Dec. 2008 - Jan. 2009 
Year 15    No.135
Cover Story


Islam’s misogynists

As in Afghanistan under Taliban rule earlier, women are the worst victims of the fanatics

BY HAMID MIR

It is not the tragic story of just one man; it is the tale of an entire nation’s powerlessness.

Mufti Sahib broke into tears as he was telling me his story but I couldn’t even rise from my chair and offer him some solace. His head bowed, Mufti Sahib kept crying, unable to stop. Finally, he looked up, grief darkening his face, and said: "I don’t know whom I should go to. Who is there to hear my cry and give me justice, for the justice I seek is not for myself but for hundreds of thousands of my daughters? They are crying out but no one is listening."

Mufti Sahib comes from Swat where for the past 18 years he had worked at a Muslim religious school in Mingora. Recently, a woman had come to him, hoping he would find some solution to the problem she faced. She belonged to the town of Kuza Bandai situated on the banks of the river Swat. Her husband had died in an accident some years before. Since the lady already had an FA certificate she found work at a private school in nearby Mingora and could thus support herself and her three children while continuing to live in Kuza Bandai. Eventually, she also got a BEd degree. Due to the uncertain law and order situation in the Swat valley during the last 12 months or so most of the educational institutions in Swat were closed. But the schools in Mingora stayed open and the lady continued to work.

Then a few days back, after she returned home from Mingora one evening, a neighbour came to see her. The woman told her that now Shariah had been imposed and women were prohibited from leaving their homes without reason so she wouldn’t be allowed to go to work the next morning. The lady said to her neighbour: "Look, you know very well why I work. Every morning I take my children with me to Mingora, drop them off at their school and then go to my job at another school. At the end of the day’s work I return home with the children. They will starve to death if I stop working." The neighbour replied: "We will not let your children die of hunger but you must stop going out." The self-respecting lady did not wish to live like a beggar and so the same night she took her children and returned to Mingora, to her sister’s house, and continued to work. The people hounding her then went to the principal of her school and demanded that he should either close down his school or fire the ‘impudent’ lady from her job.

Scared and worried to death, the lady somehow learnt that there were in that group of militants some young men who had studied with Mufti Sahib; she hoped that he might be able to dissuade them. Mufti Sahib contacted one of his former students, a man from Khwazakhela who had joined the local militants when, a year earlier, his younger brother was killed in a security forces operation. The former student talked to his fellow militants but the latter were unyielding. They decided they would lose their awe and authority in the locality if they let the woman work outside her home.

Mufti Sahib then went to talk to the militants in person. During the conversation he remarked that it was not jihad when a Muslim fought another Muslim. The commander of the militants flared up and said: "We commemorate the martyrs of Karbala on the 10th day of Muharram. Was not the jihad of those martyrs against a government that called itself Islamic?"

Mufti Sahib then explained to him the full context of the events at Karbala and said: "History received the great story of the sacrifices of the Karbala martyrs through Hazrat Zainab, daughter of Hazrat Ali. As a child, Zainab was a great favourite of the Prophet Muhammad. She had become, even during the life of her father, Hazrat Ali, a learned speaker and used to expound on the Koran before women. At Karbala she saw all the male members of her family killed before her eyes. And when she was taken as prisoner to Ubaidallah bin Ziyad, the ruler of Kufah, she boldly confronted him with words of truth.

"Then, after an arduous journey, she was brought before Yazid in Damascus. There too she stood boldly and refused to acknowledge him as the caliph. The thundering voice of Hazrat Ali’s daughter frightened Yazid so much that he had her taken back to Medina together with the remaining members of the revered family. Were it not for Zainab, the world would still be unaware of the heights of glory attained by the martyrs of Karbala."

Mufti Sahib further said to the commander: "The history of Islam is filled with stories of other bold and courageous women besides Zainab. Had these women not stepped out of their homes, Islam might not have spread so swiftly." Mufti Sahib told the commander the story of Hazrat Safiya who was the prophet’s aunt and a sister of Hazrat Hamza. During the battle with the Jewish tribe, Banu Qurayza, she attacked an enemy scout, cut off his head and threw it toward the enemy’s ranks. Then there was Hazrat Umm-e Ammarah who wielded her sword alongside the prophet in the battle of Uhud. And when a stone struck the prophet and shattered two of his teeth, it was Umm-e Ammarah who then protected the prophet from an enemy attack.

As Mufti Sahib was narrating these incidents to the commander, the latter declared that Mufti Sahib was an agent of the security forces and had him arrested. Eventually, at the behest of his former students, Mufti Sahib regained freedom but the very next day he was relieved of his duties at the madrassa. What is more, Mufti Sahib was also ordered to leave Swat altogether within two days. His efforts to obtain justice on behalf of an oppressed woman ended up making him homeless.

But his tears before me were not on account of his own loss – three days earlier the lady who had struggled so hard to take care of her three fatherless children was first declared a prostitute by the militants and then killed. According to Mufti Sahib, Swat was totally peaceful until two years ago. Then the government of Pervez Musharraf, in order to collect dollars from America, destroyed its peace. They spilt the blood of innocent people and now the same innocent people had become the greatest oppressors. What a great irony that the dictator who loudly proclaimed his ‘enlightened moderation’ cast Swat into the clutches of religious extremism! And now he would go around the world, lecturing on peace!

Mufti Sahib told me: "In Swat, the state and non-state elements vie in oppression. They do not differ when it comes to tyranny. Our ulema will have to show the same boldness and courage that Hazrat Husain showed, for Swat has become another Karbala. The ulema will have to stand up on behalf of those countless women who are being made prisoners in their own homes in the name of Islam and for whom all doors of education are being closed. If the ulema did not raise a united voice on behalf of their sisters and daughters now, who would they find to listen to their stories of Hazrat Safiya, Hazrat Umm-e Ammarah and Hazrat Zainab in the years to come?"

(Hamid Mir is a well-known Pakistani journalist and editor. This article was published on jang.com.pk on January 8, 2009.)

(Translated from the Urdu by CM Naim.)

Courtesy: Jang; www.jang.com.pk


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