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Strange noises are being made in
response to the Women Reservation Bill having been adopted by the
Rajya Sabha. The chorus includes shrill protestations from many much
respected Muslim divines and scholars who are the least expected of
showing such a behaviour. They seem to pit Islam against women and
that too going against all that Islam stands for.
Islam never drives a wedge between men and women, nor it at all
segregates women. Far from it, the holy Quran makes them
interdependent as it considers them as ‘clothing’ to each other as
spouses who wear each other, saving each other from uncalled for
exposure. For Islam, a woman is not merely a ‘body’, to be sexually
exploited, but an independent and full-fledged human individual with
an existence or a soul of her own which many religion and cultures
have denied her. Women, according to Islam, have been betowed with
all the attributes as men, but they surpass men in their delicacy
and sensitivity.
During the life-time of the Prophet, women enjoyed all the freedoms
and rights that women in many societies are fighting for even today.
Women had complete economic autonomy in those times, which is
exemplified by the Prophet’s wife Khadija who ran a well-spread
export-import business and which never faced any restrictions from
the Prophet. Prophet’s wife Aaisha was among the most prominent in
the fields of scholarship and education. Almost one third of the
knowledge about Islamic Shariah is believed to have been delivered
to the posterity by her. Zainab, the daughter of Husain, who gained
martyrdom at Karbala, was a greater orator and repository of Islamic
wisdom. Rabia Bari is well-known among the earliest Sufi Saints of
Islam. Indian history too bears witness to the women achievers like
Razia Sultan and Chand Bibi as rulers, Zaibun Nisa and Jahar Ara as
poets and scholars and the women-rulers of Bhopal who have left a
great legacy of responsible and responsive governance, education,
particularly of women and enlightenment. Poet philosopher Iqbal and
scholars like Shibli Nomani and Syed Suleman Nadvi heaped praises on
these women of Bhopal for their extraordinary human qualities.
Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, one of the greatest divines of Darul
Uloom Deoband had issued a Fatwa in favour of their rule.
The advances that the Muslim women are registering in Islamic
countries like Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, Kuwait are quite evident
and well-recognized. Even King Abdullah have included a woman as
member of his cabinet in Saudi Arabia. Khalida Edib Khanam in
Turkey, Fatima in Libya, Jamila Bu Pasha are yet other illumined
examples of the women achievers who made themselves prominent in the
world of Islam.
Back home, how can one forget the glorious resistance that Begum
Hazrat Mahal had put against the British annexation of Awadh. The
wife of Hasrat Mohani, one of the front ranking leaders of India’s
freedom struggle made sterling contributions to the Swadeshi
movement. No fatwa was ever issued to curb her activism. Post
independence, Muslim women have forged ahead whenever opportunity
beckoned to them. Justice Bibi Fatima enjoys the honour of being the
first Muslim Judge of the Supreme Court. Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rusul,
Maimuna Sultan, Begum Haamida Habibullah, Akbar Jahan who was the
wife of Sheikh Abdullah, Anwara Taimur, Mohsina Kidwai, Dr. Najma
Heptullah, Mahbooba Mufti and Dr. Syeda Saiyyadain Hameed are some
other prominent Muslim women who never faced any resistance from
Islamic circles.
This author firmly believes that Islam accords equal freedom and
opportunities to women to excel in all the fields of human thought
and action, but of course, remaining within the bounds of decency,
modesty and propriety set by the Shariah. We as Muslim s take pride
in the fact that Islam as a religion took lead in emancipating women
from the age-old bondages that had reduced women to being merely a
shadow of men and a peripheral existence in almost all societies
around the world. Nobody has any right to deny the women what the
holy Quran and the Prophet, who is a Mercy on all Mankind, have so
generously bestowed on them, and that too in the name of Islam. Any
move of denial of rights to the women will not only dent the
progressive image of Islam but also weaken the efforts to get an
exclusive share for the Muslim women in Women Reservation Law.
Prof. Akhtarul Wasey is
the Head of the Department of Islamic Studies, Director: Zakir
Husain Institute of Islamic Studies,
Jamia Millia Islamia ,
New Delhi
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