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forgotten how to do the most basic things in life. If people don’t come up against minimal hardship,
they grow soft and weak. If a person’s every wish is granted, then they never need to figure out how to
do things themselves. If I give you all that you ask for, you will become spoiled. Everyone knows this
when it comes to young men. Why don’t we recognize that depriving women of the ability to take care
of themselves is to deprive them of dignity and self-respect? In a growing number of Muslim
countries, there is a recognition that everyone will benefit, both economically and socially, if women
are not only permitted but actually supported in the workplace. Economic development and
competition demand that all participate. And what better example than the first wife of the Prophet,
Khadija, who was an independent businesswoman and the Prophet’s employer?
Perhaps what we see at home is a manifestation of this rule of life. If a person who expects to be
deprived of basic possibilities in life, such as education, mobility, and legal personhood, gets the
opportunity to progress, they grab hold of it in a way that someone with all the privileges in life will
not. This is why I think we see the women of our society progressing in education, in business, and in
government so rapidly.
I am proud that your mother and your aunts are all educated and working at the top of their chosen
professions. Has this stopped any of them from raising families and taking care of their husbands, as
demanded by the stricter positions? Not at all. In fact, each of them is fully supported morally by their
husbands.
There is something to be learned from the way we treat people. If I tie you up with rope and you
are unable to walk or feed yourself, whose fault is that—yours or mine? If I educate you and treat you
with respect and dignity, how are you likely to turn out?
I think you know where I am going. We cannot claim women in Islam are unable to face the big,
wild world out there if it is us who have deprived them of the basic rights and skills to do so.
There is, however, another argument that some more traditional Muslim men use, and that is the
argument of morality. This argument is a sensitive one. It is difficult for us to talk about it openly in
our societies where relations between men and women are a taboo subject.
What it boils down to is this. If women are mobile, and independent, and working with other men,
then this opens up the possibility that they will develop romantic or even sexual relations in violation
of our moral code. And the moral code that underlies this position is based on controlling women. Is
this the moral code of Islam? It is one interpretation. It is not the only one.
This is a possibility. Of course it is. But it is just as much a possibility when a woman is living in
a home where she is given little love and self-respect. Men who imagine that a caged bird has no
desire for freedom are doing just that—imagining.
It is a fantasy to think that our Muslim women are somehow to be controlled and constrained in the
very human instinct for love and affection.
I want you and me to be honest with each other. Our women need to be trusted and respected. Once
we trust and respect our sisters, our mothers, our daughters, and our aunts, we might begin to see with
the power of empathy how we might provide the same respect to other women in our society. If this