Islam's Reformers .pdf

they are too ugly to be looked at on the face. The beauty of thegirls who rely on their beauty and who try to be pretty decreasesas they get older, and especilly the skin of those women whouse powder, lip-stick and rouge become uglier being worn awayby friction day by day. When they do not use rouge, their facesbecome wrinkled, ugly like tripe. Therefore, when they get upevery morning, they have to make their toilet and make up forhours in front of the mirror. On a winter morning, as I was ridingthe tramcar in the twilight, I saw a dustwoman sweep the snowon the ground. I was grieved for her. I wished that this Muslimgranny had, instead of having attained such a freedom, beenlying down in her warm room or reading or preparing herchildren’s needs. Islam has loaded all the needs of the womanto her husband. If she is without a husband, her closest relativeis to supply her needs. If she is without anybody, Bait al-mâl,that is, the government treasury, is to support her. Every needof the woman should come to her. We have heard very oftenabout women’s laments, complaints about their own lives.Religion reformers, who cannot deny the miserable, dismalposition of ugly working women, attempt to defend this also andsay that if pretty women are put at the sales departments, theremay be customers who would more probably buy their beautyinstead of the goods for sale, and thus the sales may decrease.Let alone the misery of ugly women who, having attained theirfreedom, work among men and the exhaustedness of thosewho strive hard before the mirror to make themselves prettyevery morning, the real meaning of this freedom andindependence, which the remainder are supposed to have or,rather, are defended to have by those men who are more loyalto the king than the king is to himself, is to depart women fromtheir virtues and natural tendencies, such as forming a family,bringing up children, arranging a home, and to make them jointhe hard, troublesome life of men, to get rid of the need ofmarrying and to become like single men or immoral men whoare not faithful to their wives. This disorderly life, which hasdemolished the family life, has first commenced in those menwho imitate Europeans, and later women also have beendragged down to this ditch. Where is the helpless younggeneration being dragged? Showing respect and politenesstowards women, which has become a custom in society life, issheer ostentation and done in order to diminish the- 110 -