Pakistanian Women Islam

In those days when no system, no community gave women any rights, in a society where the birth of a baby girl was regarded as a curse, where Women were considered chattel, Islam treated women as individuals. "Believers, men and women are mutual friends. They enjoin what is just and forbid what is evil," says the Quran (12:71). Long ago Islam gave women rights that modern nations have conceded grudgingly and only under pressure. Islam covers many lands with many diverse cultures, at a time when the entire world treated women with contempt.

Europeans debated if they had a soul or could enter paradise, Greeks treated them as commodities, Romans as slaves, Indo-culture as husband's funeral pyre, pre-Islamic Arabs as shame to be buried at birth and Europe and America only gave those citizenships only 150 years back. Women were unable even to question their status, let alone demand basic human and civil rights; Islam came like a beacon blazing forth in the darkness liberating and elevating them, hundreds of years ago, before the word 'liberation' became fashionable.

Islam has set the rights of women in society which are equal to men. While for the Pakistanian Women Islam and the rights given by this religion are not considered that much. Pakistani Women had been treated as possessions of their husbands; Islamic law made the education of girls a sacred duty and gave women the right to own and inherit property. He was a liberal at home as well as in the pulpit. The Prophet (SAWW) darned his own garments and among his wives and had a trader, a warrior, a leatherworker and an imam.

The Prophet (SAW) gave them many human rights which include; spiritual equality, equality in worship and rewards, right to education, right to inheritance and own independent property, final say/right over choice of marriage including right to negotiate marriage terms of her choice, right to seek divorce and the right to provisions from the husband for all her needs etc. To set the example for the whole mankind, the Prophet (SAW) himself used to help with the domestic work and mended his own shoes.

From the day she's conceived in the womb, she becomes the father's sole responsibility to feed, clothe and educate as a wife, that duty is transferred to the husband, if widowed to the next of kin, and so on, and these Divine obligations which Allah placed on the shoulders of men are lessened. Although a Pakistani woman has all these social and economical rights from birth that is not the end of it. At the time of inheritance, she too becomes an eligible candidate, as daughter, as mother, as widow or as sister:"Treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers" (Last sermon of Prophet (SAW).

Women are made of the same soul as men and their capacity for good and evil is identical with that of men. Women have such a high status and regard in Islam, that the Qur'an itself has a Surah called 'Nisa (Women) and also another Surah named after Jesus's mother 'Maryam'. The Quran refers to her in a beautiful and dignified way with respect and decency:"And when the angels said: O Mary! surely Allah has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of all the worlds" (Surah Ale Imran:42). "And Allah sets forth an example to those who believe . . . Mary, the daughter of Imran, who guarded her chastity, so We breathed into her of Our inspiration and she accepted the truth of the words of her Sustainer and His books,and she was of, the obedient ones" (Surah Tahrem:11-12).