Feminist Muslims? The view from Bangladesh

Katherine, I actually had to review your CV to make sure I hadn't confused you for someone else. Assuming you are Kathrine Marshall, formerly of the World Bank, I must ask whether this column indicates a mental breakdown or the writing of someone else. Or, do you think all OnFaith readers are provincial morons?

The Bangladesh government (dictatorship) lead by the India supported family Avenger is due for a great fall. The literacy rate in Bangladesh is 50 per cent for men, 31 per cent for women.

Bangladesh is one of the POOREST COUNTRIES in the WORLD. IN THE WORLD.

The great tradition of Bangladeshi learning, poetry, philosophy persists as well as they can in the face of an oppressive Islamism and poverty in which honor killings, and the sale of daughters in arranged marriages is commonplace.

Corruption is the way of government and business. There isn't enough land for the big population and those who own it aren't sharing. They squat on the border with India and get killed there.

They starve to death, die from eating contaminated food. Ever look at the fish in the stalls in Dhaka?

I've been there, Katherine, but a trip to isn't necessary to confirm what I write.
Use google. Begin to read.

Here's something to start you off with.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3821/is_201004/ai_n56226384/?tag=content;col1

it-man

abrahamhab1,Helocells1 (two sides of the same coin)

Are you not one and the same person? your comments on various place on this forum are same.
What quality of honesty and trust one can expect when it-self the writers are a fraud.
Shame on you.

Aspergirl,

Yes,you are right.

Always,Others(infidels) are guilty for Present Bad Situation in muslim countries.

-Westerners are guilty(muslim is not)
-Missionaries are guilty(mullaha are not)
-Imperialists are guilty(muslims were/are imperialists as well.What is the business of islam in East India/Bangladesh? What was the business of islam in Promised Land of Master Race,Spain,Central Asia,Iran,Mesopotamia,Sub-Continent,Indonesia,Africa)
-CIA is guilty
-Colonialists are guilty(Bedouin is not)
-USA and England are guilty

Briefly,everyone is guilty except muslim.
Isnt Desert Order guilty ?
Isnt Bedouin Mentality guilty ?
Muslims,Culture of Submission,Desert Rules have never Guilt and Fault ???

You critisize Westerners(Civilization Teachers) in Africa,but,what muslim colonialists/imperialists did in Darfur,North Africa,North Nigeria,Chad etc.
Who murdered 3*5 million Hindu in East India/Bangladesh in 1971(I dont count old times)

And,your final sentence *"some ideas" that survived because they were preserved by Arabs reflowering European culture*
Why,why those "Some Ideas" couldnt reflowering Bedouin Culture and couldnt create Baasubaadalmevt culture in islamic countries ?

We must be grateful for liberal and reforming Muslims and encourage them. Women imams in Canada, the USA, and Spain are an encouragement. Women re-interpreting (ignoring certain parts) of the texts of Islam is a positive development.

How long will it be allowed to continue? The fundamentalists are on the warpath!

Abrahamhab1, I do agree that I left a lot of history out of my somewhat skewed little essay. However, I think you're also leaving out the fact that Western Europe existed through a thousand years of horrific feudalism, where the peasants were mere animals owned by the privileged few, and the privileged few were crowned and/or authorized in such role by the Catholic Church. Through much of that time, attempts by those outside the church to even disseminate books and ideas, were punishable by death.

And the Renaissance is considered by many to be simply a reflowering of European culture subsequent to the redistribution of some ideas that survived because they were preserved by Arabs.

Aspergirl says:
"Islam, and its resistance to the socially destructive influence of the vanguard of Western Christian missionaries, is one of the reasons why native populations in the Middle East have largely escaped the raping, social destruction and imperialist plundering of their resources that South America and Africa has suffered."

Reading this complaint gives the impression that the Middle East is fairing much better than S America and Africa.
Five hundred years of Turkish misrule that drove that region into the Stone Age during the period when the West was advancing through Renaissance , Industrial Revolutionand up to modern times does not ilicit a word of condemnation.Why? Because the Turks are "brothers in religion". Yet the mere 30 years rule of French and British rule to that region thet catapulted the Middle East from the Stone Age into the 15th Century is because the Middle East escaped the "plundering" Devil incarnate;the West.This is what is taught in their Sharia compliant books.

The brother of a Harry Potter star has been jailed for six months for a ''prolonged and nasty'' attack in which she was beaten and branded a ''slag'' for dating a non-Muslim.
Afshan Azad, 21, who played Padma Patil, a classmate of the teenage wizard, in the blockbuster Hollywood films based on JK Rowling's children's books, feared for her life during the three-hour ordeal, Manchester Crown Court heard.

She was punched, dragged around by her hair and strangled by her brother Ashraf Azad, 28, who threatened to kill her after he caught her talking on the phone to her Hindu boyfriend on May 21 last year, the court was told.

During the row at the family home in Longsight, Manchester, which also involved her mother and father, she was branded a ''slag'' and a ''prostitute'' and told: ''Marry a Muslim or you die!''

The actress, who now lives in London, had pleaded for leniency from the court, begging the judge not to jail her older brother.

Stockholm syndrome.

But Judge Roger Thomas QC sent him to prison for six months after he pleaded guilty to the assault.
''This persistent attack was accompanied by serious and very hurtful abuse and threats,'' he told the defendant.

''It must have been a miserable and frightening experience for your sister which, she suggested, lasted for about three hours or so.

''The background to this offence lies in the concern that you, and perhaps other family members, had about Afshan's relationship with a young man who was not of the Islamic faith.''

Judge Thomas added: ''This is a sentence that is designed to punish you for what you did and also to send out a clear message to others that domestic violence involving circumstances such as have arisen here cannot be tolerated.''

Earlier, the court heard that the actress's family are devout Muslims but she had begun a "romantic relationship" with a Hindu man....

This is what her brother got six months for:

"He then grabbed her hair and threw her across the room," the prosecutor said.
"He pulled her by the hair and threw her on the floor.

"She began crying and asked him to stop. The defendant began punching her with clenched fists to her back and head area."

As the actress cowered in a ball on the floor, her brother's wife, Sonia, who also lived at the address, came into the room and tried to push him away.

"He told her to stay out of it," Mr Vardon continued, "because he would do what he wanted with his little sister.

"He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up from the floor, dragging her downstairs to her father's bedroom."

She was pushed on to her father's bed, with her brother shouting: "Sort your daughter out! She's a slag!"

Her father may then have said: "Just kill her!"

If Bengali Muslim women achieve the goal of defining a misogyny free interpretation of Islam for themselves, they will be better situated than their Christian sisters in third world countries.

The Christian social model of (Catholic) reproductive rights misogyny results in the economic chaos in the lives of lower classes and economic slavery of the lower classes. The Developed West finally threw off feudalism by rejecting the abasement of the female and the individual when it emerged from Rome's absolute domination in Medieval period, but third world countries under the influence of Christianity continue to live in social disorder and economic slavery. In Africa, the Christians have for decades taught AIDS-ridden communities with limited food resources that God doesn't want them to use condoms, that condoms cause AIDS, that sex is evil and how to burn witches. The culture of mass rape, STD's, genocidal wars and social disorder that has erupted across the content in recent decades, has been wholly under the influence of the West and its Christian missionaries who destroy native traditions and value systems, and destabilize native cultures and their population stability with its misogynistic memes demonizing female reproductive rights and birth control.

This destructive influence of the Christian missionaries has played out for centuries in continent after continent, as the native cultures have been destroyed and social disorder and economic slavery created, as the missionaries work hand in hand with the imperialists who loot and plunder the resources of the native lands while the missionaries destroy and disrupt the native cultures and teach the natives to be economic slaves.

When the lives of women are holistic, healthy and reproduction rights are owned by the person and not the state (or church), then a modern post-industrial society begins to develop. The model of Third World economic slavery under the influence of Christianity of the Imperalistic West is and always has been dependent on the subjucation of native women, out of control reproduction and the ensuing disruption of the existing native economy and its social order.

Islam, and its resistance to the socially destructive influence of the vanguard of Western Christian missionaries, is one of the reasons why native populations in the Middle East have largely escaped the raping, social destruction and imperialist plundering of their resources that South America and Africa has suffered.

If the Bengali women can succeed in formulating a holistic and balanced social order for women within Islam, the Muslim world can prepare to engage in globalization and define a global social leadership on its own terms that is meaningful for the Third World, escaping the fate of other former Imperialist West colonies whose initiation into globalization meant their cultures were destroyed and resources were looted.

As woman get more rights and equality around the World even reaching to be President the US is moving backward by Leaders repealing woman's rights.

Quit whinning, you have it very good in this county....

Muslim women should leave the religion. That would be the fastest way to take down Islam. Women would no longer be abused while being used to spread a misogynist, violent political ideology that seeks to condemn them to second class status.

Another useful idiot. Sounds like
something John Esposito would write.

Women in Bangladesh do not fare well.
The rate of violence against women in Bangladesh is among the world’s highest and rising.Every day 17 out of 100 women become victims of violence at home or in the workplace and 25% of them die.
Literacy rate among women is still 37%
Islamic fundamentalism is the root cause besides ofcourse poverty.

As a previous blogger has commented:
"The key is to get people to accept its rootedness in time and place; not force its incompatible values into advanced society."

I agree - least we not forget that religions are ever evolving idealogical theories, mostly interpreted by men, to this day with little regard for women in general - no matter what religion it is. How incompatible and advanced is that? The Vatican is no different as they continue to enforce their incompatible political values into our society today. Which century are they living in?

As woman get more rights and equality around the World even reaching to be President the US is moving backward by Leaders repealing woman's rights. We were once the leaders of humanity, values and equaity until 2002. Today Law Makers are taking about woman's rights and we even see the Priest helping the Govenment. We lost so much over 8 years and now Law Makers are making it worse while using God and the bible to do it. The US will be a third country soon as even China watched how we have a respectable President but the rest of the Govenment are evil bottom feeders.

**Women(muslimized East Indians/Bangladesh) are seeing their islamic identity as a source of empowerment and of liberation**Yes.

-They will be liberated when they enter in Black Wrap.
-They will be empowered when they scourged by their Masters/Husbands.
-East Indian muslim women will be liberated when they be One of Four Women.
-Muslimized East Indian Woman will be empowered when she has no right to divorce her master.
-They will be liberated when they murder 3-5 milliom Hindu(1971-1975)

Yes,Enslavement and Being Second Class Citizen will make Muslimized Sub-Continental Women liberated.

History tell me that 99.9 % of religions have been or are male dominated. The only way for women equality is atheism.

This article is a white wash of what has been happening in Bangla Desg for past 30 years. These apologies and excuses for Islam are misdirected. No body here gives a crap about it. We just would like to be left alone from it. You want to talk about Bangla Desh, and the intolerance that is Islam in BD, you really need to go back to 30 tears. When the intolerance started. You cannot talk about BD without talking about Taslima Nasreen. She was persecuted for being a truly tolerant person. She spoke up for the Hindus, who have practically been exterminated there.

Lots of upbeat happy talk with no actual reflection in the 14th century society being described. The actual dynamism in all Muslim societies is pointed towards repression. Lets all watch Tunisia and see what results from the reurn of the Islamist parties: goodbye womens' rights and hello veils.

Poverty appears to be the root cause behind women’s progress in Bangladesh. In this mostly rural South Asian agrarian nation, women’s rights tie in with education and economic empowerment. Case in point, a private village school in Sylhet, the nation’s northeastern division, has helped young girls gain access to higher education, and nursing. Instead of getting married off as teenagers, some are now nurses in the cities. The Holy Quran advocates women’s rights, as much as possible in seventh century Arabia. Rights to property, inheritance, even divorce are prescribed for in the book. However, an illiterate woman will most likely listen to almost anyone claiming religious authority. This is where the progressive citizenry should step in by promoting educational awareness.

Islamic feminism is a square-peg round-hold problem.

The Quran is the disorganized ramblings of a seventh-century Arab warlord aggrandizing himself and throwing in a few guidelines about how to run a society based on the values of seventh-century Arab warlords.

The key is to get people to accept its rootedness in time and place; not force its incompatible values into advanced society.

Many Muslim apologists including the authoer of this article try to pin the sorry state of women in Islamic societies on "culture". Muslims live in different geographical locations and speak different languages and have different customs yet misogyny is one of the few common factors.Others are more creative and blame the second class status of women in Muslim dominated societies to Emperor Justinian. According to Malaka Yousif, the legal advisor to the family courts in Egypt, this man incorporated the women second class status in his code which was adopted by Emperor Napoleon in his code and "forced on the Muslim societies." YES! It is always somebody's elses fault!