The Beginning and the End with Omar Suleiman: Women: Crooked Rib?

Greatest Woman of All Time (Maryam bint 'Imran)

The best to women....

"The most perfect of men in belief are they who are best in character. The best in character are they who are best to women."

The Prophet Muhammed, upon him be peace. (Al-Tirmidhi)

Female genital mutilation: I watched my sister die in childbirth – video

Real men control themselves not the women they should love and protect.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf talks about Lust & Desire

Alhamulilah I love and respect this shaykh more and more each time I listen to him:)

Strong References to Women in Qur'an

Eid Makeup: Gold & Purple Arabic Smokey Eye

My wife told me about above video and I thought it was incredibly inclusive and thoughtful of Chloe to think of her Muslims viewers and make such an effort for them. I am posting it for my female readers I hope you will appreciate.

Indian woman carries British merchant West Bengal 1903

I see many comments along the lines of  'we in the West need to help these poor oppressed women!' well maybe you should be aware the the history of  Western imperialism and colonialism first.

She was Beautiful! ┇FUNNY┇ Br. Abdel Rahman Murphy ┇ Smile...itz Sunnah ┇

Racism in the Muslim Community?

This made me very sad. I'm so disgusted by my own community at times. :( Alhamdulilah I love this sister though well done to her for speaking out.

Make Me a Muslim

"There is not one law in Saudi Arabia that regards violence toward women as an illegal activity": what's really behind Saudi's domestic abuse problem?

Saudi Arabia has introduced a campaign aimed at tackling domestic violence against women in the kingdom. The King Khalid Foundation funds the campaign, which is a royal, family-run organization with clear ties to the Saudi government.

The campaign ad portrays a face-covered woman with only her eyes showing, one of which is bruised. The translation of the Arabic message of the ad reads: “What is hidden underneath is much bigger.” However, the sentence should refer to what is hidden deep inside the laws of the kingdom and not under the facial covers.  

The campaign is disconnected from the main reason behind domestic violence. Domestic violence in Saudi Arabia, unlike in other parts of the world, goes far deeper than just a social issue, it is the problem with the law itself. In Saudi Arabia, men grow up knowing that abusing your wife, sister or mother is protected by law. In terms of religion, men in Saudi Arabia, and some other parts of the Muslim world, are being taught in school that hitting your wife is one solution to her disobedience. Clerics are also outspoken about such rulings on TV.

The famous Saudi preacher Mohamad Alarefe, said on LBC channel:

“Allah created women with these soft and fragile bodies because they use their emotions more than their bodies and that’s why you find men discipline their wives with beating while women discipline their husbands with crying.”

He continued, “the point of the husband hitting his wife is not to cause pain but to get obedience.”

Clerics emphasize the fact the women have to obey their fathers, brothers and husbands as part of their religious duty.

On another occasion, when asked about women leaving the house, Mohamad Alarefe said:

“There are two cases for women leaving the house, the first case is if the husband told his wife not to go somewhere, like the market because he ‘hates’ her doing that and she leaves to that place then leaving is forbidden and not allowed. The second case is if she leaves to a place that her husband does not hate and approves of and that it was difficult for her to take his permission because he is in prison, or a captive, etc. then leaving is permitted.”

In terms of law, there is not one law in Saudi Arabia that regards violence toward women as an illegal activity. As a matter of fact, women in Saudi Arabia are minors under law until their death, making it impossible for a woman to make any decision on her own without the permission of her guardian.

This means that even if a woman is “radical” enough to disobey her guardian or reject his abuse or decisions, she has got nowhere to go. She cannot file a complaint or leave the country or do practically anything without her guardian’s permission, which in most cases, ironically, is the abuser himself.

Therefore there is no reason for a man to restrain himself from abusing women in his family. He knows that he has the power to abuse her, hit her, stop her from working and stop her from getting educated while having the law and religion right there behind him.

The ad in the new campaign is meant to define domestic violence in Saudi Arabia as being a social issue and divert attention from the government’s lack of laws that protect women. This campaign takes the responsibility away from the government and puts it in the hands of individuals themselves; women have to step up and talk about abuse and go to shelters, and men have to restrain themselves from abusing women.

This campaign tries to limit the cause to only being the women’s lack of knowledge of laws and regulations. It advocates the notion that the solution can only come by the participation of the women themselves. A comment by princess Ameerah al-Taweel’s, the vice chairwoman of the Board of the Alwaleed Bin Talal foundation, follows on a similar path:

"The main issue when it comes to abused women in Saudi is lack of knowledge. Some women who accept being abused don't know their rights in Islam, and a lot of women who are suffering from abuse, don't know their rights in our legal system. That they can report their case and they will be protected by the government.”

This notion presents the government as the “good guy” because supposedly they are promoting such campaigns and willing to help the women who suffer from abuse: a government that has “a legal system” that protects women from abuse and domestic violence.  The fact is under the legal system in Saudi, men can get away with their abuse, as the punishment for domestic violence is very minimal. Human Rights Watch World Report 2013 reported:

“In May, Jeddah’s Summary Court convicted a man for physically abusing his wife to the point of hospitalization, but sentenced him to learning by heart five parts of the Quran and 100 sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.”

The legal system in Saudi Arabia does not have the sufficient tools and laws that would deter men from domestic violence. In case of drugs and murder, the punishment is death penalty, which makes people think twice before committing such crimes because of the consequences.  Yet, when it comes to domestic violence the punishment is learning parts of the Quran and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. 

Such campaigns are ahead of their time because first concrete laws must be put in place. Then and only then can we start equating domestic violence to other social issues, such as drug use or child abuse or animal rights, that take place in the society despite the presence of related laws and regulations. How can we educate people about the harms of a social issue when the government itself is not considering these harms?

Women should refuse to be victimized into believing that such actions are part of their religion and instead ask for real changes in the law itself as opposed to superficially trying to solve such essential issues. They should hold their government accountable for this abuse. The solution to such problems can only be achieved with the kind of spirit and power that the Arab Spring had; by demanding change, protesting oppression and getting hurt for the sake of the cause.

 source

What kind of woman is willing to share her husband?

Farzana is a senior nurse, 36, attractive, selfpossessed and articulate. “I have begun to consider polygamy,” she tells me at a matchmaking event in central London for divorced and widowed Muslims interested in marrying again. “When you think about love in an Islamic way, the co-wife idea makes sense.”

According to Mizan Raja, who set up the Islamic Circles community network and presides over the east London Muslim matrimonial scene, women are increasingly electing to become “co-wives” – in other words, to become a man’s second or third wife. As I reported last year in the New Statesman, Raja gets five to ten requests every week from women who are “comfortable with the notion of a part-time man”. He explained: “Career women don’t want a full-time husband. They don’t have time.” So couples live separately, a husband visiting his wives on a rota.

A dapper City boy listening to Raja whispered to me: “Actually, that’s not right. In late twenties a girl is considered past it, so this arrangement is the best she can get.”

If you’re divorced, widowed or over 30 and Muslim, finding a husband in this country can be a challenge. Does polygamy, or more specifically polygyny (a man taking more than one wife, as opposed to a woman taking more than one husband), as sanctioned by the Quran, offer a possible solution?

Aisha (not her real name), a divorced single mother with two children, recently chose to become a second wife. She was introduced to her husband by a friend. She says that at first she was hesitant. “I was like, ‘No, I can’t do it. I’m too jealous as a person. I wouldn’t be able to do it.’ But the more that time went on and I started thinking about it, especially more maturely, I saw the beauty of it.”

They agreed on the terms of the marriage by email, covering details such as “how many days he’d spend with me and how many days he’d spend with his other wife, and money and living arrangements”. They then met twice, liked each other, set a date and were married. Her husband now spends three days with Aisha and her two children from her previous marriage and then three days with his other family, unless one of them is ill, in which case he stays to help but has to make up the missed time to his other wife.

She confesses that “if he was to stay all the time I’d love it”, but says that having time off “is definitely beneficial in some ways as well”. She has “more freedom” to see her friends and her family, and it is a relief “not having a man in your face half the time, when you are cranky, and he can go somewhere else and you can manage the kids on your own”.

As a divorcee, bringing up children on her own for three years before remarrying, she built up an independent life for herself: “It’s hard to let your goals go for a man all over again.” Although she concedes they have had a “few teething problems” and that it took his first wife “some time to come to terms with it”, now, she says, they “have come to an understanding . . . We are finding our feet.” Both sets of children are aware of the new situation and have accepted it. In fact, she says that her husband’s daughter from his first marriage “can’t wait to meet second Mummy” and her own son, who now has a father figure and “role model” that he was previously lacking, is “really happy with it”. They have yet to experience “a big family get-together”, but Aisha says she is “hopeful that will happen soon . . . I’ve spoken to her [the first wife] a couple of times. She seems really lovely. I would really like for us to become good friends . . . for there to be that kind of bond of sisterhood between us.”

The main obstacle to happiness, according to Aisha, “is the sense of ownership” and jealousy. “But that’s something that you’ve just got to use your wisdom to get past . . . It’s more important for me to have a father for my children . . . to have a helping hand when I need it.” She insists that problems arise only when the husband does not treat both wives equally, as explicitly mandated in the Quran, or when the wives are not mature enough to rationalise and accept the situation.

Anecdotal evidence, in the absence of the statistical kind, suggests that polygamy is on the rise in Britain. And according to a poll conducted over a week by Singlemuslim.com, 33 per cent of men and 9 per cent of women would choose to be part of a polygamous marriage. Because such marriages take place through an unregistered marriage contract, they do not constitute bigamy, a criminal offence in the UK.

The reasons for polygamy are complex. Aisha says that, from her point of view, “Single mums don’t have the pick of the bunch . . . [Polygamy] is there so we can still have the benefits of marriage, so we don’t have to be left on the shelf, so our children can still have role models, father figures, and so we can still have that emotional stability, financial stability and security.”

The stigma of divorce, as well as later marriages and the importing of foreign brides (15,500 women were admitted to the UK in 2011 as wives of British men, according to Home Office figures), have all exacerbated the problem for Muslim women looking for a husband. 

Aisha tells me that her husband saw polygamy as his religious duty. “A lot of people think it’s just about sex but . . . sex goes out the window after a while. If you don’t want your husband marrying someone else, what would happen to these single mums, then, and these divorcees? Is it fair that they just stay on the shelf? We should be looking after our community. Islam is all about community and society and we should look after our brothers and our sisters equally, otherwise it’s every man for themselves.”

Kalsoom Bashir, the project manager of the Muslim women’s rights organisation Inspire, and Khola Hasan of the Islamic Sharia Council in Leyton, east London, both believe that forced marriage is another reason for polygamy. British men are forced into marriages, often with cousins imported from “back home” with whom they have nothing in common. “For a man who has been in the difficult situation of being forced into a marriage, and the numbers are huge in Britain, absolutely huge . . . for many of them, polygamy is a good way of being happy and keeping the family happy,” Hasan explains.

The Quran instructs Muslim men to “marry women of your choice two or three or four”, but warns that “if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly [with them] then only one or [your concubines]. That is more fitting so that you do not deviate from the right course.” The Prophet Muhammad said, “Whosoever has two wives and he inclines towards one to the exclusion of the other, he will come on the Day of Judgement with his body dropping or bending down.”

In other words, “It is mission impossible,” according to Mufti Barkatulla, a senior imam and sharia council judge in Leyton. He firmly believes that there is no place for polygamy in modern Britain. “There are a number of cases we have come across and there is hardly a case where a man can balance all the duties required in a polygamous situation . . . In today’s industrial society, it is impossible to observe the conditions laid down by the scriptures.” Polygamy, he points out, predates Islam and was permitted in Islam in the context of war to offer protection to war orphans and widows. Many of the Prophet’s 11 wives were widows.

Sara (not her real name) is a 40-year-old Muslim convert. She accepted the practice of polygamy as part of her religion and when she fell in love with a married man, she was the one who suggested that she become his second wife. “I was busy and studying. I felt I could cope with not having someone around all the time,” she tells me.

In reality, though, Sara now says, their marriage was more like a religiously sanctioned affair. “Because of the social taboos against [polygamy], it had to be secret from the community and I couldn’t have any children . . . because then it will be known that he has a second wife.” Although she met her husband’s first wife, going on holiday with her once and even offering to babysit her children, the first wife never fully accepted the situation. “I really had this idea that we somehow would eventually find some way of getting on . . . I was imagining it would be like these stories I have heard of where it works, so I thought it would just be a matter of time and we were destined to be together.” Eventually, after six years, Sara sought a divorce.

In his 25 years presiding over thousands of divorce cases at the Islamic Sharia Council, Mufti Barkatulla has heard many similar stories. Between 2010 and 2011, 43 out of the 700 applications for divorce to Leyton’s sharia council cited polygamy as the main reason.

Mufti Barkatulla and Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, the former director of the Muslim Institute, devised a Muslim marriage contract – in effect, a religiously sanctioned prenup, to be signed at the time of the nikah, or religious ceremony – that sought to address the imbalance in Muslim marriages, giving women equal rights to divorce, allowing them to feel safe from rape or abuse, and preventing husbands from taking a second wife. It also states that the nikah must happen in conjunction with a civil ceremony, for extra protection.

He tells me the story of a woman whose husband “had agreed to a civil ceremony but because dates and everything were not agreed the husband kept on delaying it”. One day when she got home, she found a notice on the door: “Everything is over. Collect your things from my sister’s house.” The woman told him that she felt as though she had been “on trial” but eventually was discarded.

An estimated 70-75 per cent of Muslim marriages in the UK are not registered under the Marriage Act, unlike Christian and Jewish marriages, which are registered automatically. Mosques have the legal right to register to conduct civil weddings, but only about one in ten have chosen to do so. A nikah or Muslim marriage can be performed anywhere, even using proxies or on Skype. When a marriage is not registered and the relationship breaks down, the unregistered wife has no rights to spousal or child support and can even be left homeless, denied her due share. In the event of the husband’s death, the registered wife and her children will inherit and the unregistered wife and children will not.

If Muslim marriages are unregistered, and take place outside of the jurisdiction of this country, there is no automatic recourse to justice through the British courts. Instead, an aggrieved party must go to an unregulated sharia council for mediation. The crossbencher Baroness (Caroline) Cox is concerned by this clash between sharia and civil law. “There is now operating in this country a kind of parallel quasi-legal system and that goes against the fundamental principle of liberal democracy of one law for all.” Of polygamy, she says: “To have more than one wife is not acceptable in the UK and people . . . must accept the laws of the land they choose to live in.” In 2011, she introduced the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill, which had its second reading in the House of Lords last October and “would make it illegal for any person or contacts to be established which would operate as a kind of alternative legal system. Anyone purporting to operate in that way in a judicial capacity would actually be committing a criminal offence that could [be punished with] a prison sentence for this alternative legal system.” The bill will be re-tabled in the next Parliament. 

Khola Hasan of Leyton’s sharia council believes that forcing mosques to register all nikahs, and thereby banning polygamy, will only make Muslims feel more persecuted. “The Muslim community in Britain already feels victimised,” she says, and it will inevitably force the practice underground, leaving women more vulnerable. She argues that, rather than banning polygamy, which she views as a “solution to many complex and difficult situations”, the practice should in fact be recognised by British law.

According to the Singlemuslim.com poll, 61 per cent of Muslim men and 28 per cent of Muslim women agree with Hasan that British law should be changed to permit polygamy. “Britain is refusing to accept that polygamy takes place,” she says. “It’s a reality and I think the British legal system is going to have to open its eyes and accept that it’s a reality in Britain.

“Polygamy is not going to go away.” Source

Where are the Girls in this Mosque?

 I was shopping in another part of Toronto the other day, accompanied by my siblings, and it was time for the Maghreb prayer. There was a big mosque nearby and we drove there. There was one entrance called "Sisters' Entrance", my sister entered from there, while my brother and I walked around the mosque to enter via the main entrance - aka the "brother's entrance".

It was a very nice, huge, ornate, well designed mosque. It was also quite new; the mosque used to be two portables fitting around 40 people before, now this was a proper mosque accomodating thousands. The main prayers were over; so my brother and I prayed by ourselves. The main prayer hall was divided into two sections - a glass barrier separating the dimly lit "private" space from the main hall - this is where we prayed. The sisters' area was upstairs.

As we finished praying, I noticed there was a dars (a lesson) going on. I sat down and listened for a bit. The speaker was an old bearded man, he sat in the centre of the main hall surrounded by kids and adults, and he was speaking in flawless English. The topic of the speech was taking lessons from the life of the Prophets and applying it to modern times. As I listened, I realized the speaker was really good, and the speech was excellent. The kids listened with rapt attention.

And yet ... take a look at the picture below.

Everyone shown around the speaker is a male. The adults were male, the kids were male, and of course the speaker was male. Where are the females.

"Oh, they are upstairs, listening too," Answered someone, when I asked them. "We have speakers and close circuit TV."

This is the problem, the big problem, in today's Muslim organizations. If you take a look at this picure, there is a LOT of empty space behind the men, in the MAIN prayer hall. Why can't girls sit here, in close proximity to the speaker, so they can personally ask him questions, or be inspired in way that only a face-to-face conversation can? Sitting behind the men will satisfy any requirements that orthodox Muslims can throw at them, and not to mention, teaching women this way is actually a sunnah.

I remember going to these classes, sometimes as a kid, often as an adult, when a well known speaker would come to the mosque, and being inspired by the Islamic knowledge imparted. If my sister or wife would attend, sometimes I would wonder why they were not similarly impressed. Hard to be impressed when you are looking at a curtain, I think!

I was reading Cartoon Muhammad's article "The Need for Muslim Women Leaders". He is on the mark on how certain segments of the mosque community (let's be candid - it's the more "religious" folk) who construct barriers (literally and figuratively) against Muslim women speakers.

However, the problem that I saw in this mosque, in this dars, prevent women from seeking knowledge in the first place. Muslim Student Associations all across Canada talk about Israel Apartheid, but we have to be honest and admit there remains an Apartheid system in many of our mosques that discriminate against half our community - the girls.

Contrast this to the times of Caliph Umar (the Caliph of the Muslim empire!) being corrected by a woman during a Friday Khutbah! Or even contrast this with the Sayeda Khadija Centre in Mississauga, Ontario. When I was there, the first few rows were occupied by men, and the next few rows were occupied by women. Sisters conversed with the imam (who was standing, in person, a mere 50 feet away from them). And this was no progressive "flaky" imam, this was Imam Hamid Slimi who also teaches at the prestigious Islamic Institute of Toronto.

If you are a woman, which mosque would you go to?  Source

Manhood & Womanhood in Islam - By: Yasmin Mogahed & Yassir Fazaga

The Cost of Being a “Real” Pashtun Woman

By writing on Pashtun women’s plight with the hands of social stigmas, I am not arguing thatnon-Pashtun women are free of such problems. Rather, writing on such issues means that we have to find the courage to face the reality and speak up about it; to come out of a denial mode. Unless we speak out against our problems, we will not be able to think critically and find solutions for them. This piece is also not aimed at generalizing about Pashtun women’s social situation, since there are exceptions in everything and everywhere.

In 1774, Breshna, a woman from the Nasar tribe who is today popularly known as Khadai, got married to someone from the Slaimankhail tribe. After her marriage, a man, from her tribe, named Beeda Bara Khan Nasar didn’t let her go back to her in-laws. This infuriated the Slaimankhail tribe and they gathered an army of four thousand people and fought with the Nasar tribe in Zhob in southeastern Afghanistan. The feud started on the second year of Timur Shah Durrani’s reign and lasted for almost two centuries (1774-1951). The feud that was started by men because of men, today after two centuries, is blamed at Khadai. Khadai is considered the source of bringing bad luck, adversity and shame to the families involved, and is identified as the cause of the feud. And that is why when the Pashtun mothers swear at young daughters for misbehavior, they often call them “Khadai”. Her story is an example of how Pashtun women have suffered from the social guilt of something called bringing shame to the family. Among Pashtuns, this phenomenon is called sharam.

Sharam is the English equivalent of shame or disgrace. This term has usually been used in cases where honor is involved in the Pashtun society. When the honor of a person, family or tribe is jeopardized due to any kind of conflict of interest between individuals, the person causing the disrespect might be declared an outcast. The family or the tribe might disown such a person or not treat him/her a part of the family. To avoid bringing sharam to their families, men are usually expected to not involve in crimes such as theft, fraud, murder, and other criminal or negative behavior. An example can be sexually harassing women, such as by staring at them or following them; this might result in complaints from the victim’s side, and the harasser could thus cause disgrace to his family. 

The culture of avoiding shameful acts has backfired in different matters on the very people who abide by it. A person’s fear of causing sharam for his/her own personality and his family or tribe has limited or almost blocked the ways for people to liberate themselves and express freely that they have suffered from injustice, in most cases, with the hands of their own relatives.

Often times, women are the primary targets of this culture of sharam, a culture comprised of two sides of the same coin. A woman who speaks up against the injustice she has to endure or may have experienced is looked down upon in the community for either complaining or for being too “liberal” or “shameless” (be sharam) by disclosing the realities that should have remained secret. These be sharam women include those who say “no” to a forced marriage or choose husbands for themselves, women who confront their husbands over infidelity or second marriages, widows choosing to remarry out of their deceased husbands’ families, women who ask for their part of the property shared with their male relatives, women who choose not to live with their in-laws while their husbands are away abroad to earn living for the whole family, and women who ask for divorce. Such women’s names, such as Khadai’s, who is considered to be the cause of a two-centuries-long feud, are used as negative metaphors or as examples for cautioning young girls. On the other hand, if a woman silently bears all the injustice, especially domestic violence, and ignores her basic rights, she is praised for being a woman of character, tolerance and source of pride for her male relatives. A Pashtun woman is called asli Pustana-real Pashtun woman when she goes through much in her life without complaining and opts for not changing her own situation when she has an opportunity to do so.

There have also been instances of the lives of women in my village where they have been praised for keeping calm and quiet when faced with injustice from their relatives. People praise and refer to them as asli Pashtanay i.e. real Pashtun women, when they not only quietly suffer in their lives but also show being content during their adversities. Wana (not her real name) died of a heart attack in 2003 when, after trying in vain to become pregnant for fourteen years, her husband decided to remarry. Even though she did not like the fact that she had to share her whole life and most importantly her husband with another woman, she was celebrated as a heroine throughout the village for going out to ask for the hand of her husband’s second wife. Wana was a victim of depression, anxiety and finally a heart attack that took her life, just so she could keep the honor of her family, the name of her father, and the respect of her husband and be called an asliPushtana.

A twenty-three year old man from Kabul in Afghanistan who lived and worked in another city said that he was angry at his father for his decision to bring a second wife home. When the man’s mother came to know that he was angry at his father for remarrying, she called him and asked him to not only call and talk with his father but also send him the required amount of money so he can hold his second marriage ceremony. The man says his mother argued that it was a hugesharam for her and the whole family to start a brawl within the family because of her husband’s second marriage. She had told her son that there were so many enemies of her husband and his family and people were jealous of his status and position in the society; in order to maintain that, she could endure the miseries and disloyalty of her husband-of-more-than-two-decades and not bring sharam upon the family that could cause their jealous enemies some satisfaction of witnessing distress and conflict among the members the envied family. She was ready to deny her own rights and let her husband exploit her stand regarding the people jealous of her and her husband’s life and position.

Apparent from the above examples, women are held responsible for anything that goes wrong within relations and families. They therefore are very cautious about their status and character in the household and in the tribe so as not to cause any harm to the name of their families by being the reason of sharam for them. This is the main reason of discrimination and acceptance of violence against women in the society, the reason for nurturing social stigmas and paving ways for incidents of violence, such as rape, that go unreported. Moreover, women have been denying and sacrificing their own basic human rights in order to save the honor of their families in the society. They have created an environment where quietly becoming a victim is deemed noble.  They are lured into believing that they are honorable and decent if they tolerate injustice, that they are responsible for the honor and good name of their families, that they are, in fact, the ones to be blamed when anything goes wrong in family matters.

 Source