By Babatunde Jose
A girl is not a statistic or a piece of property. She’s a child who deserves a future. Girls the world over face gender discrimination – just for being born a daughter and not a son. A girl’s education is less likely to be valued, and she’s more likely to be forced into early marriage, face violence or be stolen by traffickers. Her childhood cut short – her very life and future at risk.
Gender inequality between men and women is a criticism often made of the Islamic faith, and while there are ways in which men and women are regarded differently in Islam, the position regarding education is not one of them.
The practices of extremist groups like the Taliban have, in the public mind, been universalized to represent all Muslims, but this is decidedly an erroneous assumption, and nowhere is it more erroneous than in the belief that Islam itself prohibits education of girls and women.
The Prophet himself was something of a feminist, considering the time he lived in, championing the rights of women in a manner that was revolutionary for the historical period. And Islam strongly believes in the education of all followers.
There is nothing in the teachings of Islam that prevents the education of girls – the truth is quite the contrary.
It is therefore a case of wonderment, the goings on in Taliban ruled Afghanistan. It is a misconception of all known Islamic principles and an aberration of known tenets.
There may be discussion and debate over the content of secular education, the separation of boys and girls in schools, and other gender-related matters. But “Acquisition of knowledge is binding on all Muslims” (Sunan Ibn Majah 224).
The first verses of the Quran begin with the word: Read. Read in the name of thy Lord who created; [He] created the human being from blood clot. Read in the name of thy Lord who taught by the pen: [He] taught the human being what he did not know. (96: 1-5) Quran 96:1-5 is not gender specific. See also Quran 39:9.
Similarly, the Prophet also emphasized the significance of seeking knowledge on various occasions. For instance, after the Battle of Badr, the Muslims won and captured 70 non-Muslims as prisoners of war. The Prophet put the condition of teaching ten Muslim children how to read and write for releasing literate POWs. Again, it may be noted that there was no sex preference.
There are examples in history that show that women were regarded as scholars and teachers. A’isha al-Siddiqa, the youngest wife of the Prophet, was a Hadith-narrator. She was believed to have reported and taught 2,210 traditions. Islam does not restrict any girl from getting education. Aishah’s servant could also read and write.
There are research studies that highlight the real forces behind reluctances in girls’ education and how religion is being exploited to get vested interest of certain classes, organizations, or cultures.
Feudalism and patriarchy are major factors against female literacy in places such as Pakistan and some Asian countries. Other studies found flaws in top-level policies of Muslim countries’, culture, political interest, and media role as projecting the wrong image of Islam.
So many factors have been reported to be responsible for low enrolment of girls in schools in northern Nigeria. Mukhtar identified religious misinterpretation, cultural practice, poverty, early marriage, illiteracy, inadequate school infrastructure as some of the factors militating against girl-child education.
To majority of the parents, girl-child education is less attractive because no matter what level of education the girl attains, their hope is to see the girl-child get married. To some parents, western type of education is termed to be a way of negative transformation and initiation of the child into materialism, promiscuity, and inculcation of decadent western cultural values.
In Muslim countries around the world, there is a fundamental difference between what is prescribed by religious texts and what is practiced, a gulf between the ideal and the real.
In some Arab countries, the constitutions may guarantee women the right to work, and the labor law may be fair, yet the family law may empower the husband to have a say in whether the wife can go to work outside the home.
Family law delegates many powers to a man including major decisions about a girl’s life and hence it does not project the Islamic law in its true sense. The law may not explicitly say that, but “prejudicial aspect of family laws is based on strong patriarchal values, where the husband always has a dominating position”.
Patriarchalism is not limited to Muslim countries, Jewish religion is also patriarchal as we observe in the Old Testament. Patriarchalism is cultural and not the product of religion.
So, there is a need to review and revise (if needed) constitutions to safeguard the basic rights of women in Muslim countries.
Female education status should be discussed under the consideration of the fact that the teachings of Islam, combined with indigenous customs and traditions, play a crucial role in determining the status of women and their education.
Culture and religion are co-related. They affect each other. Culture, for example, influences how religion is interpreted, its place within society, etc.; religion, on the other hand, influences the formation of cultural values and practices. This have resulted in different interpretations and implementations of Islam.
For example, female infanticide is common in some countries, particularly India and China, and it is likely to have serious consequences on the balance of the sexes in the population. The reasons behind it are almost always cultural, rather than directly religious.
Female infanticide was common in pre-Islamic Arabia. However, by the time of Muhammad, and the revelation of the Qur’an, female infanticide was strictly forbidden and regarded as seriously as adult murder. See Quran 18:8/9 and 17:31.
The culture in most of the Arab countries appears to be more patriarchal, in which a birth of a girl is never welcomed because of an added liability and so they reluctantly send their daughters to schools. Yet, they still do. My sister and many of her peer group studied medicine at Ain Shams University in Cairo where they mixed with girl-students’ Arab counterparts. Saudi Arabia and most other Arab countries boast of female doctors and surgeons today, which would not have been possible if the religion forbade girl-child education.
The cultural norm of having a girl get married soon after she reaches puberty is another contributing factor of not opting for girls’ education.
So, there is need to propagate the actual Islamic teachings.
Many extant Islamic practices derive from patriarchal interpretations of the Qur’an in male-dominated societies where the prevailing norms influenced men’s largely biased interpretations of the holy book.
Men want to control women and so they do not wish to expose them to the world. Muslim countries have been a matter of patriarchal power rather than faith. Even in religious education, Muslims tend not to train women as religious leaders by not letting them enroll in religious institutions. This is akin to the Bible in 1 Timothy 2:12 “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” However, this is obliterated in Galatians 3:28 where the Bible says there will be no discrimination between Jews or Gentile, men, or women.
Muslim males raised the bars by constructing legal system that would discourage women, even though there are examples in Muslim history in which females made major political decisions. For example, Mohammad’s wife Ayisha had been instrumental in shaping the early destiny of Islam. After the death of the Prophet, Ayisha, using the concept of consultation, ijma, invited the leading Muslims to select and appoint her father Abu Bakre as the 1st Caliph.
Muslim women did not meekly accept their fate, but lack of education was a major obstacle in accessing these rights. In the 20th and current 21st centuries they have gradually found their way back to literacy and embarked on the long struggle to reclaim their rights.
Barka Juma’at and happy weekend
Babatunde Jose
