In modern Western imperialistic thought, the woman represents a very important front in the conflict against Islam and Muslims. This strife aims at culminating in the control of the fortunes of the Muslim Ummah by the Christian West, dominance over its will, depletion of its resources and entanglement into the circle of absolute dependency, as a slave is on his master. Those in the West usually raise the issue of the Muslim woman on every possible occasion, whether in local or international print media. They plan to single out this issue, substituting other essential areas of concern to the Ummah, such as freedom, open political consultation, education, culture, public administration, scientific research, economic and military power, as well as other issues that are closely linked to the reality of Muslims and their future.
Their insistence on broaching the subject of women in published literary works stimulates doubt rather than confidence [in their intentions], particularly because they demand it transcend the Christian West to include international institutions under the United Nations, which is supposed to represent all the nations on earth. Now, most Muslim countries nowadays already have all-women’s schools and colleges, let alone joint educational institutions for both males and females. Moreover, our society, whether in its academic institutions, industries, hospitals, governmental agencies, private and public sectors or in its councils and parliaments, has many professional women of various ages and specializations. This means that the Muslim woman does not quite face an intrinsic obstacle to progress.
It is undeniable that, in some countries, certain problems do arise due to oppressive traditions and foolish customs, but they do not represent a general state of Muslim women who require emancipation. It is interesting to question what it is they believe they are liberating Muslim women from.
That is because Islam has long ago granted women rights they have still not achieved in the Christian West. It exalts the woman, realizes her humanity and respects her natural makeup and biological features. Islam obliges the community – beginning with the father, the husband and the relatives – to protect and take care of her. It even further safeguards her against financial disclosure and accords her fiscal rights that no one is permitted to transgress or violate.
On the other hand, the Christian Western woman has become akin to a commodity that is marketed by businessmen, movie and television producers, organizers of local and international beauty pageants as well as the mafia and advertising executives, and prostitution rings and the like. Perhaps this explains why the number of European women who embrace Islam is larger than men.
The Muslim woman performs her role with efficiency, success and happiness. On the individual level, she organizes the affairs of her home, raises her children and cares for her family without complaint. On the public level, she copes with the difficulties and hardships of life heroically, along with the man, and works to satisfy the basic needs of life, with perseverance and effort. She goes to school to learn and often surpasses men in that regard, vying with them with no restrictions or obstacles, except those dictated by Islamic morals and noble values that are incumbent on both genders. However, the Christian world insists on exporting its lewdness, or the obscenity of some females they take to be role models, to our Ummah, by using catchy slogans to win Muslims over.
Those people raise the issue of absolute gender equality in everything, without regard for the particular attributes exclusive to men and women. They ruthlessly campaign for half the workforce to be female, in the government, parliament and municipal administration, as well as positions of power, wherever they may be.
This is clearly evident in what was transmitted from Kofi Annan, the then Secretary General of the UN, who, according to the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahraam, dated July 16, 2000, said: "I cannot think of any issue that involves the UN and does not in some way relate to the issue of women. The role of the woman in achieving peace, security and human rights is equal to that of the man. Therefore, it is appropriate, even necessary, for the woman to be represented in centers of authority and decision-making circles in order to achieve targets. It is also essential that their representation in these positions equal that of men, as they have the same capability and distinguished performance in executing any plans."
This statement, aside from its obvious exaggeration, incorporates a broad imagination far removed from reality and the established facts of biological differences between men and women. A woman's competence, no matter how great it may be in the social, administrative and scientific fields, remains inherently connected to her specialized principal domain, which is procreation, raising children and forming a family, which is a vital and noble task. Even if some of the Christian Western communities neglect the family and are no longer interested in its welfare, anthropologically, the family is a necessary entity that communities can neither dispense with nor ignore.
Kofi Annan was ambitious for the percentage of women among UN employees to rise to 50 %, from the 38.9%, where it was in his time. He thought of providing a model plan that all the nations on earth could locally apply as well. The model to be followed would place women in high-ranking administrative and policymaking positions in equal proportion to men. This would allow them to take an interest in the matters of concern to the Christian West, such as:
- Checking religious and ideological “extremism” and its negative effect on gender equality.
- Recognition of unmarried pregnant teens and single mothers.
- Implementation of the Beijing Declaration, on a national and international scale.
- Elimination of what they believe to be harmful practices, such as female circumcision, early and arranged marriage, and polygamy.
It is clear that such issues which are tackled in international conferences related to women, the last of which was the Beijing Plus 5 Conference in New York in 2000 and the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”, are discussed from a Western perspective. Thus, when they concentrate on the basic concept of women in Islam, it is to destroy it and substitute it with the Western model.
For example, the religious extremism that concerns them is a vague and undefined expression. What is understood from the West as well as in local writings, is that religious extremism refers to anti-freedom and humanity, as well as misogynistic, behavior. In reality, Islam already refuses and condemns such actions. But, they bring up the issue of religious extremism as a cover for rejecting Islam and preventing it from governing issues that matter to Muslim communities in general, and women, in particular. Therefore, it is natural for them to view the Hijab, performing prayers and marriage in its Islamic way, as fanaticism.
Approving teen pregnancy and single parenthood out of wedlock, further reflects the insistence of Western countries, and the UN, to force the Muslims to allow immorality, imposing it as a human right. This would not only entail permitting girls to have sexual relations with whomever they want and then become pregnant, but the Muslim community will also be required to authorize them as entitled to the rights of recognition, legitimacy, welfare and counseling. We can only imagine our social reality if we were to allow our girls to fornicate and bear children out of wedlock; and then, acknowledge and accept its occurrence.
There is no doubt that exporting immorality and moral disintegration into our communities is a blatant aggression against our values and etiquettes, as well as our inalienable rights in terms of belief, perception and freedom. The same can be said for issues such as female circumcision [not mutilation, which is rejected], early marriage and polygamy, for their international Christian perspective on it and their aims, run counter to ours, which are distinctively Islamic in nature.
Some institutions in the Muslim World have attempted to confront this international Christian aggression as much as they could, but it has been sorrowful to find a group of women in our very own lands working for feminism. Many feminist societies publicize their aforementioned agenda, calling to and defending them at the same time that the rights of the entire Ummah to be free of their demands, to be consulted as autonomous entities and to be allowed to have different hopes, are neglected.