By Abdul Sattar
The suicide of a young woman Ayesha from Ahmedabad has left many perplexed. Many a times, it’s the parents who let us fall into the pit of ignorance and commit acts like suicide that take us near to kufr (Disbelief in the will of God). One of the reasons why a person commits a suicide is because of the continuous chain of people who were never told about this or were made aware of the teaching and the principles of Islam which linked each individual from the beginning. Ignorance doesn’t see which community people come from, it’s a prevailing phenomenon that has been passed down through the generations.
While majority of the people who have this same mindset and lifestyle live in similar communities; so that they don’t get left out or be regarded as different from others or to get belittled for being different from them. If a person offers prayers regularly and if he has a neighbour who doesn’t, then that individual would refrain to have the kind of proximity with his neighbour. Imams do their best to deliver sermons on Fridays, but unless individuals bring about a change and start to implement those teachings of Islam and try to reform themselves, we will hardly see any change in the society taking place. There’s much more that needs to be done on a bigger scale in terms of educating children and as well as parents.
Incidents like these are a shocker in our community, to show how much hollow and the amount of vacuum we have in our societies, We can understand when an actor like Sushant Singh commits suicide, who doesn’t understand the meaning of what Kufr is as he was not a Muslim. But Ayesha was a Muslim, Hijabi girl, who so effortlessly said that: “She’s not sure if she would go to Heaven or Hell”. It’s a matter of grieve and pain to see our brothers and sisters in such a poor emotional maturity and intelligence, and it’s the pressure and the grief which kills them first to take on this grave step.
What we Muslims in India especially have been doing is; we still haven’t opened the Masjids for the women folks to come and have talks and get together. Still, we have made masjids as male-owned buildings to show our reserved mindsets. We are allowing these incidents to take place in front of our own eyes by neglecting one of the most quintessential aspects of our future to educate the womenfolk. We are undermining our opportunities to educate our young brothers and sisters without channelizing our resources into good effect.
We need our Masjids to hold regular programs and sessions to educate and hone our younger generation on topics like Suicide, Dowry, Marriage, Emotional Intelligence, and personality development in light of Islam on a weekly/monthly basis as appropriate. Because these are only places around which communities are formed and they are most convenient place to be visited by communities. Unless we don’t see any reforms taking place at the grass-roots level at our Masjids, we can’t expect to see our society addressing these issues.
The columnist holds an MSc in Engineering from the UK and can be contacted at sas_beck@hotmail.co.uk
Alhamdulillah for the person who wrote this article!
First time I agree to the author’s thoughts. This is an indication of bringing true gender equality in Islam.
Islam very well advocates gender equality with provisions of inheritance rights, social security during marriage and exceptions from fasting and praying for women having menses /periods.. The Muslim society on the other hand doesn’t practice it that well.. That’s the very reason why Arab women are treated badly whereas southeast Asian and European Muslim women enjoy better lives and stand equal to men.
There’s no such thing called “gender equality” That exists in a real, practical World. Gender Equality is a farcical term introduced to spread immorality of a specific culture. Men and Women IN A REAL WORLD are NOT EQUAL as THERE ARE BIOLOGICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, EMOTIONAL, AND MORPHOLOGICAL differences between the men and women, which are INELIMINABLE and make Gender Equality AN ABSURD IMPRACTICAL NONSENSE. Yet, feminists Uneducatedly and unwarrantably IGNORE these facts and push for this myth which unfortunately has led to so much indecency, irreligiousity , immorality, immodesty in the society. Families and marital relationships have been completely dismantled because this absurd and nonsensical myth. Traditional Muslim societies have so far been saved from this mythical nonsense, and thus the modesty and morality is still present among Muslims. Thanks to Islam which recognizes these realities of real world and assigns REAL gender roles to men and women in a stable, and functional traditional society. In Islam, there’s SPIRITUAL EQUALITY between men and women which is in fact REAL EQUALITY, And that’s what Muslim men and women should strive to achieve.
There’s no such thing called “gender equality” That exists in a real, practical World. Gender Equality is a farcical term introduced to spread immorality of a specific culture. Men and Women IN A REAL WORLD are NOT EQUAL as THERE ARE BIOLOGICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, EMOTIONAL, AND MORPHOLOGICAL differences between the men and women, which are INELIMINABLE and make Gender Equality AN ABSURD IMPRACTICAL NONSENSE. Yet, feminists Uneducatedly and unwarrantably IGNORE these facts and push for this myth which unfortunately has led to so much indecency, irreligiousity , immorality, immodesty in the society. Families and marital relationships have been completely dismantled because this absurd and nonsensical myth. Traditional Muslim societies have so far been saved from this mythical nonsense, and thus the modesty and morality is still present among Muslims. Thanks to Islam which recognizes these realities of real world and assigns REAL gender roles to men and women in a stable, and functional traditional society. In Islam, there’s SPIRITUAL EQUALITY between men and women which is in fact REAL EQUALITY, And that’s what Muslim men and women should strive to achieve.
MashaAllah
Very well written article, our scholars/Ulemas should work on seriously on this issue…..
Hope they’ll wake up now…..
May Almighty Allah Gives Hidaya…..
Very good article scholars should think and give their advice whether implement in our society .
In comparision to male, females are mentally strong.
From this incident ,I strongly felt muslims social system were completly broken.Irrespective of boy and girl,muslims are out of fold.
Our politician and clerics failed us and they failed to understand their people and their living.
Headless indian muslim community with useless politician and clerics.
False. Men are more mentally strong than women. It’s a proven fact and is patently apparent in day to day life. Women are more emotional than men, and thus need to be treated with great care, love, affection, and sensitivity which is EXACTLY WHAT ISLAM ADVOCATES MEN.
Welcome
It is a call for strengthening of our beliefs and not for hit and trail reforms.
Void spaces to be repaired.
To be noted.triple talaq law did not protected her from suicide.
Discussion on this should start from capitalism and democracy.whole world is moving towards capitalism and india also.Capitalism going to prevail in this world.
Does Islam advocate capitalism ?if not
How capitalism affects social systems?
How capitalism affects muslims social system?
How capitalism affects minority muslims social system?
What type of laws and system required to protect your economical and social interest?
How clerics needs to visualise the effect of capitalism and democracy in the society and what type of guidance to be concentrated on the people?
How capitalism& democracy impacts on muslim men ,women and kids?
Many questions like this and not having answers.
Being telling this since ages, but DESI gundaa-firqas (esp Barelvis, Nizamuddinis and Deobandis and Najdis) never understand the wisdom of good pious community companionship for our ladies in musjids.
Hope this famous incident is an eye-opener to AIMPLB, Jamaate Islami Hind, Jamate Ulema and any wisdom-left scholars.
It is normal for us to pass comments as experts.Every one blame the other, wasting our time.
Particularly, in India,Pakistan and those settled in West ,concept of women among us is being influenced by non-Muslims..We never marry without dowry,A life saving of girl’s parents is robbed by us in dowry, all educated and highly professional are first to seek dowry,when a baby born, the expenses are born by parents of our wife.Most of us torture her life, then sell her gold ornaments to manage our expenses.For the whole life she cook, raise kids, take care for their upbringing, then when the husband is on death bed, she take care sincerely until he breath his last.Finally she is blamed.
Story of Aysha from Ahmedabad is no different.Every blame Aysha, and refer Hadith.But did someone find out the reason.There is also a Hadith and Sunnah to respect a women by her husband and his parents.
Why not our religious heads declare fatwa against Dowry,stop solemnizing Nikah if someone demands dowry or accept from back door as 99 % of us do ?Does anyone who is educated and boast of being a professional, a PHD scholors, Doctors, Engineers, or others have such a conscience to reject this.All are silent on this subject.The day we correct ourselves , there will no case like Aysha.