On the 18th of May, the BBC, CBC, the UK Guardian and many news outlets worldwide reported that the debate in the Afghan Parliament regarding the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women (LEVAW) was halted by some Afghan lawmakers who argued that some parts of it violate Islamic principles. The law took effect in 2009 by a decree by President Hamid Karzai but was not ratified by Parliament. The measure has now been brought before Parliament by female Afghan MP and women’s rights activist Fawzia Koofi who wants it approved by a parliamentary vote to prevent its reversal by any future president. Amongst its provisions, the law criminalizes forced and child marriage, domestic violence, and “baad” – the traditional practice of selling and buying women to settle disputes. Various women’s rights activists and other Western and secular voices have described the block in the passing of the law as a blow to the protection and progress of women’s rights in the country.

Laws such as the Elimination of Violence Against Women, or international women’s treaties such as CEDAW are wolves in sheep’s clothing that seek to further import Western secular and liberal values into Afghanistan or other Muslim countries by deceptively wrapping these corrupt ideals with the appealing banner of ‘women’s rights’ or preventing violence or mistreatment of women that no decent-minded individual – Muslim or otherwise would reject. By mixing measures such as the criminalization of forced marriage, domestic violence, and ‘baad’ – actions which Islam abhors and rejects, with measures that contradict Islamic social laws such as criminalizing Islam’s recommendation of early marriage, under the sensationalist label of preventing ‘child marriage’, advocates of the Western inspired LEVAW and CEDAW seek to conceal their intent of outlawing Islam and placing the secular liberal belief as the basis by which women’s rights are defined. The aim ultimately is, as in the West, to give women and men the ‘freedom’ to dress how they want and pursue any lifestyle or intimate relationship they desire, regardless of the chaos it sows upon the family unit and society. Furthermore, Western secular commentators and media manipulate the rejection of such laws to falsely accuse Islam of accepting and even endorsing oppressive non-Islamic practices such as forced marriage, violence against women, or stripping them of education or an active public life. This is to re-enforce the time-old Western orientalist discourse and false narrative that the Shariah oppresses women which was engineered and continues to be promoted to distance Muslim women from their belief and from supporting Islamic governance in their lands – all to help maintain systems and regimes in the Muslim world that continue to cater to the interests of Western powers rather than that of Islam and the people of the region.

Such secular orientated laws and Western discourse on women’s rights present Muslim women with a false choice – to either embrace the secular liberal way of life, values and system if they want to be free from violence as well as have access to educational, economic, legal, and political rights, OR to succumb to (in their words) ‘an extremist version of Islam’ that will subject them to violence, seclude them from society, and deprive them of all rights. Both these 2 options are false. Firstly, women within Western secular states may enjoy access to education, healthcare, employment, and a political voice but they are also grappling with huge levels of discrimination in public life as well as an epidemic of violence. In the US, 3 women are murdered every day at the hands of their husband or partner, and nearly 20% of women have suffered rape or attempted rape. In Europe, 1 in 4 women face domestic violence, while in England and Wales, 1 in 5 women have been victims of a sexual offence. And secondly, it is a well-known fact that it was Islam that pioneered educational, economic, political, and legal rights for women 1400 years ago as well as outlawing any form of exploitation or violence against them; rights that were secured through the Divine system of Shariah laws implemented under the Khilafah state that acted as a guardian and protector for its women for over 13 centuries. The lack of access to rights that women in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the rest of the Muslim world face today is not due to Islam but due to man-made Western-imposed systems and rulers in our lands that replaced the Khilafah and under which women have to struggle for justice, or engage in lengthy, expensive judicial procedures to secure their rights that often end with failure due to incompetency or corruption. Therefore it is not possible for women to get their rights unless the laws given by Allah سبحانه وتعالى are completely and comprehensively implemented under the system of Khilafah.

Hence, advocates of these secular, liberal orientated laws need to sincerely question what the man-made secular, liberal system has brought to women in the West and East, and by doing so they will come to realize that embracing these values is not the path to protecting women from violence or violation of rights. However, those Afghan law-makers who blocked LEVAW on the basis that elements of it contradict Islam also need to acknowledge that it is the very Western-based parliamentary system where they legislate the laws rather than Allah سبحانه وتعالى which is one of the greatest violations against Islam for it gives human beings sovereignty rather than the Creator of the Universe. It is this very democratic system that gives MP’s the opportunity to debate the imposition of laws that contradict the Shariah. So, if they are sincere to Islam, then it is the democratic, parliamentary system that they need to reject along with every law that contradicts the Shariah, embracing in its place the Khilafah that alone will implement all the laws of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and ensure that the women of Afghanistan and the entire Muslim world are protected from violence and get their rights completely secured under the just system of Islam. Allah سبحانه وتعالى says,

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ اتَّقُوا رَبَّكُمُ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُم مِّن نَّفْسٍ وَاحِدَةٍ وَخَلَقَ مِنْهَا زَوْجَهَا وَبَثَّ مِنْهُمَا رِجَالًا كَثِيرًا وَنِسَاءً ۚ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّـهَ الَّذِي تَسَاءَلُونَ بِهِ وَالْأَرْحَامَ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّـهَ كَانَ عَلَيْكُمْ رَقِيبًا

“O mankind! Have taqwa of your Lord who created you from a single self and created its mate from it and then disseminated many men and women from the two of them. Have taqwa of Allah in whose name you make demands on one another and also in respect of your families. Allah watches over you continually.”

(An-Nisa, 4:1)

Umm Musab

Member of The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir