Stop the Oppression of Our Muslim Sisters

by Asma Zehanat Khan (Australian traveller)

Assalam u alaikum to all those of you who call yourselves our brothers. I write as your sister, your friend, your partner in life's journey, but mainly as your victim. I have discovered that some things are indeed more unpleasant than encounters with Israeli soldiers and interrogations at checkpoints. These are the encounters with one's "own kind". I do indeed feel for my sisters if every time they leave their homes they have to run the gauntlet of … numerous advances and remarks that had to be fended off, and the disgusting and perverse ogling and leering that had to be accepted as part of the journey.

In Cairo … there's a stretch that is peopled exclusively by young men whose only object in life, it seems, is to wait for women to appear on the pavement, and then harass them to the point of tears or worse. …men who would walk every step of the way with us, hissing, catcalling, swearing and making crude jokes … brushing against you, leering, pinching, groping … If you ignored them, they heaped on greater abuse. If you spoke to reprimand them, they took it as an invitation. If you invoked the name of Allah, or the Prophet, and you told them "haraam alaik, you call yourself a Muslim?" they simply made fun of your Arabic accent. It really makes no difference if you're covered or not. I have experimented with this. From full hijab, to uncovered hair and modest clothing. It was worse in some places than others…Cairo is dreadful, Amman tolerable, Jerusalem pleasant, Lahore unthinkable. (I tried) explaining to my American friend with embarrassment and apology why Muslim men have no respect for women…

Our men treat foreign women as if they exist to be preyed on since they are "immoral", and note that no thought is given to the immorality of the men who would prey upon them. One feels sympathy (for the men with their) hidebound and rigid reading of Islam (and) oppressed by your poverty and illiteracy …but the greater sympathy is for the victims of your predicament. … I believe it to be a direct consequence of authoritarian, literalist and hegemonic readings of Islam - readings imposed upon the poor and powerless until they adopt it as their own creed. …

Before we hoist up the flag of Islam, and talk about the Qur'an as the only model, and the evils of the integrated societies of the West, we need to take a very close look at the realities begotten by Islam. (Abridged from The Australian Islamic Review, June 8, 1998)

ALSO SEE: A EUROPEAN WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE WITH ISLAM

Home | Articles | Quotes | Humour | Resources | Links | Site Map | Email