Covered, Confined, Cursed: The Place Of Women In Islam

In Egypt, where the men-to-women ratio is roughly equal, it looks like the new “Arab Spring” male-dominated Islamist rulers are taking the status of women very seriously. And that isn’t a good thing …

Daniel 11:36-38, “… he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods … Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women … But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour …”

By Ali Sina, FaithFreedom.org – “There are two men in Islam that are indisputably the greatest in the annals of this religion. They are Imam al Ghazzali and Jalaleddin Rumi, both Persians. Let us see what they thought of women.

Ghazzali is so highly revered amongst the majority of Muslim clerics that he is called Hojjatul Islam, ‘proof of Islam’. For many, his authority in religious matters is only second to the Prophet. In his The Revival of the Religious Sciences Ghazzali defines the position of women in Islam:

• She should stay at home and get on with her spinning
• She can go out only in emergencies.
• She must not be well-informed nor must she be communicative with her neighbors and only visit them when absolutely necessary.
• She should take care of her husband and respect him in his presence and his absence and seek to satisfy him in everything.
• She must not leave her house without his permission and if given his permission she must leave secretly.
• She should put on old clothes and take deserted streets and alleys, avoid markets, and make sure that a stranger does not hear her voice, her footsteps, smell her or recognize her.
• She must not speak to a friend of her husband even in need.
• Her sole worry should be her “al bud” (reproductive organs) her home as well as her prayers and her fast.
• If a friend of her husband calls when her husband is absent she must not open the door nor reply to him in order to safeguard her “al bud”.
• She should accept what her husband gives her as sufficient sexual needs at any moment.
• She should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband’s sexual needs at any moment.

The great theologian then warns all men to be careful of women for their ‘guile is immense and their mischief is noxious; they are immoral and mean spirited’.

Ghazzali states ‘It is a fact that all the trials, misfortunes and woes which befall men come from women’.

In his Book of Counsel for Kings, Ghazzali sums up things that a woman has to endure because of Eve’s misbehavior in the Garden of Eden…” Read more.

Egypt’s New Government: Women Need Not Apply – “When Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was elected in late June, he promised to represent all Egyptians by forming a government inclusive of women, Christians, youth and even artists and intellectuals… Only two women were named to the government, including Nadia Zukhari, who is also a Copt. Making up almost 52% of the population, women who stood alongside men in the uprising that deposed Mubarak continue to feel ignored a year and a half after the revolution. ‘The process of forming the government was fake. Giving women or Copts one or two minor posts does not mean you are being inclusive,’ said Salma Nakash, a researcher at Nazra Feminist Studies and a women’s rights advocate.” Read more.