Religion does not hate women, Islam does not relegate women; women oppression is man-made.

Riad KACED
Aug 27, 2017 · 4 min read
AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, The Boston Big Picture

Today in America is Women’s Equality Day. In the United States, Women’s Equality Day is celebrated on August 26 to commemorate the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. Yet in this day and age, the mistreatment of women is very likely to be the number one human rights abuse that we all fail to acknowledge and solve effectively for the greater good of the human race. One of the main and historical reasons behind this tragedy is man’s interpretation of religious scriptures as explained by former US president Jimmy Carter in his brilliant Ted talk Why I believe the mistreatment of women is the number one human rights abuse:

First of all is the misinterpretation of religious scriptures, holy scriptures, in the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, Quran and so forth, and these have been misinterpreted by men who are now in the ascendant positions in the synagogues and the churches and in the mosques. And they interpret these rules to make sure that women are ordinarily relegated to a secondary position compared to men in the eyes of God.

Mass news and Social Media memes tell us that “Islam hates women”, tirelessly slandering Islam as a religion with deplorable relationship with women’s rights. This is obviously very untrue. It is people who hate other people. It is people who use religion to hate other people who don’t look like them or worship like them. Gender hatred against women has no roots in Islam, It mostly originates from political, economic, social and cultural factors that are sadly impacting women across the world, regardless of their color or religion. Islam is a religion that sheds lite on humanity, it has taught me not to judge, not to hate, not to disrespect, just to be. Islam is a religion that is made up of a billion and half people from all walks of like, A religion that travelled through fifteen hundred years of great social and cultural revolutions. Islamic law can be interpreted in a way that allows for child marriage, allots daughters half the inheritance of sons, considers a woman’s testimony in financial matters worth half that of a man’s… However, there is more to Islam than that, and there is more to Islam than the way people and governments choose to apply it as explained by Rayana Khalaf in This is how Islam led the world with women’s rights. In her article, Rayana explained how Islam gave women their basic rights centuries before the West did. How Islam tackled female infanticide. How The Quran encourages women to learn and work.

In her great article in the Time Magazine The Women of Islam, Lisa Beyer went on saying: “For his day, the Prophet Muhammad was a feminist,”. Jim Garrison stated the same conclusion in his blog Muhammad Was A Feminist published in the huffington post in 2016:

Of all the founders of the great religions — Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Islam and Judaism — Muhammad was easily the most radical and empowering in his treatment of women. Arguably he was history’s first feminist.

How are we going to change the narrative that we hear so often about oppressed women in Islam? As stated in Alaa Murabit’s What my religion really says about women: “I can’t overlook the damage that has been done in the name of religion, not just my own, but all of the world’s major faiths. The misrepresentation and misuse and manipulation of religious scripture has influenced our social and cultural norms, our laws, our daily lives, to a point where we sometimes don’t recognize it”. The misinterpretation of Quran has lead many astray, the promise of seventy two virgins has blind-sighted many young men as explained by Zena Agha in her great talk How Islam made me a feminist. It is therefore important for all of us, especially women, to reclaim our religion from fundamentalists because the current suppression of women in the name of Islam has no basis in the Quran.

Bringing gender equality is a very reasonable goal that we can all achieve together: allies and advocates from the men side, role models from the women’s side, strong believers and activists from both. Education is key for this relationship to thrive and be sustainable as explained by Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai in The case for gender equality in the Muslim world:

If you want to go forward, you have to give education to girls. And once you educate girls, you change the whole community. You change the whole society

For my final worlds, I would like to leave you with the smart and beautiful Amal Kassir, an unapologetic Colorado-born Muslim women, activist and social justice advocate in her mind-blowing show The Muslim on the airplane. You will be rocked to your core !

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Riad KACED

Written by

Citizen of the world, Human rights activist and social justice advocate

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