I don't know. I really don't know. But why is it that, no matter how I shake the thought out, I still think Islam is synonymous with gender inequality?
Call me politically incorrect or ignorant but I can't help wonder what is it in Islam that inspires a lot of misogynistic acts in many parts of the world. This thought was further compounded when I read the book "Death of Feminism" by Phyllis Chesler.
A modern-day feminist, Chesler reads like a doomsday prophet warning everyone about the impending Islamic threat to women's struggle for liberation and rights. She does this by detailing an alarming array of cases of violence against women perpetrated by men in the name of Islam (To digress, she also laments the growing alliance between feminists and their once-reviled enemy, the pornography industry, and details how such an arrangement is undermining the movement). She detailed honor killings (which I was roughly familiar with), rapes, murders, and other horrific crimes dealt against women, which clearly stemmed from a distorted view of what women are and what they should be.
After reading the book, I was obviously stunned, even flirting with the idea that Islam might be the Anti-Christ (The idea isn't original though. I found several websites trying to prove this). Perhaps, some may say that blame shouldn't be placed on Islam but on the culture of the people practicing the religion. With this, they are probably justified in this assumption because there are several Muslim countries where men respect their women.
But the reality still remains that, in many parts of the world, Islam has been interpreted in a way that marginalizes women and leaves them vulnerable to abuse just as the same kind of interpretation has made terrorists out of promising, young Muslims.
To be an emancipating force, Islam, like Christianity, must evolve. It must accommodate women and the rest of the world and, until now, this remains the greatest challenge among Islamic scholars.
Call me politically incorrect or ignorant but I can't help wonder what is it in Islam that inspires a lot of misogynistic acts in many parts of the world. This thought was further compounded when I read the book "Death of Feminism" by Phyllis Chesler.
A modern-day feminist, Chesler reads like a doomsday prophet warning everyone about the impending Islamic threat to women's struggle for liberation and rights. She does this by detailing an alarming array of cases of violence against women perpetrated by men in the name of Islam (To digress, she also laments the growing alliance between feminists and their once-reviled enemy, the pornography industry, and details how such an arrangement is undermining the movement). She detailed honor killings (which I was roughly familiar with), rapes, murders, and other horrific crimes dealt against women, which clearly stemmed from a distorted view of what women are and what they should be.
After reading the book, I was obviously stunned, even flirting with the idea that Islam might be the Anti-Christ (The idea isn't original though. I found several websites trying to prove this). Perhaps, some may say that blame shouldn't be placed on Islam but on the culture of the people practicing the religion. With this, they are probably justified in this assumption because there are several Muslim countries where men respect their women.
But the reality still remains that, in many parts of the world, Islam has been interpreted in a way that marginalizes women and leaves them vulnerable to abuse just as the same kind of interpretation has made terrorists out of promising, young Muslims.
To be an emancipating force, Islam, like Christianity, must evolve. It must accommodate women and the rest of the world and, until now, this remains the greatest challenge among Islamic scholars.
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