Women in Islam

Running head: WOMEN IN ISLAM
Women in Islam
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1WOMEN IN ISLAM
The issue of women in Islam is highly controversial. From the perspective of Muslim,
Islam always provides women in the society, a position of respect and honour along with
clearly stated obligations and rights. However, the historical circumstances through the
centuries have often worked on the disfavour of the Islamic Women, their predominant
tradition of male authority and the honour that have made women face difficulties in availing
themselves the rights guaranteed by the Holy Quran. This essay shall elaborate on the
condition of Women in Islamic society of Egypt (Abdelmonem & Galán, 2017). It would
highlight the issues in the Islamic form of modesty and the judgement that are levelled
against it. The Islamic expectation of women to observe modesty by means of covering
themselves as much as possible in order to safeguard themselves from sexual predators and
for the sake of maintaining their honour is but a farcical and archaic principle which puts the
onus of blame on women for their predicament.
It is to note that Islam is highly criticised for victimising and sexualising women
instead of respecting them and protecting them from the sexual predators. The idea of
‘veiling’ or that of providing them the freedom of dressing skimpily, it has always been from
the perspective and the convenience of men in Islam and not women (Brown & Osman,
2017). Most of the Muslim women in today’s date wear their veil or “Burkha” in order to get
unnoticed from the eyes of males in the society. However, still, the high rate of sexual
harassment of women in the Islamic world and most surprisingly in the holiest pilgrimage site
of the Muslims, the Masjid Al Haram of Mecca proves that no matter how much a women
covers herself up, she is still likely to get harassed. One of the very notable practices to
mention in this context is that of the degrading practice of Taharrush Jamai of Egypt. It is to
note that “Taharrush” means ‘collective harassment’. It is a practise where the women are
raped and sexually harassed openly in public by a large crowd of men and that too, in
barbaric manner. Also, as it takes place in large crowd, therefore, the offenders usually go

2WOMEN IN ISLAM
unpunished and it becomes tough to identify the one who did it. Other is the rising cases of
sexual harassments of women in the country post the Arab Spring of 2013 as a means of
disciplining women and subjugating them. This substantiates that modesty and prevention of
sexual harassments are not directly proportional to each other (Abdelmonem, 2015).
Furthermore, the Islamic political party, the Muslim Brotherhood has in the name of
promotion of Islamic values among the masses and in women generally have deployed young
men to assault women who appear publicly without hijab. For each and every non-hijab-
wearing women in Egypt, every subway platform has become a danger zone. As per Shirazi
(2017), the real motive behind this is to curb the rising voices of Muslim women in political
matters which are perceived as threat by the political leaders of the country. A very
significant case to remember in this context is that ever since the Arab Spring that had caused
the authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak to be dethroned of his power, the women have
become the soft targets and the mass assault on the women have increased. The most iconic
being the sexual assault of a 22 years old female Dutch journalist by the Protesters at the
Tahrir Square (Abdelmonem & Galán, 2017). A group of men raped her while covering the
uprising in Tahrir Square. It is the same place where in 2011, the chief foreign correspondent
named Lara Logan was beaten and sexually assaulted by the protesters. Over the 4 days of
protests starting on 30th June, 2013, about 101 women in the place were raped amidst what
was described as “a climate of impunity”. Four of them required medical assistance. These
women were beaten up with sticks, metal chains, and chairs and even attacked with knives.
Some of them were raped with sharp objects and some of them were attacked for around 45
long minutes before they managed to escape from the very place.
As per the speech of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian Supreme Leader, “veil prevents
sexual harassment and violence toward women” (Shirazi, 2017). But, irrespective of a
woman being dressed Islamic ally, they tend to get harassed on the streets (Brown & Osman,