Islamic Feminism ~:The Western Perception of Islam and Women's Rights:~ |
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Writing of Bahithat al Badiya |
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Writing of Zand Dohkt |
Decrees of Women's Rights:
1. Teaching girls the Quran and the correct Sunna.2. Primary and secondary schoool education for girls, and compulsory prepatory school educatin for all. 3. Instruction for girls on the thoery and practice of economics, health, first aid, and childcare. 4. Setting a quaota for females in medicine and education so they can serve the women of Egypt. 5. Allowing women to study any other advanged subjects they wish without restriction. 6. Upbrining for girls from infancy stressing patience, honesty, work and other virtues. 7. Adehering to the Sharia concerning betrothal and marrage, and not permitting any woman and man to marry without first meeting each other in the presence of the father or male relatie of the bride. 8. Adopting the veil and outdoor dress of the Turkish women of Istanbul |
Prelude The mindset of the common westerner, be they in Europe, Egypt's Bahithat al-Badiya The Egyptian school teacher whose name means “Seeker in the Desert” has contributed to the wide variety of arguments pertaining to women’s rights in the Islamic world and the women’s rightful place next to the man, neither below nor behind him. Al-Badiya’s lecture to the Club of the Umma Party in 1909 is very insightful. Among the major points presented, the al-Badiya argues that it not women that have been created lesser than men but that the men have replaced the women’s job with machinery and that the idle mind of the woman without the jobs she used to do, is a harmful thing not only to herself but to the whole of national progress. She then advocates that women should have the same occupational and education opportunities as men. Furthermore, she states a firm belief in the hijab and as protection from the wandering eyes of men wayward man and the anxious eye of the boy in his youth in order to preserve chastity and keep boys and girls from intermingling before marriage. (al-Badiya, 53, 54). Iran's Zand Dokht Zand Dohkt has a different perception of women oppressed in
Islam. She was in Personal Story of Western Perceptions Not all westerners are ignorant, but many presume based on first glance. A close friend of mine who is Kurdish told me a story that happened last year in 2007 at University Mall, the shopping center just right outside the campus of |
"The new Islamic
Constitution declared women's primary position as mother. The black
veil, symbol of the position of women under Islam, was made compulsory.
Guards were posted oustide government offices to enforce it, and women
were sacked from thier jobs without compensation for refusing to wear
the veil." (Dohkt, 405) "But compulsory morality, complusory wearing of the veil did not create the Holy Society that Khomeini was after; but public lashings, stonings, chopping of hands and daily group executions sank Iran into an age of Barbarism" (Dohkt, 405) "The Veil is the historical symol of woman's oppression, seclusion, denial of her social participation and equal rights with men. It is a cover which defaces and objectifies women." (Dohkt, 406) |
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