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THE
FEMINIST MOVEMENT AND
THE MUSLIM WOMAN
Maryam Jameelah
The most radical movement in
recent times which is revolutionizing the whole social
structure and changing the entire basis of human
relationships is the Feminist movement, popularly known as
the drive for Women’s Liberation.
The Feminist movement is not a
unique product of the modern age. Its historical precedents
reach back into antiquity. In his Republic, Plato
advocated the abolition of the family and social roles
determined by sex; in literature, the ancient Greek classical
comedy, Lypsistrata and much marc recently, Henrick
Ibsen’s (1828-1906) drama, A Doll’s House preached
feminist ideals. The Victorian economist and philosopher,
John Stuart Mill and the German socialist, Friedrich Engels
in his essay, The Subjection of Women, which he wrote
in 1869, laid the core foundations of Feminism. In 1884
Angels publicly proclaimed marriage as a “dreary
mutation of slavery,” urged its abolition and suggested
public responsibility for the rearing of children.
In America, Feminism was the outgrowth of the
movement for the abolition of slavery and the Temperance
movement for the legal banning of liquor. Women who joined
these organizations soon discovered that to make their cause
effective, they required political power. The historical
milestone of the Feminist movement was the Seneca
Falls Convention in 1948 which in its manifesto, demanded
women’s rights to her complete control over her property
and the he right to divorce her husband, guardianship of the
children and an end to sexual discrimination in employment
along with the right to receive equal pay with men for the
same work, and most important, female franchise. As the
campaign for women’s suffrage grew, the more
conservative Feminists limited their cause to the single
issue of suffrage. In 1920 with the passage of the 19th
amendment to the American constitution giving women the vote,
the majority of women activists as ‘well, as the public
assumed that with female franchise, women’s rights had
been fully obtained. After this, the Feminist movement lay
dormant for more then than forty years.
On December 14, 1961, President John F.
Kennedy signed an Executive order establishing the President’s
Commission on the status of women. Its mandate was “to
examine and recommend remedies to combat the prejudices and
obsolete customs and morals which act as obstacles to the
complete realization of women’s rights.” The
President’s Commission was the first official body ever
to examine the status of in the United States.
Thus the “silent fifties”
came to an abrupt end with the beginnings of Feminist
confrontation politics in the early 1960’s –
marches, pickets and sit-ins. College and university girls
began to participate in these political activities.
In
contrast to the women who assembled at the Seneca Falls
Convention in 1848 and merely protested against the ill-treatment
and abuse of women by drunken husbands and achievement of
their legitimate rights in marriage, control of property and
earnings and equal pay with men for the same work, the
demands of the modern successors are far more radical. In the
largest most enthusiastic Feminist demonstration ever held,
on August 26, 1970, hundreds of women marched down Fifth
Avenue, New York City carrying placards which read:
HOUSEWIVES ARE UNPAID SLAVES!
STATE PAY FOR HOUSEWORK! OPPRESSED WOMEN! DON’T COOK
DINNER! STARVE YOUR HUSBAND TONIGHT! END HUMAN SACRIFICE! DON’T
GET MARRIED! WASHING DIAPERS IS NOT FULFILLING! LEGALISE
ABORTION! DEPENDENCY IS NOT HEALTHY STATE OF BEING!
Today’s Feminists are implacably
opposed to any social roles being determined by sex.
Feminists assert the absolute and unqualified equality of men
and women, not withstanding anatomical differences. They deny
that there is any inherent biological distinction between men
and women on the basis of sex which determines that the wife
should be the housewife and mother and the husband the
breadwinner and authoritarian head of the family. They
believe that women should take just as active role in sexual
intercourse as men and not be passive. They demand the
abolition of institutional marriage, home and family, asset
complete female sexual freedom and that the upbringing should
be a public responsibility. They insist that all women should
be given the right to complete control over their
reproductive lives. They are demanding that all restrictions
must be lifted from laws governing contraception so that
devices can be publicly advertised and available over the
druggist counter to any women regardless of her age and
marital status and purchasable without a doctor’s
prescription. All laws restricting abortion should be removed
and that women have a legal right to abortion at any stage of
pregnancy. Abortions should not only be available at demand
but should be supplied free by the state to any women who
wants one so that the poor can take full advantage of
facility.
In schools all course must be equally
co-educational – home economics must no be exclusively
female and shop mechanics for boys. Segregation must be
broken down in gymnasiums and physical education. Girls
should be allowed to compete in all sports and physical
exercises with boys at all ages. All mass-media must be
radically changed to eliminate sex-stereotyping roles and
portray women as equal to men in all fields of work and
production. Children’s books are criticized by feminists
because they do not show in their stories more single-parent
families, unmarried mothers and divorces women as models for
the children. Girls should be given mechanical toys to play
with and boys should be given dolls. Instead of traditional
institutions of marriage, home and family, radical Feminists
propose men and women living in large communes where the
welfare and rearing of the children would be public
responsibility. They are demanding that child-care centers
are made available to parents on a 24-hour basis provided to
the public as free on demand just as parks, libraries and
recreational facilities are taken for granted in most
American communities. Women must be financially independent
and no profession or occupation should be banned to her on
account of her sex.
A lot of women who may say
that they just want to play the traditional roles are
simply fearful - or unable to imagine other ways of being.
Old roles can seem to offer a certain security. Freedom
can seem frightening especially if one has learned how to
achieve a certain degree of power inside prison. Perhaps
they are just afraid of choices. We don’t seek to
impose anything on women but merely to open up all
possible alternatives. We do seek choice as one of the
functions, which makes people human beings. We want to be
full people, crippled neither by law or custom or our own-chained
minds. If there us no room in that in nature, then nature
must be changed!1
One of the “alternative
choices” for women the Feminists seek to make socially
acceptable is Lesbianism (female homosexuality). One of the
branches of feminism is the homophile organization known as The
Daughters of Bilitis the aim of which is to promote
Lesbianism.
The women’s liberation
movement has members who were lesbians before its
existence and those who have become lesbians since their
involvement with the movement. For some of the latter,
Lesbianism is a form of political protest. Say the
radical feminists. “Lesbianism is one road to
freedom - freedom from oppression by men.”2
The Lesbian minority in America,
which may run as high at ten million women, is a woman,
who is drawn erotically to women rather than to men.
Perhaps the most logical and least hysterical of all
statements about homosexuality is the following by Dr.
Joel Fort psychiatrist and public health specialist and
Dr. Joe K. Adams, psychologist and former mental health
officer. The statement made in August 1966 is as follows:
“Homosexuals like heterosexuals should be treated as
individual human beings and not as a special group either
by law or social agencies or employers. Laws governing
sexual behavior should be reformed to deal only with
clearly anti-social behavior involving violence or youth.
The sexual behavior of individual adults by mutual
Consent in private should not be a matter of public
concern.3
What is the end-result of the
radical feminist movement? What kind of society does Women’s
Liberation seek to attain?
Thus
women for men are alternatively angels and slaves to be
worshipped one minute and spurned and exploited the next
but seldom treated as equals. Concerning sex, our society
has taught total abstinence for the first decade of
sexual maturity (even masturbation is considered at best
an unavoidable evil,) then life-long fidelity to one
partner. All the while society does its best both to keep
us ignorant and confused about what a well developed sex-life
can be and to convince us that the forbidden fruits of
promiscuity surpass anything the “moral’ person
can ever taste. What a bundle of paradoxes! If instead we
could face without flinching our homosexual impulses and
curiosity about how this or that act with such a person
might feel, then we might be able to distinguish between
an impulse which is immoral and involuntary and action
which of course must be taken deliberately in accordance
with its likely consequences and our overall values and
goals. What would happen if men rejected the male
stereotype and acknowledged the values of oneness,
humility, discussion, consideration, cooperation and
compromise along with humility, respectful disagreement
and conflict. We would not deny the richness of our
sexual imagination nor the natural sexual element in all
relationships. Just how it occurs-talking, touching,
dancing or making love should be our guilt-free choice
based on our own honest needs rather than a “moral”
“masculine” stereotype.
What
about the question of “fidelity” to one partner
versus a diverse sex-life? Most adults seem to need to
have a primary relationship, which comes before all
others. If a problem in the primary relationship, which
is the most demanding but also the most potentially
rewarding kind, makes us try to escape through an outside
flirtation or “affair,” this is bad not because
of the sexual acts committed but because it is an escape.
The problem remains unsolved.
All
our relationships tend to be over-reserved. We need to
loosen up and learn to express affection-openly and
physically. Would men’s and women’s liberation
of the sort I have just described destroy the traditional
American family? I think so. It is an institution with
many drawbacks. Considerations of efficiency and economy
and exposure to the difficulties and opportunities
inherent in larger groups living and working together
make it a good idea to experiment with some “communal”
kinds of arrangement.4
In Muslim countries,
fortunately, the Feminist movement has not yet touched such
extremes as this but as a result of westernization, Purdah
is rapidly disappearing and women, revolting against
their traditional roles, are patterning their lives more
and more am the models of their Western sisters.
In the more fashionable and well-to-do
urban classes, particularly in Tehran, the women spend
less time in household work and more in social,
professional, recreational and philanthropic activities.
To go to the dress-maker or the hair-dresser, to have
morning coffee or lunch with friends, to shop and attend
parties, these constitute the daily routine for such
women. They also enjoy taking meals in fine restaurants,
going on holidays and engaging in sports. An increasing
number of women of this class take an interest in
cultural and charitable work. (p. 77)
In the cities of Lebanon, women are
increasingly seen outside the home. On Sundays there are
as many women as men on the crowded beaches of
Beirut - the younger generation, of course. Beach
behavior undoubtedly is a symbol of the loosening of
bonds. In Lebanon the acceptance of Western dress styles
has reached a stage where among the westernized middle
and upper classes, there is little restraint even on
those girls who wish to dress provocatively. In all
social groups girls display a tremendous preoccupation
with clothes and they are not usually casual clothes
except for beach wear or picnics. In the winter suits are
worn but in summer the standard garb for the university
girl is a tight silk dress or skirt and a more or less
transparent blouse. High heels and nylon stockings are
standard and make-up is elaborate. Some Muslim girls (not
university students) wear a completely transparent
symbolic veil over their faces. A few years ago, girls
were shy about being seen on the beaches with bathing
suits, especially in a bikini. Now they take it in their
stride and many wear scanty two-piece bathing suits. (pp.
122-123)5
Feminism is an unnatural, artificial
and abnormal product of contemporary social disintegration,
which in turn is the inevitable result of the rejection of
all transcendental, absolute moral and spiritual values.
The student of anthropology and history can be certain of the
abnormality of the Feminist movement because all human
cultures that we know of throughout prehistorically and
historic times make a definite clear-cut distinction between
“masculinity” and “femininity” and
pattern the social roles of men and women accordingly. The
disintegration of the home and family, the loss of the
authoritarian role of the father and sexual promiscuity have
been directly responsible for the decline and fall of every
nation which these evils become prevalent.
Some may argue that if this is so, why
is Western civilization so extraordinarily vigorous and
dynamic and despite its decadence and moral corruption, still
unchallenged in its world-domination?
When
moral depravity, self-worship and sensual indulgence have
touched extremes; when men and women, young and old have
become lost in sexual craze; when men have been
completely perverted by sexual excitements, the natural
consequences leading a nation to total collapse will
inevitably follow. People who witness the progress and
prosperity of such declining nations, which indeed stand
on the very brink of an abyss of fire, are led to
conclude that their self-indulgence is not impeding
their progress but accelerating it. They think that a
nation is at the peak of its prosperity when its people
are highly self-indulgent. But this is a sad conclusion.
When the constructive and destructive forces are both
working side by side and the constructive aspect on the
whole seems to have an edge over the destructive aspect,
it is wrong to count the latter among the factors leading
to the former.
Take,
for instance, the case of a clever merchant who is
earning high profits by dint of his intelligence, hard-work
and experience. But at the same time, if he is given to
drink, gambling and leads a care-free life, will it not
be misleading to regard that side of his life as
contributing to his well-being and prosperity? As a
matter of fact, the first set of qualities is helping him
to prosper whereas the second set is pulling him down. If
on account of the positive qualities, he is flourishing,
it does not mean that the negative forces are ineffective.
It may be that the devil of gambling brings his whole
fortune to naught in a moment and it may be that the
devil of drinking leads him to commit a fatal mistake
rendering him bankrupt and it may be that the devil of
sexual indulgence leads him to commit murder, suicide
or some other calamity. One cannot imagine how prosperous
and triumphant he would have been had he not fallen a
prey to these evils.
Similarly
is the case with a nation. In the beginning it receives
an impetus from constructive forces but then, due to lack
of proper guidance, it begins to gather round it the
means of its own destruction. For a while the
constructive forces drag it along under the momentum
already gained. But the destructive forces that are
working simultaneously weaken it so much that one stray
shock can send it sprawling to its doom.6
Where can salvation for
humanity be found?
From
the point of view of social structure, the teachings of
the Shariah emphasize the role of the family as
the unit of society - the family in the extended sense
and not in its atomized, nuclear modem form. The greatest
social achievement of the Prophet in Medina was precisely
in breaking the existing tribal bonds and substituting
religious ones which were connected on the one hand with
the totality of the Muslim community and on the other
hand with the family. The Muslim family is the miniature
of the whole of Muslim society and its firm basis. In it,
the man or father functions as the Imam in
accordance with the patriarchal nature of Islam. The
religious responsibility of the family rests upon his
shoulders. In the family, the father upholds the tenets
of the faith and his authority symbolizes that of God in
the world. The man is in fact respected in the family
precisely because of the sacerdotal function that he
fulfils. The rebellion of Muslim women in certain
quarters of Islamic society came when men themselves
ceased to fulfil their religious function and lost their
virile and patriarchal character. By becoming themselves
effeminate, they caused the reaction of revolt among
certain women who no longer felt the authority of
religion upon themselves.
The
traditional family is also the unit of stability of
society and the four wives that a Muslim can marry, like
the four-sided Ka’aba, symbolize this
stability. Many have not understood why such a family
structure is permitted in Islam and attack Islam for it
as if polygamy belongs to Islam alone. Here and again
Muslim modernism carries with it the prejudice of
Christianity against polygamy to the extent that some
have gone even so far as to call it immoral and prefer
promiscuity to a social pattern which minimizes all
illicit relations to the extent possible. The problem of
the attitude of the Western observer is not as important
as that segment of modernized Muslim society which itself
cannot understand the teachings of the Shariah on
this point simply because it uses as criteria categories
borrowed from the modern West.
There is no doubt that in a small
but significant segment of Muslim society today, there is
a revolt of women against traditional Islamic society. In
every civilisation a reaction always comes against an
existing force or action. In Islam, the very patriarchal
and masculine nature of the tradition makes the revolt of
those women who have become aggressively modernised more
violent and virulent than, let us say, in Hinduism, where
the maternal element has always been strong. What many
modernised Muslim women are doing in rebelling against
the traditional Muslim family structure is to rebel
against fourteen centuries of Islam itself although many
may not be aware of the inner forces that drive them on.
It is the patriarchal nature of Islam that makes the
reaction of some modernised women today so vehement.
Although very limited in number, they are, in fact, more
than Muslim men, thirsting for all things Western. They
seek to become modernised in their dress and habits with
impetuosity, which would be difficult to understand
unless one considers the deep psychological factors
involved.
From the Islamic point of view, the
question of the equality of men and women is meaningless.
It is like discussing the equality of a rose and a
jasmine. Each has its own perfume, colour, shape and
beauty. Men and women are not the same. Each has
particular features and characteristics. Women are not
equal to men. But neither are men equal to women. Islam
envisages their roles in society not as competing but as
complimentary. Each has certain duties and functions in
accordance with his or her nature and constitution.
Man possesses certain privileges
such as social authority and mobility against which he
has to perform many heavy duties. First of all, he
bears all economic responsibility. It is his duty to
support his family completely even if his wife is rich
and despite the fact that she is economically independent.
A woman in a traditional Islamic society does not have to
worry about earning a living. There is always a family
completely even if his wife is rich and despite die fact
that she is economically independent. A woman in
traditional Islamic society does not have to worry about
earning a living. There is always the larger family
structure in which she can find a place and take refuge
from social and economic pressures even if she has no
husband or father. In the extended family system, a man
often supports not only his wife and children but also
his mother, sister, aunts, in-laws and sometimes even
cousins and more distant relatives. Therefore in city
life, the necessity of having to find a job at all costs
and having to bear the economic pressure of life is
lifted from the shoulders of women. As for the
countryside, the family is itself the economic unit and
the work is achieved by the larger family or tribal unit
together.
Secondly, a woman does not have to
find a husband for herself. Site does not have to display
her charms and make the thousand and one plans through
which she hopes to attract a future mate. The terrible
anxiety of having to find a husband and of missing the
opportunity if one does not try hard enough at the right
moment is spared the Muslim woman. Being able to remain
true to her nature, she can afford to sit at home and
wait for her parents or guardian to choose a suitable
match. This usually leads to a marriage which, being
based on the sense of religious duty and enduring family
and social bonds between the two sides, is more lasting
arid ends much more rarely in divorce than the marriages
which are based on the sentiments of the moment that
often do not develop into more permanent relationships.
Thirdly the Muslim woman is spared
direct military and political responsibility although in
rare cases there have been women warriors. This point may
appear as a deprivation to some but in the light of the
real needs of feminine nature, it is easy to see that for
most women, such duties weigh heavily upon them. Even in
modern societies, which through the equalitarian process
have tried to equate men and women as if there were no
difference in the two sexes, Women are usually spared the
military draft except in extreme circumstances.
In return for these privileges
which the woman receives, she has also certain
responsibilities of which the most important is to
provide a home for her family and to bring up her
children properly. In the home the woman rules as queen
and a Muslim man is in a sense the guest of his wife at
home. The home and the larger family structure in which
she lives are for the Muslim woman her world. To be cut
off from it would be like being cut off from the world or
like dying. She finds the meaning of her existence in
this extended family structure which is constructed so as
to give her the maximum possibility of realizing her
basic needs and fulfilling herself.
The Shariah therefore envisages the
role of men and women according to their nature, which is
complimentary. It gives the man the privilege of social
and political authority and movement for which he has to
pay by bearing heavy responsibilities, by protecting his
family from all the forces and pressures of society,
economic and otherwise. Although a master in the world at
large and the head of his own family, the man acts in his
home as one who recognize the rule of his wife, in this
domain and respects it. Through mutual understanding
and the realization of the responsibilities that God has
placed on each other’s shoulders, the Muslim man and
woman are able to fulfill their personalities and create a
firm family unit which is the basic structure of Muslim
society.7
In the vehement rejection of
the cultural, moral and spiritual values, indispensable for
maintaining the institution of the family, those who support
the Women’s Liberation Movement are revolting against
the whole Christian heritage of their own civilization.
Despite the evils of its
feudalistic society and the abuses of the authority of the
priesthood, medieval Europe enjoyed a social integration,
stability, peace and harmony which is unknown to modern
Europe. Here is a vivid and moving description of Christian
family values practically implemented in medieval Europe as
taken from the family chronicles of the famous German artist,
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) who, although a devout Christian,
presents a picture of his own home life as very close to
Islamic ideals.
Albrecht Durer, my beloved father,
came to Germany, and stayed for a long time in the low
countries, working with the great masters and finally
came here to Nuremberg in the year of Our Lord 1455 on St.
Eligius’s day. And on this same day (June 25th)
there was the wedding of Philip Pircheimer in the castle
and a great reception under the big lime tree.
Thenceforth, for a long time, my beloved father, Albrecht
Durer served the old Hiercrnonymus Holper until the year
of our Lord 1467. Then he gave him his daughter Barbara,
a handsome, virtuous maid, fifteen years of age and they
were married eight days before St. Vitus (June 8).
This good mother of mine bore and
brought up eighteen children, often had the pestilence
and many other severe illnesses, endured great poverty,
ridicule, scorn, alarm, and misfortune, yet she never
bore revenge. These brothers and sisters of mine, my
beloved father’s children, are all dead, some died
young, the rest when adult. Only we three brothers are
still living, so long as it may please God; namely,
I, Albrecht and my brother Andreas, likewise my brother
Hans. the third of that name out of my father’s
children.
This said Albrecht Durer, the eider,
worked hard all his life and had nothing else to live on
but what he earned for himself, his wife and his
children with his own hands. He also had all manner of
grief, temptation and adversity. And all who knew him
praised him for he led an honourable Christian life, was
a patient and gentle man, peaceable towards everyone and
he was very thankful to God. He had little-use for
society and worldly pleasures; he was also a man
of few words and Godfearing. My beloved father took great
pains to teach his children to honour the Lord. For his
greatest wish was to bring up his children well so that
they would be pleasing in the sight of God and man.
Therefore he continually told us to love God and behave
honourably towards our fellow men.
And my father was especially fond
of me for he saw that I was eager to learn. Therefore he
sent me to school and when I had learnt to read and write,
he cook me away from school and taught me the goldsmith’s
craft. And when I had mastered this, I felt that [would
rather be a painter than a goldsmith. When I told my
father this, he was not pleased for he grieved at the
loss of time I had spent as his apprentice. But in the
end, he let me have my way and in the year of our Lord
1486, on St. Andrew’s day (30th November) my
father hound me as apprentice to Michael Wolgemut to
serve him for three years. In that time God gave me
diligence and I learnt well but I also had to suffer much
at the hands of his assistants.
And after I had come home, Hans
Frey negotiated with my father and gave me his daughter,
Agnes and with her gave me 200 forms and we were married
on Monday, July 7th before St. Margaret’s day in the
year 1494.
Later it happened that my father
became ill with dysentery and no one could cure him. And
when he saw death approaching, he submitted to it calmly
and patiently and commended my mother to my care and bade
us to follow in the way of the Lord. He received the last
sacraments and died a Christian death, leaving my mother
a sorrowing widow. He had always praised her to me
exceedingly as a most godly woman. Therefore I resolved
never to forsake her.
All my friends! I ask you in God’s
name when you read of my pious father’s death to say
a Paternoster and an Ave Maria for his soul
and for the sake of your souls too, that we may, by
serving God succeed in living a good life and dying a
good death. For it is not possible that one who has led a
good life should die an evil death for God is merciful.
Now you shall know that in the year
5513, on a Tuesday before Rogation, my poor mother -whom
I had taken care of for nine years since she came to live
with me two years after my father died when she was quite
penniless - was taken so ill early in the morning that we
had to break open her door - for she was too weak to let
us in and that that was the only way we could get to her.
We brought her downstairs and she received both
sacraments for everyone knew she was about to die. She
had never been well since my father died.
More than a year from the said day
on which she fell ill, in the year of our Lord, May 17,
1514, two hours before dark, my pious mother, Barbara
Durer departed from this life with all the sacraments,
absolved from pain and sin by papal authority. Before she
died, she gave me her blessing and wished me divine peace
with much good advice to guard myself from Sm. And she
was most afraid of death but she said she was not afraid
to meet God. And my mother’s death grieved me more
than I can say. May God have mercy on her soul ! It was
always her greatest pleasure to speak of God and see that
we honoured Him. And it was her custom. to go regularly
to church and she always scolded me heavily when I did
wrong. And she was always anxious lest I or my brothers
should sin. And whenever I went out or came in, she would
say, “God be with you !“ And she constantly
gave us solemn warning and had continual concern
for our souls. And I cannot say enough about her good
works and the kindness she showed to everybody or of her
good name.
And it was in her sixty-third year when she
died. And I buried her fittingly in accordance with my
means. May the Lord grant me that I too die a Christian
death and that I may join Him and His Heavenly Host, my
father, my mother and my friends and may Almighty God
give us eternal life! Amen. And in death she looked far
sweeter than when she was still alive.8
A uni-sexual society be proposed be the
feminists - that is, a society which makes no cultural or
social distinction between the sexes, a society without marriage,
home and family, where modesty, chastity and motherhood are
scorned, does not represent “progress” or “liberation”
but degradation at its worst. The result is pure and
unadulterated anarchy, confusion and chaos.
If so, why is Feminism so popular?
The social order founded
on materialism is the oldest and most popular. No social
order is more satisfying, none so easy to evolve and so
readily acceptable to the majority of men in all climes
and at all times. It has such a deep attraction for the
masses that its roots need not go deep into the soil nor
is it necessary to raise the level of human
intelligence or make any sacrifice for its sake. One
requires no altruism or endurance. One need only drift
with the “times.” History bears witness to the
fact that no social order has so persistently come to
have its sway over humanity as it has done.9
Never has moral corruption and
social decadence menaced mankind on such a universal scale as
is the case now. The adoption of feminist ideals degrades
humans lower than the animals. For animals live by their
instincts and cannot do anything opposed to their nature.
Among animals, homosexuality is unknown. The male is only
attracted to the female of its own species. The male animal
never goes with lust to another male or a female to another
female. Among animals, the maternal relationship is
completely severed as soon as the young are able to look
after themselves. In most species, the father takes no
interest in its offspring. There is no such thing as modesty,
chastity, marriage or filial ties among. beasts. These
concepts are unique with human beings. They are found in
every culture at every stage of civilization and history. The
feminists wish to abolish the very characteristics, which
make man human and undermine the foundation of all his
relationships and social ties. The result will be suicide,
not only of a single nation as in the past, but of the entire
human race.
1 The Rebirth of Feminism,
Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, The New York Tomies, New York,
1971, pp. 228
2 Ibid, p.240.
3 The New Woman; A Motive Anthology
on Women’s Liberation, edited by Joanne Cooke and
Charlotte Bunch-Weeks, New York, 1970. pp. 79-81.
4
Ibid., p.122-125.
5 Women in the Modern World, edited
by Raphael Palai. The Free Press, New York 1967.
6 Purdah and the Status of Woman in
Islam, Sayyid Abul ‘Ala Maudooda, Islamic
Publications, Lahore, 1972, pp. 52-53.
7 Ideals and Realities of Islam, Syed
Hossein Nasr, George AIIen & Unwin, London, 1966, pp. 110-113.
8 The Durer House in Nuremberg: Extracts
from Durer’s Family Chronicles and Reminiscences,
English translation by John M. Woolman, Nuremberg. pp. 34-46.
8 Religion and Civilization, Abul
Hasan All Nadawi, Academy of Islamic Research and 8 Publications,
Lucknow, 1970, p. 45.
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