DIGNITY AND RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN THE SOCIETY

In the 19^th century, the French religious leaders decided, “woman is a human being, but made to serve man”. In England it was not till about AD 1850 that women were counted in the national population censes. It was in 1882 that a British law, unprecedented the country’s history, for the first time granted women the right to decided how their own earnings should be spend instead of handing over to their husbands. As Professor Albert Connolly writes: “In 1919 England’s women fought for the right to be elected to Parliament, and in their battle went to prison and suffered physically in fearless vindication of their sex. Whenever American and other Westerners think of Islam and the Middle East, perhaps one of the first images that comes to mind is that of Muslim women, swaddled in thick robes, their faces covered. Is this a fair perception? Is there any basis for saying that Islam degrades women, that this disrespect is not just an aberration, but is ingrained within the Islamic religion?

When Islamic parties and revolutionary groups that seek to establish orthodox Islam as the deen of a nation manage to come to power, the rights of women are completely curtailed. There is perhaps no better example of this than Afghanistan. Before the Soviet invasion of this nation, Afghanistan was relatively open and tolerant society, one in which women had a good deal of participation, could receive the same education as men, and could even enter into medicine or other professional fields. After the Soviet threat had ended, all this changed over the next decade, with the process of Talibanization. The Taliban regime, complete with its religious police who would savagely beat women in the streets for the terrible offences such as laughing in public which is against the teaching of Islam. Polygamy was the natural consequence of the decimation of men in tribal wars, leaving scores of women without any support whatsoever. As such, it was permitted in Islam in a restricted form. However, there were conditions attached to it. “If you cannot treat them equitably, marry only one“. Fourteen centuries ago, Islam had decreed women’s total financial independence, right to an education, freedom of marriage and divorce, property and inheritance rights. It is true that today far too many women are condemned in the East to an unsatisfactory way of life. But this is not due to Islam’s regulations. It is due to the neglect of religious precept in political, social and financial institutions. Finally, the present problems of women in Islamic societies should be seriously addressed because it is a religious and political duty of people in power to lead the struggle to restore the women`s dignity and rights.