Photographer : Crystalina |
The Western image of the Muslim world isn’t a pretty one. Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve probably seen a picture of Osama bin Laden, heard a story about a bus bombing in Baghdad or watched Muslim women walk down a street in Afghanistan completely covered in black cloth.
The ideas that many non-Muslims have about Islam, particularly Islam in the Middle East, are influenced by the tiny glimpse of the Muslim world they get from the television. Most of this information is about radical Islamic regimes and terrorist organisations.
For me, perhaps the most disturbing aspect of radical Islamic society is its oppression of women. In extreme cases, women are forced by law to cover their bodies in a large veil called a
burqa. This practise is called
purdah, and it’s an attempt to keep women modest (for fear, some claim, that the slightest bit of showing skin will drive men wild).
If a woman doesn’t wear her burqa, or she doesn’t wear it appropriately, she may be subjected to a variety of punishments, the harshest of which is an
honour killing. If a woman dishonours her family in any way—from dressing inappropriately to committing adultery—she may be murdered by her family in order to clear the family name. In some Islamic countries, this is a common practise and it’s even legal.
Life for many women in some Islamic countries can mean no formal schooling, strict curfews and even early death. The oppression of women in some Islamic societies is wrong, but what’s worse—it’s un-Islamic.
The Qur’an expressly states that men and women are to be treated as equals. The Qur’an even condemns any man who abuses or mistreats a woman. While the Qur’an promotes adherence to a code of modesty, it does not mention any full veil or body-covering for women. In fact, the origins of the burqa are not in Islam and the Arab world at all, but India and Hinduism.
This oppression of women is wrong, but it's not a long-standing tradition in Islamic countries. It’s a recent development, just like suicide bombings and terrorist training camps. But when the only images a non-Muslim sees are these, it’s easy to make snap judgments about the Muslim world.
Truth is, none of these images reflect true Islamic beliefs. They are a corruption of muddled and mistranslated Qur’an verses, exploited to wage war on women by the few radicals we see on TV every night.
How do I know this?University of Southern California, ‘Women in Islam’
USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts,
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/humanrelations/womenin...Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia,
Hijab,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia,
Honor Killing,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia,
Purdah,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdah 
