The group briefed me on the situation in Afghanistan. They said that there had been some improvement in the education of women but that it was far from adequate. They had lost many generations of progress in women's rights. Members of the group also complained that while things in Afghanistan were terrible, the Western press had not reported the situation accurately. It has instead sensationalized it and used it as an opportunity to attack Islam. The Afghans were thus twice victimized and placed in an impossible position. As victims of the Taliban, they wanted the world to help them, but as good Muslims they did not want to be used by Western media to defame Islam.
This attitude is widespread among Muslim men and women living under oppressive regimes. Some recent immigrants also experience it; they find themselves caught between the malaise in their old homeland and the pressures of rejection and prejudice in their new one. For centuries, Islam was presented to the United States as a strictly Eastern religion, incompatible with Western sensibilities and mores. Even in the days of Jefferson and Madison, our Prophet was called "the Imposter," and Muslim slaves were forced to convert. Now that American Muslims have finally been brought under the constitutional umbrella, the time has come for us to state in our own voice what Islam, as a religion and not a political tool of corrupt leaders, is all about.
The Qur'an, which is the basic source of Islamic law, states that men and women were created from the same soul. Eve is not held responsible for the fall of Adam; they were equally responsible. The Qur'an assigns Muslim men and women the same spiritual rights and obligations. Khadijah, the first wife of the Prophet, was a successful businesswoman who was many years his senior. 'Aishah, the woman the Prophet married after the death of Khadijah, became a major jurist and political leader. The Companions of the Prophet included hundreds of women, some of whom asked him one time to schedule special meetings with them because men tended to dominate discussions. As a result of the Prophet's encouragement of women, and their active participation in public life, much of the information about the Prophet came down to us through women. In later centuries, even as patriarchy and authoritarianism were on the rise, Muslim women--such as Arwa, the Queen of Yemen; Shajarat al-Dur, who ruled Egypt; and various authors, scholars, and jurists--were still able to achieve great successes. These successes would not have been possible without the Islamic vision of women's rights, which inspired women in both the public and the private arenas.
The Qur'an also guarantees women their right to work and earn. Medieval jurists agreed that the Muslim woman had an independent financial standing. Furthermore, the Muslim woman kept her own name after marriage and was not required to do housework. Traditional medieval jurists noted that the marriage contract was a contract not of service but of companionship. They argued that it was the husband's duty to obtain prepared food for his wife if she did not volunteer to cook. The Qur'an itself defines the marital relation as one of tranquility, affection, and mercy. It enjoins Muslim couples to live together in kindness or separate charitably.
It is this majority view of Islam that has attracted Muslim women over the centuries, even as patriarchy attempted to erode it. Today, in the United States, Muslim women are getting closer to this Islamic ideal of gender relations than most of their predecessors. The Taliban are fighting a losing battle.
