I am a big fan of consuming news from the online medium of Twitter, as I find that it is generally the first place to get breaking news and more often than not has more accurate information than what is fed to us via traditional media, and I am able to access a plethora of World wide media that simply would not be accessible to me via cable news and newspapers.

And I have noticed recently that this medium has once again been lit up on the issue of women in Islam, and whether Islam oppressed the female gender or not.

So I wanted to take a broad look at the various issues that some people bring up again and again as the reasons that Islam is an oppressor of women.

Probably the most often mentioned and criticised thing is the ‘full veil’. Now it is such a big issue for some Western countries that they have introduced laws that ban women from wearing a full veil! Men have decided that it is appropriate for them to decide what women can and cannot wear in the West! That certainly seems like a strange way of showing freedom to women.

So do women in Islam have to completely cover themselves up from head to toe in a veil?

I opened with verses 30 and 31 from Chapter 24 of The Holy Quran and the first thing to notice is that it gives guidance to men on how to behave. Men are told to behave modestly by lowering their gaze, and secondly the same instruction is then given to women.

Now men and women are both meant to cover their heads but women are additionally told that they must also cover their bosoms for modesty.

This is the only place in the Holy Quran that I know of that talks about any sort of ‘veil’. The full body coverings that the TV and Print media brandish like loaded weapons when reporting on Muslim women is not mentioned in the Holy Quran at all.

Verse 31 does however say ‘do not display your adornment except what appears thereof’. This makes it clear that you dress modestly to the extent that it is culturally normal where you live. So this shows that there is not a rule for all women to wear a full veil. It means that you dress appropriately to the culture in which you live.

As an example what might be thought of as modest in Britain might not be seen that way in India. So if you lived in India but dressed with the British mentality of modesty, then you are not following this instruction of the Holy Quran.

Following this example through then, someone who lives in England and wears a full body covering is in fact not following the guidance given by Allah on how to behave modestly, as it is not appropriate to the culture in which they are living. In fact wearing a full veil makes a person stick out in Britain and makes people stare, this is hardly following the guidance of being discreet and modest.

We have seen from numerous news reports that women who have worn the full covering in public have been attacked in the streets of European cities, and it is clear that Allah asks women not to dress in a way which puts them in danger, therefore a full veil is inappropriate in these countries.

Furthermore, if we look at some examples from early Islam we find that women played a very active role in the community. The Holy Prophet’s (pbuh) first wife was a successful business person, and she had in fact employed the Holy Prophet (pbuh) to work for her.

During times of war women tended to the injured, collected armaments like swords, arrows and shields from the battlefield and brought water for the soldiers. Women worked in the orchards and fields side by side with men.

How would they have been able to do these things if they all had to wear a full body covering in public?

The only exceptions to what I have just mentioned are the wives of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) who, after some times, for their own safety where told to observe a full covering. This came partially as a result of the time Hazrat Ayesha got lost in the desert and false and damaging rumours were spread about her.

But even then the full covering did not exclude them from public life. Hazrat Ayesha for example still ran her own seminary and many learned men and women attended to learn from her details about the Holy Prophets (pbuh) life.

So on the basis of these two verses and what we know from how women lived at the time of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) women are not obliged or ordered to wear a full body covering at all. Women like men are given guidance to act modestly and dress modestly and appropriately.

The Islamic view is that it is demeaning for men and woman to display themselves like a product or a piece of meat in a shop window. A person is to be recognised for their ability, their knowledge, and their achievements and not just by physical appearances.

The next thing I often hear is that men in Islam are superior to women and women must obey their men without question.

Unconditional obedience to men? Well this is an easy one to answer. The answer is no and that is because no person can command unconditional obedience from anyone, whether its a man or a women.

Only the Divine Being, Allah can command unconditional obedience from mankind.

The verse in the Holy Quran which has sparked the above accusation is Chapter 4 verse 34, and it says;

“Men are the maintainers of women, with what Allah has made some of them to excel others and with what they spend out of their wealth. So the good women are obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded.”

The problem with understanding verses like these is that people simply pick out a few words like ‘excel’ and ‘obedient’ and make an assumption on what the verse means without trying to understand what is being said or understanding how Islam treats a family structure.

When it says men are the maintainers of women, this is an instruction to men that we are obliged to make sure that whatever else we do in life, that we make sure our wives are looked after. The burden of paying the mortgage or rent and the bills are on the man not the woman. And that extends to making sure we look after our mothers and sisters and all the women of our family.

Women have no responsibility to bring in money to cover these types of costs. Allah is saying that that is the primary duty of the man. And in fact Allah goes further to say that men are not allowed to tell their wives how to spend their money. Whether that be an allowance they are given or money earned from working, women are free to spend it however they wish, without influence from their husbands.

And when it says Allah has made some of them to excel others, this is not saying or even suggesting that Allah says men are better than women.

Unlike in English were usually a word has one meaning, in Arabic a single word can have multiple meanings depending on how it is written and in what context it is written.

If I said pass me the pen or pass me the stapler in English then you understand what I mean and can pass me the correct item, as these things have a fixed meaning, but if I said give me that stationary then you would need further context from me to give me the right thing as stationary covers many items.

The word “excel” in this scenario should be taken to mean an extra duty men have to bear, so we have extra duties above those which we are already responsible for, so for example providing emotional support to our wives or helping with looking after the children etc…

Now when understood properly this verse describes modern day life and relationships. Although men and women both go out and work, men always feel like they need to make sure they bring in enough money to cover as many of the important costs as possible. As a man I certainly feel like I should make sure that I am able to pay my mortgage and bills or I would be letting my family down and all the friends I have feel exactly the same.

And as a loving husband I also want to make sure my wife is happy and I want to have an active involvement in all aspects of my child’s life, and again everyone I know feels exactly the same.

And finally where it says ‘And the good women are obedient’ this means obedient to Allah and not, as so many anti-islamists suggest obedient to men.

So this verse for me is Allah directly telling men what our duties are and what we need to do to make sure we have a content and happy family.

So are men superior to women? Do women have to unquestioningly follow the command of their husbands? Absolutely not.

The last objection people make, and when I say people its usually white men who think by pushing Western values on women they are some how saving them, is that they claim that in the Holy Quran it states that men are allowed to beat their wives.

This once again all comes down to how one word, daraba, is interpreted by people, as I mentioned earlier Arabic words can have multiple meanings, and this word is a classic example of that.

It can mean strike or hit and it can also mean ‘send away’.

Now Islam makes rules to regulate the breakdown of a marriage, just like most countries around the World, and it gives four instructions to follow in trying to reconcile a marriage that is in serious trouble.

It says that if there is a complete breakdown of matrimonial relations the first thing men should do is to separate their beds. The reason is obvious. It is to protect women from being forced into having sexual relations with their husband’s against their will. Nowadays, we call it matrimonial rape.

Next talk to the wife and try and sort out the differences between each other without at this stage involving others.

Then the third instruction, now this says the husband should daraba. And people have decided that it means strike or hit or beat.

Now lets go with that interpretation for a second and then read the final instruction. The fourth instruction says if none of these measures work appoint outsiders to mediate between them.

So the people who say daraba in this instance means beat are suggesting that the Holy Quran says first beat your wife and if that doesn’t work then go and get counselling! How would counselling work if even after beating your wife things still do not improve?

What is the man meant to say during the counselling session? I hit her and she still does not act reasonably!

If we apply the other meaning of ‘send away’, the instructions become separate your beds, talk to your wives and if these measures do not sort out the problem send them away. The modern version of this is called a trial separation. And if none of these measures work appoint outsiders to mediate between them.

So my opinion and many others are now agreeing with this, is that Islam does not allow men to beat their wives and this was a mis-interpretation of the verse.

And of course now that that is cleared up people will inevitably say, ‘well why do the women have to leave and not the men’? Again they make this statement because they do not understand how the family structure works in Islam.

As I mentioned before in Islam men are given the responsibility to look after the whole family, and so often the grandparent, the parents and siblings and wives of brothers etc will all live in the house together, so we are told that rather then 10 or 12 people all leaving the house, just the wife does for a short period of time. Does it make sense that just one person leave, or is it better that the wife be forced to stay with people who might resent her due to the marital issues whilst the husband leaves?

So, this makes complete sense and is the logical thing to do, and has nothing to do with the made up perception that Islam treats women badly and makes them leave the home.

People will probably say why should the way I have understood these verses be right? Well as I have always said lets look back and see how things actually were at the time of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and after.

During those days of Islam women ran businesses, they went to the Mosque, they were leaders and were involved in state matters.

Hazrat Ummar was taken to task by a women when he tried to change the law on dowry, and he accepted her argument and changed the law back. The Holy Prophet when advising his cousin that she should not divorce her husband, was told by her that unless it was an instruction from Allah then she was within her right to do so, and he accepted that.

Hazrat Ayesha, was a hugely respected teacher who was revered by men and women who came from far away areas to get a better understanding of Islam from her. Its thought that 40% of the knowledge of Hadith came from her.

How would she have given this knowledge if she had to stay at home and not be allowed out? Or was not allowed to talk to men?

So if you look at the lives of women then, and then look at these verses there can be no other way to interpret them.

So Islam does not force a woman to wear a full veil, it does not say men are superior to women, it does not say that women have to unquestioningly obey their husbands and it does not allow men to hit their wives.

But have and do Muslim men do these things? Yes they do, of course they do, looking at any Muslim majority country you can see that women are often treated as second class citizens. And this is an issue which needs to be urgently addresses.

We cannot claim some sort of moral victory here just because we have clarified what the Holy Quran actually tells us. The facts are that women are mistreated and abused in countries where there is a Muslim majority.

The international community needs to help and put serious pressure on these countries to put laws in place which protect women, and the people in these countries need to be educated to understand that they are violating the word of Allah by what they are doing, and they have to stand up to the Mullahs’ and leaders who push a false understanding of Islam on them.

But lets have a look at women in the so called free World. The civilised World were women have the freedom to do as they please and are looked after by rule of law.

Here are some facts about violence against girls and young women in the UK;

• Sexual bullying and harassment are routine in schools and almost one in three 16-18 year-old girls say they have experienced ‘groping’ and other unwanted sexual touching at school in the UK (YouGov).
• One in three teenage girls in an intimate relationship has experienced sexual violence from a partner (NSPCC).
• ‘Sending sexual images via phones or online, is often coercive and linked to harassment, bullying and even violence. The threat comes from friends and girls are most adversely affected (NSPCC).
• At least 750,000 children a year witness domestic violence according to the Department of Health.
• The Children’s Commissioner identified that at least 16,500 children in England were at risk of child sexual exploitation in one year alone.

Brutal gang rapes of women in India are not a scarce thing and were often overlooked. It took the brutal rape and murder of one young women last year in India before some steps were taken to try and address the issue. Despite those steps further predatory gang rapes have and are occurring.

Coalition troops hailed the rights given to women as a key success when they took control away from the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, instilling a Western value of rights for women but attacks on women were more frequent and more brutal in 2013 then ever in Afghanistan.

France passed a law which in part banned the wearing of a head scarf. Stopping women from making the choice about what they want to wear. And those women who flout this law have been regularly attacked in the streets by people.

According to WHO 15% of women in Japan reported physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

Recent global prevalence figures indicate that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.

What about in work?, surely there is more equality and women have the same opportunities as men. Well of the top 1000 companies in the USA only 45 of them have a women as they CEO.

Only 4.5%. And according to the TUC women working full-time still earn almost £5,000 a year less than men, and the pay gap in some jobs is three times bigger than that.

The Chartered Management Institute said that mens bonuses in the UK were more than double those of women.

When the Office of National Statistics looked at the people receiving the highest 10% of salaries in the UK, it found that 69% of them were men.

And this is all after laws had to be passed in the UK so that women could receive equal pay to men. Without these laws how bad would it be?

And despite all this bad news a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation found last year that globally women work harder than men in their jobs.

And I could go on and on. These are just a few of the hundreds of examples and statistics that I found whilst researching the numbers.

So is the West a beacon of hope for womens’ rights? It seems not.

I mention these things not in a ‘tit for tat’ you’re no better kind of way, but this is to show that Islam, or any religion, is not at fault for the fact that women are treated as lesser than men, but it is men themselves and only men who are the catalyst for this and scapegoating any religion or group of people will never solve the issues.