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Zainab Al-Ghazali's Memoir in Nasir's Prison

When I attended a talk by Wael Ghoneim at the London School of Economics in January I was quite surprised when he briefly referred himself to the crowd as not a fan of the late President Jamal Abd al-Nasir. I asked my father why... and I learnt he had imprisoned quite a considerable number of Ikhwan Al-Muslimun (Muslim Brotherhood) members. So the dude made some mistakes.. I had not been aware of how grievous these mistakes were until I read Zainab Al-Ghazali Al-Jubaili's memoir of her time in Prison under Nasir's reign.

Al-Ghazali was an active president of the Muslim Ladies' Group in the early sixties. And had given her life to the cause of Islam at the tender age of 18. She swore allegiance to the founder and leader of the Muslim Brother hood, Hassan Al-Banna, only shortly before he was assassinated by Nasir's secret police. Under Nasir's rule the brotherhood was supposedly disbanded but Al-Ghazali and two other men helped in restoring it. Ironically, nasir was one a member of the brotherhood too. I doubt he started off bad, but he probably ended up evil... which seems to be the trend among Egyptian presidents. 

Al-Ghazali describes in her book, her distaste of the Egyptian society's lacking moral conduct (having been influenced by the British) and it's rulers who seemed content at it's lack of Islamic practise. She and a few others then created a plan to educate the youth in the matters of Islam in order to endorse a practising society and eventually establish an Islamic state. 

In the 60's Nasir had experienced a failed assassination by the Ikhwan al-Muslimun, this resulted in thousands upon thousands of members being imprisoned under the emergency law (which still presides in Egypt to this day thanks to Sadat and Mubarek), where men and women were snatched from their homes and thrown into military prison with no warrant, allegation or even suspicion. The accused were then tortured to provide names and information about the assassination and attempts at future assassinations... not knowing they had given the group further motive for assassination.

Al-Ghazali's tale was just one of many who remain unnamed and unacknowledged, but her tale took such a wide public notice when she was released from prison in 1971 because she was a woman, and no one had any idea a woman could have been treated so brutally by the state. She resided in military prison for approximately 2 years, where she was starved, whipped, beaten, crucified, set at by mice, snakes and starved dogs. She was made to sit in a room of filthy water and beaten if she moved or slept. She was suspended in the air, hanging upside and given 500 lashes (five times the amount of the Islamic punishment for fornication), then put back in the cell of water or thrown to dogs. She was dragged from prayer, given nothing to drink, humiliated and forbidden from the toilet for days on end. The cycle would repeat itself until she wrote down a false confession or gave names of relevance, which she simply didn't do, she just became so close to death that she had to be hospitalised several times. 

Naturally, one cannot easily understand her experience, perhaps only those who have experienced the same pain and torture can truly empathise with her. But her faith (Iman) in Allah was truly inspiring as she described how she would recite chapters of the Quran, or repeat the 99 names of Allah while being tortured to get her through it. Growing thicker skin in the process was probably inevitable and so some of her words I found too strong, she had undoubtedly developed a passion against the government and believed the Nair regime to be acting so wholly ungodly. I'll admit that I did not agree to every word she said, but what was undeniable was her strength of character, her gutsy bravery and her true adoration for her religion and the one God. She and the brotherhood suffered what no humans could possibly endure yet she bore it all with the strength of Allah and that in itself is evidence to His presence.

She was very delicate when writing about the attempted rapes against her, she described a few encounters, one where the soldier wished to do her no harm and was subsequently beaten and shot for acting against orders. The other encounter was where the soldier begged her to confess to something or say any names, she naturally refused as she had been doing all along, and when he approached her she bit down on his neck, the next thing she knew... a body was lying in front of her (her captors were obviously shocked, she says it was Allah who gave her strength to protect her self). The third attempt was where her torturer said he ordered a group of men to be intoxicated by alcohol and hashish before she was to be thrown at them, but in fact they had become so intoxicated that they had to be hospitalised. These events show she had been protected, but if she had been really raped, which seems inevitable for a woman in a military prison for two years, then I doubt she would have written about it, it probably being too disturbing for her to repeat.

Despite the pain she went through, the saddest thing about the book I found was the role of doctors, they would check on the inmates only to keep them alive for further torturing; bringing them back to conscious with smelling salts when they had passed out from too much torture.

I cannot portray how much this book affected me. In some ways I feel ashamed, in other ways I feel betrayed. But the most certain effect on me has been the reaffirmation of my faith, that despite living a cyclic routine in a busy modern city, Allah is always there, affecting everything I do. I hope Zainab Al-Ghazali's books and biography continue to inspire future generations to come.

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'nuff said!

The Four Greatest Women in Islam:with Sister Yasmin Mogahed

Treat her like a lady, not a baby-making machine

Kaneez* has five young children with a small age difference between them. She works full-time as a domestic maid and takes short, rushed breaks in order to nurse her youngest child, a five-month-old infant. If her break becomes longer than the expected five minutes, she is severely rebuked by her employer. 

Life is hard for Kaneez. Not only does her husband expect her to make ends meet, but also wants her to keep adding more children to the brood. Her children fight all the time, demand clothes and toys when she takes them grocery shopping and throw tantrums when their wishes are not fulfilled.

The over-worked mother says that her health is deteriorating by the day. She realises that she may be suffering from a number of complications, but does not have time to get herself checked by a doctor.

According to Kaneez, it was her husband’s aunt who kept making snide remarks about other relatives having more male progeny than her that made her want to have more babies. So Kaneez ended up having more children than she wanted as a retort to the aunt. Now, as those who provoked her go about their daily business, life for Kaneez just keeps getting tougher. When thoroughly exhausted, she releases her stress by physically abusing her children.

There is no doubt that children are God’s blessing. But in many societies, including ours, most women are forced to have one child after an another. They do not have the freedom to choose how many children they have nor do they get to decide the age difference between them.

Faiza* is 35 and has six children. She also works full time as a domestic servant. When she returns home, she must perform all the household duties. After six children, Faiza thought her family was complete, and she had a tubal ligation surgery in order to prevent any more pregnancies. But, when her husband and mother-in-law learned about this, they were furious. Faiza shares her sorrow saying:

I have given them six children out of which two are male. I am also the major breadwinner of the family. What else do they want?

Another sad case is Asifa*, who at the very young age of 20, has five children and is expecting yet again. She does all the housework and her young boys keep her on her toes all day long. She has no time for herself and often gets tired and angry. Asifa was also forced to conceive repeatedly on one pretext or the other.

Sultana* has eight children. When she gets run-down, she screams and hits her children and tells them they are ‘unwanted’. She has left most of her young daughters as live-in servants at bungalows in different parts of the city. She does care about her children, but she doesn’t have the time or energy to inquire about their well-being on a frequent basis. Recently, one of her daughters got pregnant out of wedlock.

“What can I do? I work full time and look after four young children after work hours. How can I keep track of what’s going on in their lives?,” says a perplexed Sultana.

“My husband said he would leave me if I didn’t have more children,” she added

According to her, he was provoked by his relatives to give her this threat. Even today, women are desperate to safeguard their marriages. This is because a divorced woman is looked down upon and her character is misjudged. Scared of such consequences, even if women can financially support themselves without a husband, they stay in the marriage.

Another way of psychologically blackmailing women to have more children is by accusing them of having a low character, having liaisons outside of marriage or not loving their husbands.

Sadaf*, a young professional,  recently got married into an educated family. When she told her husband that she wanted to work a little more (before having a child) because she had time (referring to her biological clock), her in-laws accused her of having a secret boyfriend. So this behaviour is not only limited to the lower class.

Many women I have spoken to explained that their relatives compel them to have more children because they love kids and and want to be surrounded by them. They do this because they feel it is a means of keeping women “under control”; to keep them so burdened with responsibilities that they have no time to think about their own desires.

Family planning is a matter that should remain between the husband and wife. Unfortunately, most men in our poverty ridden society have a rigid mindset. Many men living in rural Pakistan have not received any guidance and are egged on by uncaring relatives to have unrealistic expectations from their partners.

If anyone is to argue that it is recommended in our religion to have more children, I would like to say that our religion also says that men should provide for the family. When it comes to the second obligation, why do such men turn a deaf ear?

A woman has a natural instinct to care for each of her children. But when she is abused, this instinct becomes ugly. Juggling work with the upbringing of several young children, a woman not only becomes frustrated but ends up neglecting her own kids. This could lead to serious issues, like the case with Sultana’s pregnant daughter.

Why should children be subject to neglect, physical and mental abuse?

Our men and women need to be educated. Women need to be understood and treated like human beings instead of machines. Children need to be seen as individuals that need exclusive affection and care. ‘Caring and well-meaning’ relatives must stop interfering beyond a certain point.

I think women should have the choice. I hope the majority will agree.

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Can Turkey Make Its Mosques Feminist?

A campaign to make Istanbul's roughly 3,100 mosques more welcoming for women could set off a gender revolution in Turkey's places of Islamic worship - and one that may not be uniformly welcomed. "This is about mosques being a space for women," declared Kadriye Avci Erdemli, Istanbul's deputy mufti, the city's second most powerful administrator of the Islamic faith. "When a woman enters a mosque, she is entering the house of God and she should experience the same sacred treatment. In front of God, men and women are equal; they have the same rights to practice their religion."

As part of the "Beautification of Mosques for Women" project, Erdemli sent 30 teams to visit all of Istanbul's mosques and report back on the facilities for women. What the teams found was shocking, she claimed. "Many of the mosques have no toilets for women, no place for women to wash before praying," Erdemli recounted. "Most of the places allocated for women were used as storage places, and those that weren't were usually filthy and freezing cold in winter."

Istanbul's mosques are now under strict instructions to clean up and provide equal facilities for both men and women by February 2012. But it's not only a push for cleanliness and improved sanitation that is underway. The way mosques are arranged is also being changed, according to Erdemli. "In most mosques, the women's area was divided by a curtain or a wall, and this is not fair," she elaborated. "They are sacred places and women have the right to take advantage of their spiritual feeling as well." "In front of God, men and women are equal; they have the same rights to practice their religion"

 Unlike men, women are not required under Islam to attend a mosque; their presence is allowed, but, traditionally, female Muslim believers have prayed more frequently at home. Practices, however, can vary from country to country, and from mosque to mosque. In Istanbul's mosques, to reflect the beautification project's goal of equal worship space, "all the curtains and walls are coming down," Erdemli said. "But segregation will remain; men and children will pray in front of women."

 Starting in late December, inspections will start to check if mosques are complying with instructions. Since the program began in March, Erdemli has addressed over 5,000 of the city's imams and religious staff to explain the theological reason for why mosques are for women as much as they are for men. On the streets of Istanbul, there appears to be broad support for the program among religious women.
 
"Sure, it would be beautiful. It would be much better," said one 30-year-old woman, who gave her name as Münevver. "In some places, the spaces for women are clean, but in others they are filthy."

 The Diyanet, the state-run administrative body for Turkey's mosques, has not only given its complete support to the project, but also provided a theological justification. In November, the head of the Diyanet, Mehmet Gomez, gave an uncompromising speech, in which he acknowledged the problem of misogyny in Islam. "There are some wrong, incomplete, biased interpretations that do not reflect the general principles of our noble religion," Hürriyet Daily News on December 7 reported Gomez as saying.

  All are not happy with this gender revolution. "I hope all these increasing efforts are not aimed at removing the obstacles for a woman to come out of her home, and first go out to the mosque, and then to find a job; all by finding legitimacy within [the Islamic] religion," grumbled leading Islamic columnist Ali Bulac on December 3 in the Zaman newspaper. The column provoked a storm of reaction. The outcry, interestingly, was louder coming from practicing Islamic women than from secular feminists.

In her December 6 column for the daily Yeni Safak, Islamic columnist Ozlem Albayrak termed Bulac's attitude a form of "persecution against women." The heated polemic is just the latest example of an important change in Turkish society. Istar Gozaydin, a law professor at Istanbul's Dogus University and an expert on the Diyanet, argues that the rise of a new conservative Islamic middle class on the coattails of the decade-long rule of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party has eased both formal and informal restrictions on Islamic women in education and state workplaces. "We see more and more women getting educated in the universities, more women in the workplace," Gozaydin said. "They've been able to become more visible in society. And they want to be a part of the mosque system as opposed to praying at home." Although the percentage of women in Turkey's workplaces and university student bodies may appear relatively low, the figures are trending upward.

A 2010 World Bank report on gender equality reported that 30 percent of Turkish women work. According to official data for the same year, women accounted for 44 percent of Turkish university students. Erdemli has her sights on the Beautification of Mosques for Women project becoming an inspiration for the rest of Turkey. She maintains, though, that its goal is not revolution, but simply bringing the Muslim faith back to its roots. "All we are doing is taking Islam to back before it was corrupted and misinterpreted, when women and men were treated equally," she said.

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Yasmin Mogahed on Love, Marriage Selecting your Life partner

A Wife

A talk by Shaykh Abdullah Adhami By getting married you are not just getting a wife, you are getting your whole world. From now until the rest of your days your wife will be your partner, your companion, and your best friend. She will share your moments, your days, and your years. She will share your joys and sorrows, your successes and failures, your dreams and your fears. When you are ill, she will take the best care of you; when you need help, she will do all she can for you; When you have a secret, she will keep it; when you need advice, she will give you the best advice. She will always be with you: when you wake up in the morning the first thing your eyes will see will be hers; during the day, she will be with you, if for a moment she is not with you by her physical body, she will be thinking of you, praying for you with all her heart, mind, and soul; when you go to sleep at night, the last thing your eyes will see will be her; and when you are asleep you will still see her in your dreams. In short, she will be your whole world and you will be her whole world. The best description that I personally have ever read describing the closeness of the spouses to each other is the Qur’anic verse which says: “they are your garments and you are their garments” (Surah Al Baqarah 2:187).Indeed,spouses are like garments to each other because they provide one another with the protection, the comfort, the cover, the support, and the adornment that garments provide to humans. Just imagine a journey in the winter of Alaska without garments! Our spouses provide us with the same level of comfort, protection, cover, and support in the journey of our lives on this earth as garments would do in the Alaskan journey. The relationship between the spouses is the most amazing of all human relations: the amount of love and affection, intimacy and closeness, mercy and compassion, peace and tranquillity that fills the hearts of the spouses is simply inexplicable. The only rational explanation for these most amazing of all human feelings is that: it is an act of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, “And Allah has made for you Mates (and Companions) of your own nature …” (Surah Al Nahl 16:72) Only our Almighty Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala in His Infinite Power, Boundless Mercy, and Great Wisdom can create and ingrain these amazing and blessed feelings in the hearts of the spouses. In fact Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala is reminding those who search for His signs in the universe that these feelings in the hearts of the spouses are among the signs that should guide humans to His existence as He says in the Qur’an, “And among His signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves that you may dwell in tranquillity with them and He has put love and mercy between your hearts: verily in that are signs for those who reflect.” (Surah Al Rum 30:21) But Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala knows that the human heart is not a static entity, it is sometimes weak and at times dynamic. Feelings can and do change with time. Love may wither and fade away. The marital bond might weaken if not properly cared for. Happiness in marriage cannot be taken for granted; continuous happiness requires constant giving from both sides. For the tree of marital love to remain alive and keep growing, the soil has to be sustained, maintained, watered and nurtured. Remember that our Prophet Muhammad Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam had found the time to go out to the desert and race with his wife Aisha. She out ran him but later after she had gained some weight, he out ran her. Remember that the Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam took his wife to watch the young Ethiopians playing and dancing their folk dances. The show of emotions is necessary to keep the marital bond away from rusting and disintegrating. Remember that you will be rewarded by Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala for any emotions you show to your wife as the Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam said “one would be rewarded for anything that he does seeking the pleasure of Allah even the food that he puts in the mouth of his wife.” Never underestimate the importance of seemingly little things as putting food in your wife’s mouth, opening the car’s door for her, etc. Remember that the Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam used to extend his knee to his wife to assist her up to ride the camel. Try to always find some time for both of you to pray together. Strengthening the bond between you and Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala is the best guarantee that your own marital bond would always remain strong. Having peace with Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala will always result in having more peace at home. Remember that the Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam gave glad tidings for those couples who wake up at night to pray together. The Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam even urged the spouse who rises up first to wake the other spouse up even by throwing cold water on his/her face. Always try your best to be good to your wife by words and by deeds. Talk to her, smile to her, seek her advice, ask for her opinion, spend quality time with her and always remember that the Prophet Salallaahu ‘aliahi wa’sallaam said “the best of you are those who are best to their wives.” Finally, it is common that spouses vow to love and honor their spouses until death do them part. I do believe that this vow is good or even great, but not enough! It is not enough that you love your wife. You have to love what she loves as well. Her family, her loved ones must also become your loved ones. Don’t be like my colleague who was unhappy about his wife’s parents coming to visit for few weeks. He candidly said to her “I don’t like your parents.” Naturally, she angrily looked at him straight in the eye and said ” I don’t like yours either”… Also, it is not enough that you love her until death do you part. Love should never end and we do believe there is life after death where those who did righteousness in this world will be joined by their spouses , “Enter Paradise, together with your spouses, and rejoice.(Surah Al Zukhruf 43:70)” and offsprings. source

Fairly self-explanatory

Inspiring Azan