Mythology- Islam Women, Islam, and Term Paper

Therefore, more and more Muslim women have begun advocating for human rights. In addition:

Based on their life experience, most Muslim women who become human rights advocates or activists, feel strongly that virtually all Muslim societies discriminate against women from cradle to grave. This leads many of them to become deeply alienated from Muslim culture in a number of ways. This bitter sense of alienation oftentimes leads to anger and bitterness toward the patriarchal systems of thought and social structures which dominate most Muslim societies. (Hassan, 2007).

The problem with this is that these women cannot necessarily effect a change within Muslim society because, when they recognize the civil rights abuses under many current Islamist regimes, they remove themselves from Muslim society, which makes them unable to affect other Muslims.

Therefore, it becomes clear that women who are practicing Muslims need to become interested in civil rights. Some people claim that the world's successful civil rights movements have occurred in the Western world and have been secularly driven, but such statements reveal a grossly ignorant view of these movements. For example, in the United States, the abolitionist movement and the 1960s Civil Rights Movement were very based in religion. Many of the leaders of both movements were members of the clergy, and churches were used as a means to spread the messages of equality. Likewise, Gandhi's movement for India's freedom from Britain was a largely religious movement, which relied upon religious principles and talked about the equality of man. Therefore, it is clear that human rights are not an exclusively Western concern and that they are not issues that should be approached in a purely secular manner. Therefore, women in Islam need to work for human rights, before there are no Muslim women left who believe in human rights.

Perhaps the most important reason that Muslim women should work for human rights is a religious reason. In its purest form, Islam is a religion that celebrates women and speaks to the equality of all persons. When Muslim women allow Muslim men to subjugate them and treat them as if they are somehow lesser because of their sexes, they are allowing Muslim men to dishonor Allah. After all, it is not women who have said that they are equal to men, but Allah who said that men and women are equal. In addition to equality, the basic tenets of Islam celebrate the fact that freedom is an inherent right and that people are entitled to justice. By refusing to stand up to the unjust deprivation of their basic human freedoms, Muslim women are allowing people to corrupt their religion. Therefore, the preservation of Islam is the strongest argument for Muslim women working for Human Rights.

References

Hassan, R. (2007). Are human rights compatible with Islam? Retrieved August 21, 2007 from the religious consultation on population, reproductive health and ethics.

Web site: http://www.religiousconsultation.org/hassan2.htm

Karon, T. (2001). Time.com Primer: the Taliban and Afghanistan. Retrieved August 21, 2007 from Time

Web site: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,175372,00.html