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WOMEN IN ISLAM: BITTER LAMENTS OF A BENGALI MUSLIM WOMAN
"Allah Amader Kandte Dao!" (Allah, Please let us
weep in peace!)
Please, Allah, leave us alone to cry and weep in peace.
From behind the veil, beyond public gaze we want to cry till we cannot cry any
more. This is the only right you have left to us Muslim women, throughout the
Islamic world, where your laws are meticulously followed. The world beyond
is undergoing so many changes, so much evolution over the ages; year after year,
new discoveries are being made both in the sciences and philosophy in the
rest of the world, improving upon old ideas and beliefs. But we are tied
forever to the rigid and immutable shackles of your laws, Allah. No one
ever came/has ever come forward for our emancipation. Unique is our
society! Men like Raja Ram Mohun Roy or Swami Vivekananda are not born in
this society. No Sharat Chandra comes forward in this society to write an
account of the volumes of tears that flow from our eyes. Educated Muslim
men like Badruddin Tyebji, Hamid Dalwai, and others like them have written on
measures to stop the killing of cows but have failed to utter a single word of
sympathy for us, Muslim women. Abdut Jabbar can write a big fat volume on
the eunuchs—and on the castrated in different Muslim societies—but he has
nothing to say in our behalf. Syed Mustafa Siraj was at least honest when
he said that the Hindus can fearlessly write on the injustices and other
inadequacies of their social system, but we, the Muslims, are afraid to
criticize the defects of the Islamic society. Nargis Sattar has started to
write a few articles on the subject of Islamic marriage laws and we were so
hopeful. But that hope too, once again, has been taken away from us.
More than a hundred female lawyers had demanded women’s emancipation in
the streets of Lahore in Islamic Pakistan. The ‘heroic’ Pakistani
policemen attacked the female lawyers with sticks and batons. A Muslim
female member of the ADMK party of India had raised the subject of the
emancipation of India’s Muslim women in the nation’s parliament—but then,
all the progressive members of parliament remained silent on the issue, for no
one wanted to offend the fundamentalist mullahs and lose Muslim votes.
Oh Allah! The political leaders and their supporters
in this land are very peculiar. They are just like the eunuchs who used to
live among the innumerable young and beautiful women of the harems. All
the lust, passion, and sexual desires that overtook them, were of no avail after
all, they were eunuchs and so quite helpless. Our political leaders are
exactly like those eunuchs. These leaders talk in high-sounding, noble words
such as ‘freedom’, ‘non-discrimination’, ‘secularism’ and many other
beautiful words. But alas, they do not have the means to apply a single
such word to the day-to-day life of our Muslim society. And so, the crying
and weeping of the Muslim women goes on unchecked, from one age to another.
Their tears are symbolized by the waters that cover three quarters of this
planet. What a horrible, inhuman and illogical existence we have! Leaving
his hundreds of concubines behind, the octogenarian Sheikh from Arabia comes to
India to ‘marry’ a Muslim teenager. The news is flashed in all papers
but behold, not a single political leader even registers a protest. Not a
single mullah or maulvi declares jihad or holy war on such goings-on. On
the other hand, the mullah presides over these ‘Muta Marriages’ that last
for only a short, fixed time.
What an unbearable existence for us to live and survive
among co-wives! Innumerable children, unhealthy surroundings, poverty and
lack of education have made a mockery of our social lives. Even goats and cows
live better than we do. The frequent fights among the co-wives, the
pulling at one another’s hair are so degrading! And then, God forbid, if
the miyan or husband gets into the fray, then we get beaten like a beast until
we cannot take it anymore. And after the beating, to make it even more
degrading, the miyan takes his other wife into the bedroom and shuts the door
into our faces.
If there is the slightest shortcoming in the wife’s
attention to the physical needs of the miyan or husband, then woe be to her.
She goes on suffering forever from an acute uncertainty, and intense
anxiety. The sword of Talaq or divorce could come down on her any moment.
The slightest inattention provokes a divorce. All is in the hands of
the Muslim husband. Just the pronouncement of the word “Talaq” three
times can move the earth from under the feet of the Muslim wife. The
consequence? Cheap labour or prostitution. Little children suffer
from lack of mother’s love, a sense of awesome insecurity, and an unhealthy
environment. If the children manage to survive, then the society is
burdened with more beggars and criminals. Admittedly such occurrences do
take place in other societies as well, but then they are much fewer in number
and, what is more important, in other societies such a state of affairs is not
allowed to persist in the name of their ‘religion’, while in our society the
mullahs preach such treatment to us women in the name of ‘Islam’. The
motto among us is: ‘Breed and profit’—take over the land by increased
birth rate. And we, the married Muslim women, have to bear all the burden
of the entire operation. That is why no one ever finds a married Muslim
woman who is not nursing her own baby or is not pregnant. They are with a
child all the time. They die young.
We observe the lives of Hindu women who live near or around
us. What a sense of purity, security, and trust surrounds their family
lives! Where is the hope of chastity, of purity in our lives? If the
Muslim husband comes to regret divorcing his wife, if it happens at all, he
still can do nothing to redress the situation. Allah, your laws of the
shariat prevent re-marriage with the ex-husband. The mullah will get into
the act, get the woman ‘married’ to someone else, and she has to consummate
the ‘marriage’ for three days and three nights, and then, and then only, she
can re-become ‘pure and virgin’. If the new husband ‘divorces’ the
woman obligingly, then only the previous and now repentant husband can
‘re-marry’ her. On the other hand, if the bride happens to be a good
woman, the new husband may not wish to divorce her and then trouble starts
between the two men. Fighting breaks out culminating in murders in many
cases. Such are our lives, Allah! Who should we go to with our
sorrows and complaints? If we rebel, then we are physically beaten and
punished in accordance with the laws laid down by you. If we complain,
then we are accused of being hypocrites or munafiq. In every other
religion, respect is accorded to chastity, self-control and purity. But
not so in your religion. Oh Allah, the only privilege that we have is to
cry our hearts out.
There are many ‘educated’ Muslims who are not unaware
of all this. But they do not protest for they too are out to have fun at
our expense. Those Muslims who are truly liberated, abandon us, and do not
want to concern themselves with our problems. It was with us in mind that
Kazi Abdul Oclud once said that in the last 1400 years, Islam has not been able
to light even a small candle eradicating darkness from human civilization.
Abu Syed Ayub spent his entire active life singing Tagore songs. He
married the Hindu woman Gouri Dutta and lived a free and healthy life like any
other Hindu. Mohamnled Ali Karim Chagla did the same. Vice President
Hidayetullah, political leaders like Sikandar Bakht, Dr. Jeelany, Syed Mujtaba
Ali too, did the same; in fact anyone from our society that has grown up in
civilized life away from our miseries, pains, and problems moved closer to the
society of the Hindus. [We are not sure about Ghagla, but Humayun Kabir and
Sadiqu Ali married Hindu ladies. –Publisher] Only we the abandoned ones are
left behind in the dark prison controlled by the mullahs and the maulvis. We
just cry here in endless pain. No writer or reporter writes a story about
us or makes an attempt to fathom the depth of our sorrow. The Government
of India gave us the right to vote but denied us a healthy and peaceful married
life by perpetuating the ‘Muslim Personal Marriage Code.’ The
‘Hindu Code Bill’ liberated the Hindu women, but we still remain the victims
of polygamous practices. No remedy has been provided to prevent frivolous
divorces in our Islamic society.
Once upon a time we used to trust the Marxists on this
score. The Muslim women of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan found
their freedom in Soviet Russia. No Sheikh from Arabia could buy them.
These women do not spend their lives among innumerable children, unending
pregnancies, and degrading fights among co-wives. They have meaningful
lives to lead. The mullahs do not have control over them. But here in our
land, even the Marxists are under the thumb of the mullahs. A Marxist like
Mansur Habibullah went to Mecca, became a Haji just to please the mullahs.
And everyone knows that in his personal life, Habibullah does not care
about this religion. His life is like that of a logical Hindu. And
so, as we were saying, Allah, you have not given us the slightest opportunity to
have a little peace, a little happiness. Your lack of concern for us is
eternal. In the middle ages, nawabs and sultans used to keep thousands of
women in their harems. Most of our days and nights then were spent in
weeping. Some spent their time in laying plots and some in profligacy and
unnatural practices. We were the fuel for lust of these sultans. Interminable
fights have taken place among brothers, between father and son, and among the
nawabs themselves for us women. The chariot of civilization, slowly but
surely, has crossed many paths. Radical changes have taken place in other
societies and other lands. Even the burning of the suttee, a terrible
Hindu practice, has been eradicated by social progress. The marriage of
very old men with very young brides that used to take place among some Hindus,
following the ‘Kaulinya’ system—has also been abandoned in time. Many
bad social customs and practices have disappeared in other societies. Even in
our Islamic society some good changes have taken place—but then these changes
have always been the advantage of Muslim males only.
There is a village near Basra in Iraq. That village was
well-known for supplying eunuchs for the nawabs’ harems. Nearly 60% of
the young lads who were castrated there used to die. This butchery has
ceased today. There are many Muslims like Idi Amin who had numerous wives
but the eunuchs are no longer there to watch over the women. But for us,
nothing has changed. The men of our society are completely without concern
for their women. By granting a few property rights they seem to think that
a lot has been done for us Muslim women. What good are these property
rights when our marriages are scarred with an unending chain of divorces and
re-marriages? The Muslim law has, in fact, given rise to a lot more
persecution of Muslim women. If a divorced Muslim woman files a suit for
her property and alimony rights, then the Muslim court moves very slowly indeed.
In the meantime, the husband can get remarried without any hindrance from
our Islamic laws. The law of the land that helps women of all other
communities under similar circumstances is of no use to us Muslim women because
we are supposed to go by the laws of Islam only and nothing else. It was
Abdul Rauf who wrote in the Bengali newspaper JUGAANTAR describing the sorrows
of Muslim women all over the country but, alas, there was no reaction. A
few letters appeared in the press supporting the article and that was all.
But our Muslim leaders are very sensitive when it is a
question of their own vested interest. Muzaffar Hussain wrote from north India
that the Hindi movie Talaq, talaq, talaq was renamed Nikaah on the advice of the
mullahs. The mullahs said that to mention the name of the film to their
wives, the Muslim husbands would have to pronounce the magic word three times
which would automatically end their marriages. These are funny men who are
afraid to pronounce the word “Talaq” but would do nothing to eradicate the
dreadful practice of frivolous divorces. Such a great number of Muslim
women lead a helpless and miserable life due to this abominable practice of
Talaq. But then none of the ‘pious’ Muslims worry about it.
The Islamic soldiers of Pakistan’s Yahya Khan gang-raped hundreds of thousands of women in Bangladesh. More than two hundred thousand women became pregnant. A great number of these women later became insane. Only Mujibur Rahman tried to help a little, but the rest of the Islamic world maintained a complete silence. Khomeini’s Iran is currently killing hundreds of women. Their fault is that they do not support his rule. So, in the name of Islam, these women are being butchered. Vishnu Upadhyay has written about the incidents in the newspaper AAJ KAL but then no one says a word—the Muslin world is still silent. In any other society, if a woman is raped, the papers cry out in her support, raising a storm of protest in the community. Islam means peace. To watch silently the persecution of women is perhaps this peace. Such lack of concern for women has prevented all improvement in our condition. No blessing or show of kindness from our angels has been bestowed upon us and so, Allah, we are telling you once again about our sadness. You are the master of this world and universe. You are the one we are addressing our complaints to. You have denied us a happy life. If we happen to be one of many wives of a rich Muslim then we spend our lives in jealousy, rivalry and unending pregnancies. If on the other hand, we belong to a poor husband then there is back-breaking hard work for us all day and one pregnancy after another as well. Wherever we go, the sword of Talaq or divorce always hangs over our heads. The uncertainty and insecurity of our lives affect not only ourselves but our children as well. They have no better choice and get into begging and street crime. You have seen the crowds of Muslim women and their numerous children roaming around Calcutta’s Howrah Station. That they are Muslims can be guessed by the presence of the bearded mullahs that hang around these women. The only concern of the mullahs is to ensure that these women remain Muslims. They are not concerned with their health, well-being, safety and simple humanity. And so, there is nothing for a Muslim woman to look forward to. There are a lot of tears to shed though. A lot of weeping that has no remedy. And so we are crying out to you, Oh Allah, you have given us one and only one privilege and that is to weep. Please therefore let us weep in peace and leave us alone.
