Women and
Religious Oppression
It is really painful that we still have to talk about
women and religious oppression even on the International Women’s Day year 2000.
Nevertheless, it is a reality that millions of women in different parts of the
world are suffering and oppressed under religious laws and Islamic governments.
The last twenty years has been some of the darkest in
people’s lives especially women’s. With the anti –secularist backlash, the rise
of political Islam and the efforts to impose religion on people in the last two
decades, thousands have been executed, decapitated and stoned to death, and
medieval laws and customs have been revived especially to suppress women.
Islam is the ideology in power in
In justifying Islam, some, mainly from Academia;
mainstream western media and the so –called moderate Muslims and some Eastern
intellectuals try to divert people’s rightful loathing for Islam and Islamic
movements. They tell us that this is not real Islam; they divide Islam to good
and bad, moderate and fundamentalist, folksy and non – folksy, poisonous and
edible.
Here, I try to demonstrate that what is happening to
women under Islamic rule is according to Islamic orthodoxy, which
systematically oppresses and dehumanise women. I try to talk about other
religions as well, but my main focus remains on Islam.
According to Islam: Women belong to men; women are
men’s possessions
In all religions, women are defined as inferior to
men. Women are men’s belongings; they do not have any authority over men.
According to the Bible:
“Men are superior to women. Jesus is superior to men
and God is above all. Women should worship all of them.” (
According to the Koran:
“Men have authority over women, for that God has
preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expanded
of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient … and those you fear
may be rebellious, admonish them to their couch, and beat them.”
(Koran, Women, verse 38)
According to the Old Testament and in Judaism, in
their daily prayer, men thank God for not creating them women. The Old
Testament states:
“Women are for taking care of our children and
protecting us against sins”
That women are only half as equal as men in legal and
financial matters is specified with great precision:
“And call into witness two men; or if two be not men,
then one man and two women” (Koran, The Cow, verse 282), and “God charges you
concerning your children: to the male the like of the portion of two females”
(Koran, Women, verse 11)
Islam and Sexual Oppression of Women
According to the teachings of Hindu, Buddhism,
Judaism, Christianity and Islam, evil exists in women’s should. Therefore they
are dangerous and men should control them.
In Christianity sexual drive is considered as evil.
Women earn the grace of God be remaining celibate.
According to religious thoughts, women are merely for
sexual enjoyment of men and the duty of reproduction. In Islam female sexuality
is acknowledged side be side with a limitation and confinement of women within
their sexual roles. Islam considers women as a potential danger for distracting
men from their duties and corrupting the community. Therefore, it subjugates
women’s sexuality such more effectively than any other ideological system.
While men are given the right to marry up to four wives and the right to
temporary marriage as many as they wish. Free male – female sexual relation is
considered a sin in Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
Numerous Koranic verses define in details which
sexual relations are permitted under Islam and the punishment for any
transgression outside these limits, which is called zena. It is punishable by
flogging, imprisonment and stoning to death.
The ‘Danger’ in Women
In Islam, women are considered dangerous sexually and
otherwise. The word “fitna” means chaos and is attributed to women. Therefore,
women should not be allowed to have any authority in society other than in
their capacity of serving and becoming extensions of men as wives and mothers.
Islam’s prophet says: “There is no salvation for a man or a nation who allows
women to rule over them”
Therefore, women should be suppressed and restricted.
By veil (Hijab), which exists in Christianity as well as Judaism, this control
and segregation is made possible. Veil is the legitimate physical border of
women’s existence in society to protect men and community from any possible
moral and social danger and destruction they may cause. The reasoning is as
follows: “If the physical appearance of a woman can awaken feelings in a man,
even though she is not aware of it, this will probably lead him to want her,
which may lead to adultery”
For and ardent Muslim man, an unveiled woman is no
different from a naked woman. According to Islam the appearance of unveiled
woman in public is an attack on the very pillars of the morality of the Muslim
community. The necessity for women to veil themselves from strangers is
explicit in the Koran (Sura 24, verse 31) Hijab symbolises women’s inferior
position in Islam and their sexual segregation.
Islamic families not only in Islamic countries, but
also in Muslim inhabited communities in the heart of
Honour Killing and Islam
The strong need to control women can be traced to a
phenomenon, which is older than Islam, the honour ethic. Male relatives have
the duty to protect female’s chastity. Islamic teaching on the necessity to
save females virginity and control women actually overlaps with the honour
ethics, strengthening and structuring it. The failure of women to remain chaste
–including cases of rape – is a social catastrophe of highest order as it
brings shame to the whole family. The notions of honour may include alleged
sexual transgression, or desire of women to choose a marriage partner or to
seek to divorce. The honour ethic also serves as license for men to kill their
female relatives only because of dressing or the life style they do not like.
So to repair the honour, women get death sentence issued by their male
relatives in family courts, as is currently happening in
Islamic Law
In the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia,
family law and penal code sis strongly affected by Islam. Despite the changes
that emerged by modernity and modernisation reforms, family law and penal code
remained untouched. Polygamy, men’s unconditional right to divorce their wives,
the law regarding sex out of marriage, men deciding over their wives’
employment, travelling, and women’s lack of right to custody their children are
amongst them. With the rise of Islamic movements in the last two decades either
in opposition or in power, these laws have been reinforced and even more
misogynist rules have been introduced and implemented such as ghisas (the law
of Retribution), compulsory Hijab and so on. According to Islamic law, the
legal age for girl to be wed is nine. And this is obviously sexual abuse and
rape.
In the last twenty years, Islam –stricken countries have
witnessed an unprecedented barbarism and misogynism. And all of these are the
blessings of Islam.
Fortunately, in
In my view, any struggle against women’s oppression
and for emancipation will have to take on the task of Islam in power and
separation of religion from the state. This is a prerequisite for women’s
liberation from religious oppression. Only a strong modernist, secularist and
egalitarian social movement is able to get rid of Islam in the
Adapted from a speech given at a seminar on 8 March
19999 held by NUS’ Women’s Campaign at