America, News Watch, Side Feature

Feminists Will Always Ignore the Oppression of Muslim Women

Dalia Mogahed wrote an article published in the Al Jazeera news platform entitled “Feminists need to oppose hijab bans as much as hijab mandates”. Her argument is that; “from India to France, bigots are scared of the hijab. Why are Western feminists so deafeningly silent about this?” (AlJazeera)

Comment:
Whilst it is true that the feminist movements are completely uninterested in any kind of advocacy for visible Muslim women, we must also acknowledge that there should be no expectation for secular ideologues to take any action to aid a religious entity.

Muslim women who are feminist themselves support the hijab bans in their own confusion of what it means to be liberated. Spokespersons from non-Islamic world platforms like the UN never see the removal of Muslim women from public life due to Hijab bans as a problem. Their intentional cognitive dissonance allows them to only see Iran’s and Afghanistan’s invalid “Islamic practice” as a threat to women as it conveniently fits the colonialist narrative. Mogahed states in the article,

“This argument denies women their agency. According to representative survey research conducted by the Washington-based Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, roughly half of Muslim women in the United States wear hijabs. The most popular reason given for why those who wear it do so is “religious devotion”, cited by roughly half. Next comes “so people know I’m Muslim” (21 percent), and “modesty” (12 percent). Just one percent of those who wear a hijab said it was in compliance with the wishes of a relative or husband.”

There is always the danger of overruling the laws of Allah (swt) the arguments of “choice” and “agency’ are used as banners of justification in the obligatory commands of Allah (swt).

The perfect system of Allah (swt)needs no dilution of foreign ideas to attempt to rescue it. The Khilafah (Caliphate) State was a comprehensive working system that allowed Muslim women the highest status in every aspect of Islam, socially and politically. The public life of women was regulated so that the decency of dress was enforced upon Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

There was never a need for non-Muslim women to rebel or feel subjugated as they were repeated and had their needs met in every other critical area of life. InshaAllah the next Ramadan we will see an end to any call for non-Islamic entities to correct the wrongdoings against our sisters in the Muslim world.

[بَدِيعُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ أَنَّى يَكُونُ لَهُ وَلَدٌ وَلَمْ تَكُن لَّهُ صَاحِبَةٌ وَخَلَقَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ وهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ * ذَلِكُمُ اللّهُ رَبُّكُمْ لا إِلَـهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ خَالِقُ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ فَاعْبُدُوهُ وَهُوَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَكِيلٌ]

“(He is the) Divisor of the heavens and the earth! How can He have a child while there is for Him no consort, and He created everything, and He is All-Knowing of all things? That is Allah your Lord! there is no god but He, the Creator of everything, Therefore worship Him, for He is Guardian over all things.” [Al An’am: 101-102]

Imrana Mohammad
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir