centuries. The outrageous
desire to pray in a mosque that has only welcomed men since its creation
represented values far too Islamic for these chauvinists.
We
attended a mosque meeting advertised as being 'open to the public', and
were abusively shouted down as soon as my mother attempted to make a
contribution. No one had yet informed us that 'the public' does not
include females.
Following police involvement, we were
begrudgingly afforded a small place to pray, and saw the intimidation
tactics become even more pathetic: tutting, head-shaking and sneering
comments followed us round every corner. We felt unsafe.
And this
isn't an isolated incident. When certain Muslim Labour councillors were
accused of systematically and calculatedly blocking Muslim women from
becoming MPs, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised at another result
of relentless animosity, the opening of a woman-led mosque in Bradford,
either.
There's no religious illegitimacy here. Making room for
Muslim women isn't un-Islamic. And I haven't been pushed away from my
religion by sexist men in the Muslim community.
Instead, I have
drawn closer to my faith. I recognise the irony of the fact that the
first university in the world was established by a Muslim woman, yet
today many are denied an education. That the Prophet Mohammed fought on
horseback alongside a woman, and yet now, many are told to stay in their
houses and denied the right to drive. That in Mecca, at God's house, I
walk hand-in-hand with my husband while worshipping, but UK mosques deny
me entry. That the majority of the 5,000 annual British converts to
Islam are women, because they see the Quran affirming gender equality,
and have realised a deeper liberation - even as a culturally asphyxiated
brand of so-called Islam run by chauvinists oppresses us.
Quite
simply, in being your intellectual, spiritual and social equals, we
recognise the immensity of the paradox that some of you continue to
propagate. Despite your fervent attempts to use mistranslations and
misinterpretations of scripture and tradition to satisfy your desires,
we don't believe you. We do not need strengthening, we need recognition
of the different forms our strength comes in.
This is an
injustice at one end of the same spectrum that groups like Isis operate
on. And for those of you who do not actively enforce this injustice, by
remaining complicit in the shackling of even one woman, you are
shackling all of us. How can a society progress if half of it is
chained?
We're desperate to pull back the paralysing grip of the
lethal combination of male ego and cultural deadweight, to untangle this
mess and to live how our faith truly tells us to live, relieved of our
exhaustion.
Ultimately, we need you to help us reclaim Islam.
Until
all of society learns to respect the half of society that bears and
births them, humans will remain crippled, our social ills cannot be
healed. We are hurting. Exhausted. But I have hope.
Because, as Al Ghosaibi says, 'when a wound is tired of crying, it starts to sing'.
source:timesofindia
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Top Comment
Just stop all imports from china. These people only understand that kind of language.Manas Ghosh