Women of the west Vs women of Islam
"Do the women of the West have more rights than the women of Islam? Who has always had rights? Who believes in "Equality" and who believes in "Uniformity"?
First of all we need to establish when the issues of human rights was raised in the western society that we live in i.e. Britain. Britain which is considered to be the oldest democratic country only recognized equal rights for men and women at the beginning of this century (20th). The West see these rights as a novelty in their lives. However, the equality of rights between men and women have been anticipated 14 centuries ago in Islam.
Is there a difference? Yes! Islam says a woman and a man are not identical in many respects, and the world is not exactly alike for both of them, and their natures and dispersions were not intended to be the same. This requires that in many duties, rights and punishments they should not have an identical placing.
Unfortunately, this is not the case in the Western culture that surrounds us. The western world is trying to create uniformity and identicalness in Laws, regulations, rights functions between men and women as they do this they are ignoring the innate and natural differences.
Islam strongly approves and encourages equality, but does not agree with identicalness, uniformity and exact similarity. The sadness in all this is that the many rights that have been given to women by Islam have in practice been ignored and should be restored.
The biggest misfortune for a Muslim woman or for any woman attempting to acquire identical rights as that of a man, in my opinion, loose the right of being who she is -"A Woman" - yet not reaching an equal of a man. She should have faith in the rights suitable for herself and not be encouraged by the West to exceed them.
This way her status may be considered equal or higher than that of a man. She should take as her models Bibi Khadija a.s.(this First person to accept Islam and the Prophets wife), Bibi Fatemah a.s. (daughter of the Prophet and brave life companion of Imam Ali a.s.) and Bibi Zainab a.s.( the woman who contrived the Kerbala battle to end, and proved that the blood of the martyrs were not shed in vain).
