Muslim women

“ Now, let me be clear: issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we've seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world. ”

“ Do men in the faith of Islam give marriage-portions to women or women to men?’ ‘Men endow women,’ answered Ali. ‘Then,’ said she, ‘I come and dower myself for thee, bringing thee, as my marriage-portion, my robe, together with the rod and tray and chains and the head of my father, thine enemy and the enemy of God.’ And she threw down the Jew’s head before him. Now the manner of her killing her father was as follows. On the night of his turning Ali into a dog, she saw, in a dream, one who said to her, ‘Become a Muslim.’ And she did so. ”

“ Muslim laws placed women on equality with men long before western laws did so, and at the time of the Prophet women were allowed more freedom than they ever had before. The Koran is full of mentions of women who were participating in public life and the only restriction placed on women in the Holy Book—a restriction which was necessary to correct the customs of the Arabs living in warm climates—is that women should not appear in public unless they were covered from the breasts down to the ankles. ”

“ It is this sensual and degraded view of woman that destroys to so great an extent the good influence which the better part of the teaching of Islám might exert in the East. So long as women are held in so light an esteem, they will remain ignorant, and bigoted, and sensual; and so long as mothers are what most Muslim mothers are now, their children will be ignorant and fanatical and vicious. In Turkey there are other influences at work besides the Mohammadan social system; but Turkish women may serve as an instance of the state of things which that system encourages. ”

“ She was a descendant of al-Hasan, the martyred ex-Khalifa, and an example of how the fated family of the Prophet was an early school for women saints. Even in the Heathenism we have traces of female penitents and hermits, and the tragedy of Ali and his sons and descendants gave scope for the self-sacrifice, loving service and religious enthusiasm with which women are dowered.
All these stood and stand in Islam on exactly the same footing as men. The distinction in Roman Christendom that a woman cannot be a priest there falls away, for in Islam is neither priest nor layman. ”

“ Further causes that contributed to the decrease of the Christian population may be found in the fact that the children of the numerous Christian captive women who were carried off to the harems of the Muslims had to be brought up in the religion of their fathers, and in the frequent temptation that was offered to the Christian slave by an indulgent master, of purchasing his freedom at the price of conversion to Islam. ”

“ The Sanūsiyyah missionaries who came to work among the Tūbū, to the north of Lake Chad, opened schools for girls, and took advantage of the powerful influence exercised by the women among these tribes (as among their neighbours, the Berbers) , in their efforts to win them over to Islam.6 In German East Africa, the pagan natives who leave their homes for six months or more, to work on the railways or plantations, are converted by the Muhammadan women with whom they contract temporary alliances ”

“ The legend of the holy women, descended from ʻAlī, who are said to have flown through the air from Karbalāʼ to Lahore, and there by the influence of their devout lives of prayer and fasting to have won the first converts from Hinduism to Islam,11 could hardly have originated if the influence of such holy women were a thing quite unknown. ”

“ Hindus, who for some reason or other have been driven out of their caste; the poor who have become the recipients of Muhammadan charity, or women and children who have been protected when their parents have died or deserted them— (such cases would naturally be frequent in times of famine) —form a continuous though small stream of additions from the Hindus.121 There are often local circumstances favourable to the growth of Islam ”

“ Surely the ignorance and degradation of one-half of a community which has a world population of 233 millions is a question that concerns all who love humanity.
The origin of the veil of Islam was, as is well known, one of the marriage affairs of Mohammed himself, with its appropriate revelation from Allah. In the twenty-fourth Surah of the Koran women are forbidden to appear unveiled before any member of the other sex, with the exception of near relatives. [Pg 6] And so by one verse the bright, refining, elevating influence of women was forever withdrawn from Moslem society. ”

“ But if we hesitate about passing judgment on the reforms we have just set forth, we acknowledge unreservedly, to make amends, that the education of woman is an imperious necessity for the future of Islam.
Education has nothing to do with the above-mentioned customs. It is in agreement with all the principles of the religion, and during the period of Islamic splendour, was lavished on Mussulman femininity whose culture was superior to that of European women in those days. ”

“ That chivalrous respect for woman, which was so strong in the early Mohammedans, died out. The women themselves—who, in the first few years of Islamism, rose as the men rose, and became their helpmates, counsellors, and fellow-warriors—degenerated rapidly into mere playthings. ”

“ The seclusion of women cannot be wholly attributed to the precepts of the religion of Islam. In the time of Prophet Mohammed, and for generations after, women used to accompany the armies to the battlefield, singing stirring melodies to encourage the fighting men, and tending those who were wounded. Even nowadays among the tribal people, such as nomadic Arabs, and among the Circassians, there is no such absurdly strict seclusion of women as is fostered by the harem system; yet those primitive people are much more earnestly devoted to that religion than the advanced Ottomans. ”

“ The same story has come from India, Persia, Arabia, Africa, and other Mohammedan lands, making evident that the condition of women under Islam is everywhere the same—and that there is no hope of effectually remedying the spiritual, moral, and physical ills which they suffer, except to take them the message of the Saviour, and that there is no chance of their hearing, unless we give ourselves to the work. No one else will do it. This lays a heavy responsibility on all Christian women. ”

“ The Koran says nothing about a woman’s praying, therefore she is excluded from the Mosques at the hours of prayer. Behold a religion that practically excludes one-half the human race! It was not until Mohammed was fifty-eight years of age, and the husband of many wives, and had under his own roof experienced what the Moslem women of to-day declare, when there is more than one wife “there is fire in the house,” that he wrote in the Koran the “ordinance of veil,” that badge of jealous subjugation, which marks an era in the degradation of women in all the Orient. ”

“ It is not hard to understand that such a God as Mohammed preached might be conceived to make a distinction between man and woman. And the blackest of all the blots which besmirch the name and memory of Mohammed was his teaching about Woman and his relations with her. True, his teaching may have been in advance of what was commonly accepted by the Arabs of his day, but he left her still the chattel and not the companion 'meet' for man. Women were to him an inferior grade of beings, whose sole destiny was to serve their husbands and be the mothers of children. ”

“ Isolated and secluded as the women of Islam are, and their privacy so rigorously guarded by a ring fence of stringent rules, it is not possible for the European to give an adequate opinion thereon. But according to the reliable authority of so eminent a Moslem as Syed Ameer Ali, and others, the women among civilized Moslem communities know their prayers and religious duties just as well as the men—and are devout and pious—more so perhaps than the other sex. ”

“ The institution of female slavery is distinctly a blot. The lot of the Moslem girl morally and socially is not so much unhappy as neglected. Her ordinary education is practically negative; the religious part of it is regarded as superfluous. But it is a popular fallacy, as I have already pointed out, to attribute to Islam the doctrine that women have no souls. Unfortunately, however, the idea prevails generally throughout Europe that these precious possessions are ignored by modern custom: that the fair sex is not encouraged to pray either in private or in public. ”

“ They have neither any social nor any religious life. If there were nothing else to condemn the system of Mohammed, this is sufficient. I know what splendors of art it has produced, what achievements in war, what benefits to literature and science in the dark ages of Europe. But all the culture of a race that in its men has borne accomplished scholars, warriors, and artists, has never touched the women. The condition of woman in the Orient is the conclusive verdict against the religion of the Prophet. ”

“ But when there was one leader to rally round, one faith to propagate, one Paradise for those who fell in conquering the heathen, the wild children of the Desert proved that they could conquer foreign countries as well as defend their native sands. During the early days of Islamism, a vast number of women, many belonging to the highest rank, followed their relatives to battle, and fought for or against the Koran as bravely as the men—nay, more than once it was the valour of the Arab women that retrieved the fortunes of the day. ”

“ Mohammed was not exempt from the prejudices entertained by his countrymen towards the sex. The sentimental gallantry and respectful homage tendered its members by Western nations is unknown to the suspicious and sarcastic Oriental. The Prophet declared that the majority of persons he saw in hell during his nocturnal journey were women. But if the power of woman to act directly upon the fortunes of Islam was disdained, her indirect influence in that direction was enormous and undeniable. ”

“ Give their families, their households, their women, their children, their relatives, their possessions, their race, their wealth, their lands, and their daughters as a booty to the Moslems, Thy only people, O Lord of all creatures." Every word is against the blessed teachings of our Lord who said: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."
The Mohammedan religion does not require women to pray. It is a question if she has the same soul that man has. ”

“ The Mohammedan woman does not worship upon an equality with the man. Not that the prophet positively forbade the female sex from public attendance upon worship at the mosque, but he counselled that they should make their prayers in private. In some parts of the wide territory under the prophet's power, neither women nor young boys are allowed to enter the mosque at the time of prayer. At other places women may come, but must place themselves apart from men, and always behind them. ”

“ And in looking at the millions of Moslems in the world to-day, and wondering why they are still as they were a thousand years ago, rather drifting backward than advancing, we turn to their women and find the cause. Mohammedan law, custom, and the example of their founder place woman on a level with beasts of burden and no nation rises above the level of its women. ”

“ The fiery warlike character of the prophet, the propagation of the religion by fire and sword—the total degradation of the female character—the seraglio and the attendant eunuchs, and the low and sensual offices of the black-eyed Houris in Mohammed's paradise, are all too revolting to the women of christian countries, to be even contemplated with composure for a moment. We are not to wonder at the implacable hostility of christian females all over the world towards the moslem. ”

“ Some are veiled, others unveiled, according as they come from the Moslem, Jewish, or Christian quarter of the city—but all are gathered around all the booths in which there is a special display of feminine finery. There is no law in Islam to prevent women from visiting the bazaars and whenever they desire to escape the monotony of the harem they start out on a shopping tour in which they take as much delight as do their sisters in the West. ”

“ If the condition of women under Islam is degraded and wellnigh hopeless in other parts of the world, what must be the condition of such women in Turkey, the seat of Moslem power, the centre of the Caliphate, with the green flag of the Prophet kept at Seraglio Point, in Constantinople? ”

“ But she is at least oppressed by no tradition of renunciation or asceticism, and she has, in favour of her fulfilment and just cherishing, text after text in the sacred Book. The recent tendency to a purer Islamic practice, hand in hand with the growth of rationalism, offer her hope of early liberation from extraneous bonds and of development as a free human agent. The women of Islam have as guide rules of law, sanctioned by revelation, which if practised are more rational and more insistent on justice and human freedom than any other precepts ever codified into statutes. ”