Saturday, February 23, 2013

Migrant Of The West: Maryam Jameelah



عائشہ جاوید

أَوَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُمْ آيَةً أَن يَعْلَمَهُ عُلَمَاءُ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ(الشعراء: 197’’کیا ان کیلئے یہ نشانی نہ ہوئی کہ اس قرآن /نبی کو بنی اسرائیل کے علماء پہچانتے ہیں‘‘) نیویارک کے ایک یہودی گھرانے کی عالمہ فاضلہ خاتون جو اپنی ایک کتاب میں لکھتی ہے کہ اسکا خاندان گورا (اشکنازی) یہودی نہیں بلکہ مشرقی (بنی اسرائیلی) ہے۔ جب یہ خاتون تن تنہا سات سمندر پار کرکے (ھجرۃ الی اللہ ورسولہ) لاہور آئی تو ایک کنواری لڑکی تھی! خدا کی یہ نشانی اور قرآن و محمد صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم کی صداقت پر ایک منہ بولتی برہان، ایک عظیم مصنفہ، مہاجرہ، نیویارک کی ماڈرن زندگی کو خیرباد کہہ کر آپکے سنت نگر میں بڑے عشروں تک آپکی پڑھی لکھی، ماڈرن، انگریزی کو منہ مارتی نسل پر خدا کی حجت قائم کرنے کیلئے مقیم رہی۔ ہماری تحریکوں کی بدقسمتی، کہ جہاں خدا کی نصرت کے دیگر بےشمار نظریاتی عوامل بےقدری کی نذر ہوتے ہیں، وہاں یہ خاتون بھی گوشہ نشینی کے ان گنت سال گزار کر خدا کو پیاری ہوئی بغیر اسکے کہ ہماری نوجوان نسل کو اس سے خاطرخواہ استفادہ کرایا گیا ہوتا۔ کتابیں تو وہ بیچاری نیویارک میں بیٹھ کر بھی لکھ سکتی تھی؛ ایسا اعلیٰ سرمایہ لاہوریوں کے کس کام کا! جو خدا کو منظور۔ اسکی انگریزی تحریروں کے قدردان دنیابھر میں پائے گئے؛ صرف چراغ تلے اندھیرا رہا! ایسا اندھیرا کہ سنت نگر کے اس محلے میں جب ہم اس خاتون کی چارپائی کو کندھا دینے کا شرف حاصل کرنے پہنچے تو ساتھ کی مسجد میں جنازے کیلئے اعلان ہورہا تھا ’’حضرات یوسف خان کی اہلیہ جو قضائے الٰہی سے...‘‘! محلہ اس خاتون کے جنازے میں آنے کیلئے شاید یہی حوالہ سمجھ سکتا تھا...! اور میں سوچ رہا تھا اس خاتون نے اگر اپنی ہجرت کیلئے مکہ، قاہرہ، دمشق یا صنعاء کو چنا ہوتا تو خدا کی یہ جیتی جاگتی نشانی اپنے شہر کیلئے کیا اتنی ہی گمنام ہوتی! رحمھا اللہ رحمۃً واسعۃ__ مدیر ایقاظ

وہ خدا کی ایک نشانی تھی۔نیویارک کے ایک ٹھیٹ یہودی خاندان کی عالمہ، ایک بہت بڑی مستشرق ،کثیر کتابوں کی مصنف ،مارگریٹ مارکس جو قبولِ اسلام کے بعد مریم جمیلہ کے نام سے موسوم ہوئیں اور جو امام مودودیؒ کی دعوت پر پاکستان ہجرت کرآئی تھیں، اور بڑے عشروں سے لاہور میں مقیم تھیں۔مغرب سے طلوع ہونے والا یہ سورج، مریم جمیلہ بروز بدھ 31 اکتوبر شہر لاہور میں وفات پاگئیں۔ انا للہ وانا الیہ راجعون۔
نیو یارک یونیورسٹی میں زیرِ تعلیم ،سیکولر ماحول میں پلی بڑھی اس مجاہدہ کو ۱۹ سال کی کم عمری میں تلاشِ حق کی طلب نے اس قدر بے چین کر دیا کہ انہوں نے اپنے عہد کے معروف علماء کو بذریعہ ءخطوط اپنی الجھنوں سے آگاہ کر کے انکی رہنمائی طلب کی ۔ یہ تشنگی اور تڑپ بارگاہ ِ خداوندی میں قبول ہو گئی ! ۲۷ سال کی عمر میں انہیں مشرف بہ اسلام کا اعزاز حاصل ہوا ۔ کیونکہ انکی پرورش ہی مادیت پرست معاشرے میں ہوئی تھی تو نورِ ہدایت پا لینے کے بعد انہوں نے جدیدیت، سیکولرزم ، دہریت جیسے موضوعات پر قلم اٹھانے کی ٹھانی تاکہ مغرب کے قبیح نظام کی اصلیت کا پردہ چاک کر کے اسلام کے شفاف سرچشمے سے عوام الناس کو متعارف کروایا جا سکے۔اس سلسلے میں مولانا مودودی رحمۃ اللہ علیہ کی روحانی تربیت نے انکی صلاحیتوں کو چار چاند لگائے۔ انہیں راہِ خدا میں دار الکفر سے ہجرت کر کے مسلم سرزمین پر آنے کا شرف بھی حاصل ہوا جو اس دور میں کم لوگوں کے حصے میں آیا کرتا ہے الا من رحم ربی !
تیس سے زائد کتابوں کی مصنفہ ، جو سکول کے زمانے میں پاپ میوزک میں سکون ڈھونڈتی پھرتی تھیں ، انکے قلبِ پریشاں کو اب قاری عبد الباسط عبدالصمد کی خوش الحان تلاوت میں تسکین محسوس ہونے لگی ۔ایک جگہ وہ کہتی ہیں کہ میں کبھی کبھی سوچتی تھی کہ شاید سیدنا بلالؓ کی آواز میں بھی ایسا ہی سوز ہوتا ہو گا!
۱۴ سال کی عمر میں یہودیت ، عیسائیت اور دیگر مذاہب کا مطالعہ کر چکی تھیں۔ لکھنے کی خداداد صلاحیت کا بھی حتی الامکان حق ادا کیا۔ Islam and the West, Islam and Orientalism, Islam in theory and Practice, Islam versus the West, Islam and Modernism انکی کچھ کتب ہیں ، جن میں سے بعض کے تراجم اردو، فارسی، ترکی، بنگالی ، فرنچ اور انڈونیشین زبان میں استفادہ عام کیلئے عمل میں لائے گئے۔ اپنے خاندان کا ہدایت سے نابلد ہونا بہرحال انہیں بیقرار کرتا تھا۔ ہمارے قارئین کرام میں سے بیشتر اس خط سے آگاہ ہونگے جس میں انہوں نے اپنے والدین کو صراطِ مستقیم کی طرف بلانے کی ایک آخری کوشش بھی کی۔ایک جگہ لکھتی ہیں ’ بابا!آپ اکثر مجھ سے کہا کرتے تھے نا کہ آپ کسی روایتی مذہب کو اپنانے کے حق میں نہیں ہیں کہ عقیدہ فی نفسہ جدید سائنس سے متصادم ہے۔اس میں کوئی شک نہیں کہ سائنس نے ہم پر مادی دنیا کے نت نئے افق آشکار کیے ہیں، آرام و آسائشات کی کوئی کمی نہیں چھوڑی ، بہت سی موذی بیماریوں کا علاج بھی دریافت کر دیا ۔ مگر اسی سائنس نے ہمیں زندگی اور موت کے مفہوم سے مکمل طور پر ناآشنا رکھا !کیا یہ ہمیں صحیح اور غلط، اچھائی اور برائی، نیکی اور بدی کا تعین کروا سکتی ہےَ۔ہرگز نہیں! دین ہمیں یہ سب سکھاتا ہے!‘
Islam in theory and practice میں ایک جگہ لکھتی ہیں’ ہر شے اللہ کی ہے، انسان کا کچھ بھی نہیں ہے۔انسان مکمل طور پر اپنے رب کے اوپر منحصر ہے۔سب کچھ جس پر انسان قابض ہے یہاں تک کہ اسکا جسم بھی محض اللہ کی طرف سے اس پر ادھار ہے تاکہ اسے صحیح مصرف میں لائے اگر انسان اس ذمہ داری سے جان چھڑائے گا تو سخت سزا کا مستحق ہو گا۔اللہ کیلئے بطور ایک غلام کے کام کرنے کیلئے اسکو اپنا سب کچھ قربان کرنے کیلئے تیار ہو نا چاہئے ‘
جنازے کے حاضرین کا کہنا ہے کہ انکے شوہر کو بچوں کی طرح بلک بلک کر روتے دیکھا گیا! یہ انکی ذاتی زندگی کی پاکیزگی اور حقوق آشنائی کی زندہ مثال ہے! افسوس ہے تو اس بات پر کہ مغرب کی اس مجاہدہ کی زندگی میں تو ہم انکی وہ قدر نہ کر سکے جس کی یہ مستحق تھیں۔ دعاگو ہیں کہ اللہ کے دربار میں انکی قربانیاں اور اخلاص قبول ہو اور انہیں وہ منزل مل گئی ہو جسکا برزخی اور اخروی زندگی میں ہر سچا مومن متمنی ہوا کرتا ہے جیسا کہ مرحومہ کے اپنے الفاظ ہیں:
’سچے مسلمان کو موت سے خوف نہیں آتا کیونکہ موت ہی وہ واحد راستہ ہے جس سے گزر کر وہ اپنے رب کیساتھ ابدی زندگی کو پا سکتا ہے‘!
اللہ انکے درجات بلند فرمائے ، اپنی جنتوں میں ضیافت عطا کرے اور انکے علمی ترکے کو انکا صدقہ جاریہ بنائے، آمین

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Maryam Jameelah: ‘With An Eyeful of Madina’s Dust’



“You have to read these”, my friend compelled me, giving me a couple of yellowed, printed-long-ago sort of books. That gave me my first glimpse into the fascinating life and inspiring works of Maryam Jameelah.
Born as Margaret Marcus into an American Jewish familywho cared little for religion and were active believers in the American Way, it was curious how that little girl refused to fit into that life and culture and came to realize it wasn’t the glittering American Dream, after all. She sought answers and found herself interested in the exotic and oriental. Young Maggie Marcus’s fascination with oriental cultures led her to meet many New York Arabs and Muslims, from where she was introduced to Islam.
At a relatively young age, Maryam began to study and to read up on Islam and Muslim culture. She found in Islamwhat the society around her lacked and never could give her. She found herself heartily in agreement. From then on, there was no going back. After her reversion to Islam in 1961, it became clear to her that New York couldn’t be her home any more. The odds were too many.
Soon after, Maryam began regularly corresponding with Muslim leaders and scholars throughout the world including Maulana Maudoodi, in whose ideas she found a close kinship. At his invitation, Maryam shortly moved to Pakistan and settled in Lahore. Here, she lives with her husband, four children and the extended family members, spending her days reading and writing regularly for the Muslim World Book Review on a wide range of issues and subjects related to Islam and the West, and the resurgence of Islam.
Maulana Maudoodi had once called Maryam Jameelah ‘a tropical sapling planted in the Arctic.’ Reading through the details in the biographies my friend had lent me, there was so much that truly moved one. What inspired me was how a young mind, with no Islamic influence around, grew to develop such a seasoned vision of Islam, such courage to enable her to resist all the tempting glamour of a privileged life in a developed society. Her search was honest and it rested only after having achieved that which alone fulfilled.
After her arrival in Pakistan, Maryam had to grapple with a totally different lifestyle and cultural milieu. She reminisces of the linguistic barrier, the climate she was totally unsuited to, the large family structure and the hygiene conditions. It could hardly be called ‘home’ for a young New Yorker. However, this cultural ‘leap’ Maryam Jameelah had undertaken was in fact also a ‘leap of faith’, making her amazingly resilient.
Some of the most beautiful passages in Maryam Jameelah’s biography which taught me much were about how the young New York girl seeks and appreciates the beauty in the simple ways of Muslim culture. For her, eating out of a common earthenware dish is beautiful for the warm sharing it involves; walking barefoot on a dirt floor and making ablution out of a clay pot are the simple, natural pleasures of life, the rare delights of the unsophisticated simplicity_ uncorrupted by materialism and artifice_ that is essential to Islam. She warms up to the largesse, generosity, hospitality of values engendered by Islam.
The flies, the heat, the dirt, the discomfort and inconveniences fail to bring low the indomitable spirit. Surely, the eyes beholding so much beauty in something a ‘ Westernized’ mind would sneer at must be beautiful_ ‘wearing in the eyes the dust of Madina, as Iqbal would have said.
Getting a fuller view of Maryam Jameelah, I ended up reading several of her work on Islam and the West, which were certainly deeply insightful, incisively critical_ the product of an analytical mind and a passionate heart. It was around then that my friend called up, and in high pitched tones of excitement, told me of a rare discovery: she had actually traced Maryam Jameelah to her home! She had simply followed the publishers’ address given at the back of one of her books_ printed back in the 70s, and praying ardently that they hadn’t shifted since then, actually sought out the place!
Next Saturday evening we were both threading our way through the streets of Sant Nagar_ not to forget stopping at the florist’s on the way to get a bouquet of ‘Nargis’_ decidedly ‘Nargis’_ we had to be as ‘oriental’ as would suit the occasion.
On the way, observing the narrow, bumpy and dusty streets and the barefooted children playing around, I thought I could feel that beauty Maryam had sought in there too. This was so removed from the urbanized quarters_ an island within a monstrosity of ‘development.’ The car halted before an old house much like the ones around. We brightened up when a bright, cheerful and warm face appeared_ Moon Apa’s, who had facilitated the visit. She made us feel welcomed- rather, at home. I think I understood how Maryam Jameelah had so effortlessly managed to say ‘I belong.’
To my left, I saw a huge courtyard which immediately aroused the feeling of ‘dejavu’_ it clicked… I remembereda page from Maryam Jameelah’s biography… suddenly, the room filled up with gaily dressed women from the 70s laying out traditional sweetmeat dishes to welcome their guest from New York who had chosen to live among her companions in faith.
We said our Maghrib prayers in the drawing room where we were waiting adjacent to Maryam Apa’s room. Folding up the prayer mat, my heart thumping wildly, I couldn’t keep from looking at the dear old profile etched across the open window, at the head of silvery-white hair draped in a white dupatta (scarf), lowered on the prayer mat in sajdah. I felt the unspeakable blessedness of the moment filling up my veins. Some things just cannot be expressed.
Most of what we heard Maryam Apa say, we had already read in her books. But to see it come alive in the full-throated voice which had in it the energy and vitality of her rich heart; to see that ‘undying flame’ of the unbeaten spirit in the fine old eyes, and the deep-seated gratitude and thankfulness for the life she has lived was an experience unsurpassable. She brightened up sharing memories of the past, shyly smiling like a little girl, her beady eyes twinkling even though she was frail and volatile with age, exhausted and not very mobile any more.
Since she settled in Lahore, Maryam Jameelah has been a prolific writer. Her work reflects a deep, incisive and analytical understanding of Western culture and civilization. Being an ‘insider’, and not having lived in a colonial or postcolonial set up, she digs deep into the very foundations of utilitarian-materialist society and with a rare, refreshing vision and raw honesty, exposes it down to its bare bones. She feels intensely its spiritual bankruptcy and the toll materialism has taken on the life of the average American, reducing life to a struggle for material prosperity and comfort, no more.
However, the deeper questions remain unanswered, unresolved, and the inner self unsatiated:
“It is this distressing evolutionary process that has today made America a slave of machines. The supremacy of the USA is accepted all over the world and its hand is seen in everything that happens anywhere. No country, Muslim or non-Mulsim, is altogether free from its control and domination. Today America has enslaved the world with its way of life but it has itself become the slave of machines. It is a prisoner of its lifestyle, of material progress, factories, laboratories and of fancy goods and gadgets. Man here has got so completely cast in the technological mould of life that his ideas and emotions have also become mechanical. The properties of rock and iron have entered into his soul. He has become narrow and selfish, cold and unfeeling. There is no warmth in his heart; no moisture in his eyes. This is the reality I have sadly observed during my stay in America.” (Maryam Jameelah in ‘The Resurgence of Islam and Liberation from our Colonial Yoke).
It is this dissatisfaction and disappointment with the deceptive sheen of utilitarian capitalism and all it could ever offer that makes Maryam Jameelah embark on a search for meaningful life true to the purpose we are sent with, in tune with the ebb and flow of nature, imbued with simplicity and spirituality. She finds this fulfilment in Islam and Muslim culture, and this is where the seeker in her finds the anchor to hold on to. They say, ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’. The vision that rejected the emptiness of the culture of materialism and narcissism finds out the beauty of the ‘Muslim’ Way of Life:
“The remedy for the problems of the modern world is the adoption of absolute transcendental values. The fallacy that everything must change with changing times makes life devoid of meaning and purpose since there is nothing of permanent worth. It is responsible for our ‘throw-away’ culture which considers everything disposable. The relativity of values is responsible for the unprecedented epidemic of vulgarity and obscenity in the mass media, of arts and entertainments, the generation gap, widespread alcohol and drug addiction and suicide as a leading cause of death. If everything must change with the changing times, human dignity and the nobility of character are almost impossible to achieve since these are based upon permanence and stability in the moral order.”

“Modern man desperately needs a Supreme Authority for reference to distinguish between what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, what is beautiful and what is ugly. This does not mean totalitarian dictatorship but the Rule of Law in the highest sense. Only the Divine Law of the Shariah is impartial and just; where ruler and ruled, rich and poor, young and old, celebrities and ordinary anonymous folk are equally subjected to its jurisdiction… the authority of the Shariah proceeds from Almighty Allah. Thus it is feared, esteemed, loved and obeyed simultaneously. It combines the internal sanctions of fear of Allah and His retribution in the Hereafter with severe but just punishments for violation of that law on which the health of the individual and society depend.”
Her belief in Islam as the panacea and the absolute Good is powerful and authentic:
“The call of Islam to modern man is the call to stability and inward peace. A society based on the precepts of fear and reverence for the Divine Law will not be troubled with crime, violence and lawlessness.…Individually, Islam would bring a direction, meaning and purpose to life which materialistic cultures cannot provide; an inward serenity and peace even in the midst of external frustrations and adversity… the ugliness of our environment would be supplanted by beauty…” (Islam and Modern Man)
Again, being originally an outsider, she does not take the ways of Islam dully as a habit but delights in its refreshing distinction from the materialism and artifice she has known and come to detest. Observing the contrast directly, closely and first hand, Maryam Jameelah’s later works show a seasoned understanding of the inner dynamics that make post-Enlightenment secular-liberal Western society what it is and the influences_ direct and indirect_ it exercises on what it calls the ‘developing’ predominantly Muslim world. She studies and presents an analysis of Western philosophy and traces its evolution till the point where the current secular, capitalist-materialist social structure was realized. She analyses the motives and methods of Western imperialism, colonial rule and the state of perpetual neo-colonialism the Muslim world labours under. She is bitterly critical of modernist Muslims who believe that in the Westernization and ‘modernization’ of Islam lies its hope for survival and progress:
“The earliest modernizers in the Muslim world were dismayed by the contrast between the material backwardness of the Muslims and the dazzling energy and concrete accomplishments of Europe. They thought that if only the Muslims could imbibe modern knowledge through modern education, their people would become just as strong, progressive and prosperous.
Some, like Jamaluddin Afghani and Shaikh Muhammad Abduh sincerely believed that this was the proper road to Islamic revival in its call to modern man. The leaders of the Muslim countries accepted this advice without question. More than a century has passed since then but although all Muslim countries have adopted the Western system as their own, they remain poor, weak, backward…”
“Yet the Orientalists and the modernizers insist that the Muslims are weak because they are not Westernized thoroughly enough and prescribe another dose of the same harmful diet. Those who merely imitate and not create those who are always passive receptors instead of active givers are defeated in the inevitable course of events because their initial position is one of failure. The call of Islam to modern man can succeed only if it proceeds from a position of strength, independence and self-confidence.”
“Why is Westernization so attractive to the Muslims as it is for everyone else? It is irresistible because it is easy. Contemporary civilization is based upon self-indulgence while that of Islam requires sacrifice, altruism, discipline, self-control and endurance which are difficult. But self-indulgence leads to decadence and decline while the opposite qualities, which Islam demands, lead to superior strength, unity and virtue. If practiced in its right spirit, Islam leads to social integration. Self-indulgent materialism leads to social disintegration an ultimately collective suicide…”
The times in which Maryam Jameelah’s writing is placed, the 1960s to 80s were when the groundwork for contemporary politics was being laid and much of the trends today were taking shape. Her analysis and observations therefore, help one understand the roots and implications of contemporary socio-political issues. Her work bears striking relevance to current-day dilemmas_ certainly the vision of an eye gifted with foresight.
Although placed in times when the Muslim world was ravaged by modernist post-Kemalist reform movements like President Nasser’s in Egypt, Maryam Jameelah’s work is set apart, shunning all such influences, safely cocooned in her firm fidelity to the fundamental sources of Islam and her sensitive appreciation of Islamic tradition. She passionately defends this ignored treasure, showing it to the world in its unclouded, natural splendour. She believes in the eternal dynamism of Islamic tradition, its eternal relevance as a means to establish a viable egalitarian, peaceful, just and welfare-oriented society in the present day, modelled on the insights provided by the first Muslim community in Madina. She pleads her case convincingly and passionately:
“It is often asserted by orientalists that the values and ideals of traditional Islamic civilization have no relevance, even for Muslims today because, like all non-European cultures, it was the product of an antiquated tradition of the pre-scientific age. They assert that only secularity is relevant to modernity, to change, to continual technological innovations, and their social consequences. Since the genuine Muslim is a traditional man, he can therefore have nothing of relevance to contribute to the daily life of the modern man. But despite the drastic environmental transformation brought about by modern technology, the basic human drives and needs remain unchanged. Therefore modern man is just as thirsty for the spiritual sustenance which alone gives life its meaning, direction and purpose as was his ancestors, even if he is not consciously aware of it.”
“It is the purpose of those who call modern man to Islam to awaken him to the urgent intensity of these needs, not only for the individual but for the whole of human society. Unfortunately, there remains another great obstacle in the path of a modern appreciation of Islam. Islamic civilization was not only remote from modernity in the technological sense; it seems even more remote from the modern mind in its moral ideals, which cannot be appreciated by the secular man or even regarded by him as desirable. The spiritual ideals of Islam can be understood only by truly God-fearing people, who yearn for God’s mercy and salvation in the Hereafter.”
“Those who wish to call modern man to Islam must make him understand and appreciate such virtue which is utterly foreign and incomprehensible to the materialist. By an effective presentation of the profound richness of Islamic culture as an historical acuality in the life of the Muslims until the recent past, he must make the modern man appalled by the spiritual poverty in which he must live and long for a better life not limited to this world.” (Islam and Modern Man)
In the context of the contemporary dilemmas of achieving ‘liberation’, ‘pluralism’, ‘enlightened moderation’ outside of Islam and remoulding Muslim societies to toe the Western line and achieve the Western ideal of Secular-liberalism, Maryam Jameelah’s works have perhaps a relevance more than ever before.
While Muslims debate which ‘brand’ of Islam be adopted to appease the imperious demands of Western imperialism; while we concoct the smothering labels of ‘extremist’, ‘secular’, ‘modernist’, ,moderate’, ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ and seek an identity alien to our real, true essence, we need to rediscover the beauty and quiet superiority of the pristine ‘Muslim’ way as lived by the Prophet (S) of Islam and the earliest generation; we need to make that legacy speak to us again of our problems and dilemmas and provide a way forward.
Maryam Jameelah, in throwing overboard the naive presumptions she was socialized into, prejudices she inherited and wholeheartedly choosing to live by the way of Islam with pride and passion, has a lot to teach us as we still grope in the darkness for an identity.
Maryam Sakeenah

About the author

Maryam Sakeenah teaches Sociology, Literature and Islamic Studies in Lahore, Pakistan. She authored a book documenting Islamic and Oriental responses to the Clash of Civilizations thesis. Maryam is also a social worker running an organization providing free virtual primary education for the poor.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Commemorating Maryam Jameelah


Author MEHRAJ DIN - Saturday, 03 11 2012 09:29

Legend is Often Superior to Facts
Maryam Jameelah is considered as one of the resplendent personalities of Muslim world. Maryam Jameelah was born Margaret Marcus to a Jewish family in New Rochelle, New York, on May 23, 1934. She grew up in a secular environment, but at the age of nineteen, while a student at New York University, she developed keen interest in religion. Unable to find spiritual guidance in her immediate environment, she looked to other faiths. Her search brought her into contact with an array of spiritual orders, religious cults, and world religions; she became acquainted with Islam around 1954.
 She says that “my discovery of Quran was tortuous and led me through strange byways but since the end of the road was supremely worthwhile, I have never regretted my experiences”. Jameelah cites Asad’s The Road to Mecca and Islam at the Crossroads as critical influences on her decision to become a Muslim. Her journey into Islam is filled with an epitome of courage as well as an intellectual and spiritual understanding of that Sacred omniscient reality i.e. Allah. She came up like a ray of hope in the tide of western cultural onslaught especially on women folk and tried to provide a self emulated model by herself believing and practicing Islam.
Her journey into Islam created an excruciating strength among Muslims all over the world and impeded them from plunging into the ocean of disappointment because Islam and Muslims were standing on the receiving end. One of her attestation regarding Islam was based in these below lines:-
"MY PROFESSOR, RABBI ABRAHAM ISAAC KATSH, THE HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEBREW STUDIES THERE, SPARED NO EFFORTS TO CONVINCE HIS STUDENTS-- ALL JEWS, MANY OF WHOM ASPIRED TO BECOME RABBIS - THAT ISLAM WAS DERIVED FROM JUDAISM. OUR TEXTBOOK, WRITTEN BY HIM, TOOK EACH VERSE FROM THE QURAN, PAINSTAKINGLY TRACING IT TO ITS ALLEGEDLY JEWISH SOURCE. ALTHOUGH HIS REAL AIM WAS TO PROVE TO HIS STUDENTS THE SUPERIORITY OF JUDAISM OVER ISLAM, HE CONVINCED ME DIAMETRICALLY OF THE OPPOSITE."
Through her readings in Islam she developed a bond with the religion and became a vocal spokesperson for the faith, defending Muslim beliefs against Western criticism and championing such Muslim causes as that of the Palestinians. Her views created much tension in her personal life, but she continued to pursue her cause. She embraced Islam in New York on May 24, 1961, and soon after began to write for the Muslim Digest of Durban, South Africa.
Her articles outlined a pristine view of Islam and sought to establish the truth of the religion through debates with critics. Through the journal, Jameelah became acquainted with the works of Mawlana Sayyid Abu Ala Mawdudi, the founder of the Jamaati Islami (Islamic Party) of Pakistan, who was also a contributor to the journal.
Maryam Jameelah was an author of over thirty books on Islamic culture and history and a prominent female voice for Islam. Jameelah was a prolific author, offering a conservative defense of traditional Islamic values and culture.
 She was deeply critical of secularismmaterialism and modernization, both in Western societies, as well as in Islam. She regarded traditions such as veilingpolygamy, and gender segregation to be ordained by the Quran and by the words of Prophet Muhammad, and considered movements to change these customs to be a betrayal of Islamic teachings. Jameelah's books and articles have been translated into several languages including UrduPersianTurkishBengaliand Indonesia. Some of her books are Islam and the West, Islam and Orientalism, Islam in theory and Practice, Islam versus the West, Islam and Modernism, Correspondence Between Mawlana Mawdudi and Maryam Jameelah and a lot more unparalelled contribution is worth praising and helpful for understanding his long-lasting contribution to our civilization.
Jameelah was impressed by Mawdudi’s views and began to correspond with him. Their letters between 1960 and 1962, later published in a volume entitled Correspondences between Maulana Mawdoodi and Maryam Jameelah, discussed a variety of issues from the discourse between Islam and the West, to Jameelah’s personal spiritual concerns.
Jameelah traveled to Pakistan in 1962 on Mawdudi’s advice and joined his household in Lahore. She soon married Muhammad Yusuf Khan, as his second wife. Since settling in Pakistan, she has written an impressive number of books, which adumbrated the Jamaati Islami’s ideology in a systematic fashion. Although she never formally joined the party, she became one of its chief ideologists.
Maryam Jameelah had been particularly concerned with the debate between Islam and the West, an important, albeit not central, aspect of Mawdudi’s thought. Her significance, however, does not lie in the force of her observations, but in the manner in which she articulates an internally consistent paradigm for revivalism’s rejection of the West. In this regard, her influence far exceeds the boundaries of the Jamaati Islami and has been important in the development of the Muslim world. Her writings in recent years embody this change in orientation and reveal the influence of traditional Islam.
She dedicated her life to Islam even before her acceptance of Islam. Her utmost strength in the institution of Islam gave her much courage to go on and on in adopting and contributing to the Muslim civilization. Jameelah blustered a new spirit among Muslim women’s all over the world and gave them a sheer confidence in believing, practicing and contributing as members of this vast Islamic tradition.
 Losing her is painful and to think it for a moment is always horrific, some things that leaves a void never to fill again, something that creates a gap never to bridge again, something that droops shoulders never to lift them again, something that sheds the flowers never to bloom again, something that quiets the eloquence never to speak again, and something that stops the pulsating mortal never to beat again. She will always be remembered and her faithfulness will create positive vibes in our soul and mind. 
“He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory abides with us, more Potent, nay more present than the living Man”. (Autome-de-saint)
The writer is Contractual Lecturer at Govt.  Boys Degeee College, Anantnag

Ek Mujahida Ki Mout By Orya Maqbool Jan


Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Who are the Ulema?

 Maryam Jameelah 


At the present time, a most vicious campaign of propaganda is being waged against the Ulema by a certain group in all Muslim countries. These people fallaciously compare the Ulema in the Muslim world with the priesthood in medieval European Christendom. They preach hatred against them by characterising them as living luxury, exploited their followers and dividing the Muslims into mutually hostile sects all engaged in fratricidal strife. They would have us believe that the Ulema are responsible for all the evils in the Muslim world throughout our history and the acceptance of their authority as the reason for our backwardness. From these premises, they conclude that the only we Muslims can achieve our salvation is to reject all interpretations of Islam given to us by ‘’these dogmatic learned men’’, get rid of the ‘’Mullahs’’ and build and entirely new structure for Islam by ourselves.

Who are the Ulema? Are they priests? Are they a hereditary ruling excluding outsiders? Certainly not! Any Muslim acquires the requisite knowledge in the Arabic language, the Qur’an, Hadith and Islamic jurisprudence can attain the rank of an Alim. But today we are faced with the tragic situation where we find a group of our people with exclusively English-type education, many of whom received their training in Christian missionary schools and colleges, who refuse to acquire any of the Islamic learning foe which they have nothing but contempt, insisting upon their right to reinterpret Islam and law because, they argue, Islam is not the monopoly of nay priest class! If a certain task requires specialised knowledge and training, how can it be properly performed except by those who fulfil the necessary conditions about the Shar’iah, be qualified to exercise Ijtihad?

Far from living in luxury and ease, throughout our history we find the Ulema enduring with patience and steadfastness the most intolerable hardships and tortures. Who inflicted the persecution? Not the Christians. Not the Jews! Not the Hindus! None else but our own rulers bearing Muslim names who wanted no part of Islam! Why did Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi’, Imam Malik and Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal suffer the most severe persecution for their refusal to endorse the Mu’tazilte heresy so fashionable among the ruling elite of that time? Why Ibn Hanbal flogged in a manner too cruel even for elephants and breathe his last chained in a dungeon? For what crime was ‘Allamah Ibn Taymiyyah repeated locked behind bars by the rulers of his day and die in prison? Why did Jehangir imprison Shaykh Ahmad Sirhndi in the Gwalior Fort because he had refused to prostrate himself before the Emperor?

Who has the power today? Surely not the Ulema! Why do we find that in every Muslim country those Ulema who have the courage to speak out and denounce the un-Islamic practices of modern life, resist secularism, materialism and atheism and who support movements striving for an Islamic revival? Imprisoned and even some times condemned to death? For their steadfastness in upholding the faith against innovation and heresy, they are constantly subjected to all kinds of harassment and representative measures. Where is the theocratic dictatorship of the Mullah’s? If the Ulema had the power to deny the Muslims the blessings of freedom, enlightenment and progress, why have they been compelled to endure all this persecution?

The respect and deviation of the common Muslims for these Ulema are not mere accident or a product of sheer conservatism or Taqlid. Their authority is maintained not by any material power of which they possess none solely rests upon their superior knowledge, wisdom, character, piety and their struggle, sacrifice and suffering for the cause of Islam. Their lives and works are a convincing testimony of the Muslim community that they have made every effort to discover the correct meaning of the Shar’iah and that therefore their interpretations can be relied upon with implicit faith and integrity.

Those who malign the Ulema insisting that we reject all interpretations by ‘these dogmatic learned men’’ in other words are telling us that ‘’dogmatic learned men’’ like Ahlul Bait, the Sahabah, Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Hanifa, Shafi’, Malik, Hanbal, al-Ghazzali, Ibn Taymiyyah, Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, Shah Waliuillah and Sayyid Ahmad Shahid were all wrong in their interpretation of Islam and only today under the domination of Western cultural imperialism have the modernists attained true perspective! What is this plea for a new Islam but to substitute for the Islam of the Qur’an and the Sunnah a counterfeit version manufactured by the Christians missionaries and Orientalists in London and New York?

[Maryam Jameelah – Islam in theory and practice p.113]

Sadaqat Maryam Jameelah. Unfortunately the attack against the mainstream Scholars will continue until the last day by the so called enlightened Muslims who only seem to be concerned with pleasing other than the Muslims. Much of the hatred and anti rhetoric of Islam and the Ulema stems from their own psychological dysfunctional condition, upbringing and unfortunate circumstances and not by any real academic authenticity. This is perhaps the case with Ms Ayaan Hirsi Ali and others like her. The importance of supporting and uniting with the Ulema despite their criticisms and shortcomings was highlighted many times by the great poet of Pakistan Muhammad Iqbal. When the Ulema where being criticised for virtually every ill that befall the Muslims he said, even with their limitations, they possessed the key to preserving Islam for the general mass.

It’s unfortunate that even amongst some mainstream Islamic workers we find people critiquing and attacking the Maulanas/Ulema for being, in their assumption, impotent to tackle the current problems of the society and world. Yes there are shortcomings and great improvements need to be made. However, we have to ask ourselves what we have done and contributed. The Ulema have/are sacrificing great deal for the society. They have left the luxuries of the world sacrificing their time, wealth and energy to better understand Islam and implement it in our society. It is amusing to listen to some people when they make comments without even realising what nonsense they are uttering. A person who has only reached adulthood, when he talks, it seems that he has the know how and experience of a sixty year old sage! When you come to know about his/their credentials you are left shocked.

Before looking at other people’s shortcomings we must understand that we too have many shortcomings; and many times our shortcomings are greater than those whom we look down upon. We do not realise it because our ego blinds us of this and thus, due to the inner turbulence, we find ourselves always finding faults at others. When we admit our own shortcomings then and only then we will not look on others with a jaundiced eye.



Guide to Maryam Jameelah Papers

http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/rbk/faids/jameelah.pdf

My Journey To Islam

American, formerly Jewish. Essayist and journalist. Author of many books. Embraced Islam in 1962. 

The authority of Islaamic Morals and Laws proceeds from Almighty God. Pleasure and Happiness in Islaam are but the natural byproducts of emotional satisfaction in one's duties conscientiously performed for the pleasure of God to achieve salvation. In Islaam duties are always stressed above rights. Only in Islaam was my quest for absolute values satisfied. Only in Islaam did I at last find all that was true, good, beautiful and which gives meaning and direction to human life and death.

Young Muslim Digest’s Interview With Maryam Jameelah (July 2005)

YMD: We have always known about your conversion through contacts with Mawlana Mawdudi, but nothing about how in the first instance you got interested in Islam. Would you like to throw some light on your initial days of interest in Islam? 

MJ: Like Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss), I first became interested in Islam by a fascination with everything Arab. I read all the books about Arabs I could find and loved to listen to recordings by Umm Kalsoum. Then, as now, most of these books were by Orientalists or missionaries and presented a very negative view which I knew was unjustified. Only years later I acquired knowledge about Qur'an Majeed through Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall's translation which inspired me with the desire to convert to Islam. 

YMD: You have settled in Pakistan since 1962. How different has been the experience in this shift of cultures, indeed, of ideologies, as in your case? Of course, your expectations of Muslim culture would have been quite high, and there must have been some disappointments especially in the beginning. Was it a lack of alternatives or, satisfaction with what you found in Pakistan or merely familial bindings that led you to remain in Pakistan, perhaps never traveling out once? 

MJ: I settled in Pakistan at the invitation of Maulana Maudoodi with whom I had been corresponding for two years. He not only gave me emotional support as a new convert but also a permanent home in Pakistan, and helped me find a good husband. I have been on such good terms with his family. I never wanted to go anywhere else, convinced there was nothing for me in America. My first impression of Pakistan was that it was a very good Muslim country. Disillusions with its numerous shortcomings only came later. 

YMD: Have you performed Hajj and what has been your impression. Do you travel for 'Umrah and if you do, do you find changes in Arab adherence to Islam in the two holy Harams? 

MJ: I talk with everyone I know who has returned from Hajj and read everything about it that I can. I deeply regret that the expansion of the Haram and the Masjid-an-Nabi could only be accomplished by the massive destruction of nearly all the Ottoman structures of the Holy Cities including numerous historic places associated with the Holy Prophet. Everything has been modernized/ westernized including much inappropriate technology. However, the comforts and physical accommodations have been vastly improved. Despite all this, returnees who have returned to tell me their experiences insist that the Hajj was the greatest spiritual experience of their lives. 

YMD: You have known the late Mawlana Mawdudi well in your close association with him. How relevant are his ideas for the future of the Muslim community today? How do you view the policies and practices of the Jamat-e-Islami in Pakistan today? How has its policies changed since the time that it was first launched in 1941? 

MJ: At the beginning in 1941 Maulana Maudoodi was concerned with cultural matters in Islam's relation with the West. Now everything is politics. Placing politics at the centre of the Islamic mission is contrary to the traditions of Islam. However, Jamat-e-Islami deserves all the credit for restraining the worst excesses of secular military dictatorships. 

YMD: It has been said that the logic of your discursive approach has recently led you away from current forms of Islamic revivalism and even from the Jamat-e-Islami itself. It has also been said that increasingly aware of revivalism's own borrowing from the West, you have distanced yourself from the revivalist exegesis and have even criticized your mentor, Mawlana Mawdudi, for his assimilation of modern concepts into Jamat-e-Islami's ideology. How much do you agree with this? 

MJ: I became disillusioned about the Maulana's disdain for the necessity for beauty in the lives of his followers, of traditional Islamic philosophy and Islamic art and his whole-hearted acceptance of industrialism, technology and evolutionism. But now I am less critical. Maulana Maudoodi, Sheikh Hasan al Banna and Syed Qutb devoted their entire lives to the Islamic cause and sacrificed all their time, energy and resources and even their lives towards that end. They strictly abided by Shariat all their lives and inspired many others to do so. 

YMD: You once said that you were totally in disagreement with what Allama Iqbal wrote in his 'Reconstruction of religious thought in Islam.' Can you please explain the basis of this disagreement? 

MJ: In his 'Reconstruction of religious thought in Islam' Allama Iqbal attempted a most unconvincing reconciliation with certain 19th century western philosophies. The entire book is based on evolutionism and progressionism. It will remain one of the most well known classics of Islamic modernism. 

YMD: You have known the late Muhammad Asad through his writings and perhaps also in his capacities in the foreign ministry of Pakistan. Were his works like 'The Road to Makkah' and 'Islam at the Crossroads' instrumental in your own conversion to Islam? Did you ever perceive a certain evolution in his thought: an evolution to which you couldn't reconcile yourself in later years? If so, can you please explain where you differed from his viewpoints? What is your opinion about his Commentary (on the Qur'an)? Would you recommend its inclusion in Islamic studies, either private or institutionalized? 

MJ: Muhammad Asad's 'The Road to Mecca' inspired my desire to live in a Muslim country and 'Islam at the crossroads' determined my entire literary career. However, his 'Message of the Qur'an' is almost entirely based on 'The Manar' by Shaikh Muhammad Abduh. It is filled with modernism and naturalism. Muhammad Asad was a great admirer of Shaikh Muhammad Abduh and was much influenced by him. 

YMD: Alija Ali Izzetbegovich, the former President of Bosnia-Herzegovina, has been one of the most unsung Muslim intellectuals in modern European history. What has been your own assessment of his life and works? How would you rate his work, 'Islam between East and West'? 

MJ: Having only read a brief biography and obituaries and not 'Islam between East and West,' (I may say that) Alija Ali Izzetbegovich is renowned as the most distinguished Bosnian Muslim statesman. 

YMD: Writing in as far back as 1969, you had stated that the Muslim Ulema (with honourable exceptions) 'had become like the Pharisees against whom Jesus Christ devoted his entire mission. In their extremes of verbal hair splitting, some of our Ulema have outdone the Talmud and put the Rabbis to shame.' How much has the situation progressed for the better today, some thirty-five years later? 

MJ: Although certain Ulema have shortcomings the righteous amongst them uphold the Shariat, combat bid'ah or innovations and can be regarded as the indispensable pillar of traditional Islamic civilization. 

YMD: Do you see a marked difference in approach on the part of the Orientalists in view of the spread of Islamic knowledge, and in view of questions of their intellectual integrity raised now and then, especially by Norman Daniel? 

MJ: Even the most 'sympathetic' Orientalists think Islam should change in conformity to the demands of modern life; some of them even propose that Qur'an and Hadith be subjected to 'Higher Criticism' like Biblical studies, (and that) a search (be made) among modernists for one who could play the part of a Muslim Martin Luther and 'updating' Islam like Vatican II. 

YMD: Some years back when Frithjof Schuon was criticized in the Impact for his Sufi practices, you had reacted strongly. Do you agree with the ideas presented by him, and the practices he tried to promote? 

MJ: I was utterly shocked by the article in Impact condemning Frithjof Schuon and considered it (and still do) the worst character assassination. When dissatisfied with revivalist books, I was at first greatly impressed with Schuon's writings. The writings of his school were alone in emphasizing the necessity of beauty and Islamic art, strongly condemned industrialism and modern science and upheld traditional orthodox Islamic civilization in every aspect of a Muslim's life. Schuon's writings remained my favourite books until I met with his divorced third wife. We became best friends and she related all her experiences in her 30-year life with Schuon. So Impact's article turned out to be true after all. My new found friend disclosed even more shocking facts about Schuon which utterly disqualified him as a spiritual guide. She disclosed that Schuon lived with three women without proper Nikah. He loved nudity and was accused in court of sexual child abuse. He hugged dozens of beautiful, bare-breasted young girls clad in only a transparent loin-cloth. He painted fifty pictures of his youngest wife in the nude. As entertainment, he and his followers danced native Indian dances. Outside Schuon's house was a life-sized statue of the Virgin Mary. Worst of all, he forbade his followers to befriend other Muslims. I still have all Schuon's books; they still attract me but I cannot look at them without a profound sense of shame. 

YMD: What, in general, is your assessment of the neo-apologists and propagators of Sufi ideas such as Schuon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings, or others of this class? Do you think that, in effect, they offer pantheism rather than impress about Islam's unique ideas and strict tawhid perspectives? 

MJ: Like Schuon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings are my favourite writers. More profound criticism of Western philosophy, science and technology is not found among any of the revivalist writers. Martin Lings Seerat is by far the best in English - based entirely on Qur'an and Hadith. 

YMD: How do you rate Rene Guenon's writings? Do you think his obsession with the cyclic explanation, did away with whatever good criticism he made against the Western culture, and contributed nothing, despite his long stay in Egypt, to the projection of Islam as primarily rational? 

MJ: No modern writer attacked modern civilization and all it stands for more than Rene Guenon. Next to him the revivalist figures appear childish. His all-out attack on evolutionism and progressionism is decisive and irrefutable. He proved the cyclic and disproved progress. No sensitive, intelligent mind can study Rene Geunon's 'Crisis of the modern world' and 'Reign of quantity and signs of the times' without being changed forever. 

YMD: How would you explain the exclusion of many powerful Muslim personalities of not only our own times, but even of the first half of the last century from the 'Encyclopedia of Islam' produced at Braille, when you find entries on other less influential men of the past? 

MJ: The 'Encyclopaedia of Islam' is entirely an Orientalist work. The exclusion of these powerful Muslim personalities of the past and present serves their own nefarious purposes of keeping serious scholars ignorant about them. 

YMD: In your opinion, how effective is the present educational system in the Muslim world? Will a piecemeal attempts at making conventional western-style education conform to Islamic requirements suffice in effecting a lasting transformation amongst the Muslim youth today? Or will a wholesale shift in paradigm be necessary before a new edifice of education is built on premises that are strictly in keeping with the founding principles of the Islamic worldview? 

MJ: The present educational system in Muslim countries results in imitation of Westerners. It destroys faith in Islam and the Islamic way of life. Maulana Maudoodi was most concerned about this when in 1939 he wrote Talimat and Tanqihat. Despite all their defects I am most opposed to the secularization or closing down of the Deeni Madaris - all that is left of traditional Islamic education for the young today. 

YMD: While the Jews have always disowned the 'Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion' ever since it was first discovered in the early years of the twentieth century, there is a widespread belief that the 'Protocols' form the blueprint for Jewish world domination. What is your own view on the 'Protocols' and the Zionist movement in general? 

MJ: Nobody knows if the 'Protocols of the learned elders of Zion' is authentic or not (?). If so, it was probably written by Theodore Herzl at the first Zionist Convention in Basle, Switzerland in 1897. Literary similarities between the 'Protocols' and 'The Jewish State' (1896) are striking. Racial anti-semitism produced by the 'Protocols' which fail to distinguish between Judaism and Zionism is a Western import into the Muslim world previously unknown. Orthodox Judaism and Zionism conflict and are irreconcilable. 

YMD: The WTC attacks of September 11, 2001, have had a profound impact on the prospects for Islamic revival in the 21st century. How historic do you think is this development? What has been your assessment of global developments with regard to Islam and the Muslim world in the four years since the event? Do you perceive an attempt at neo-colonization of the energy-rich Muslim lands by the Western Powers led by the US as sufficient justification for those Muslims who have picked up the gauntlet and have responded in kind to the oppression that has become the staple fare of innocent Muslims in several parts of the globe? 

MJ: The USA under President Bush is engaged in an all-out war on Islam: the same colonialism and imperialism as the British and French a century ago. But insurgency and suicide bombers are no effective response. Shocking disregard for human life, especially women, children and the elderly - all innocent non-combatants cannot qualify the struggle as Jihad. Jihad must be waged according to Shariat. 

YMD: Your views on the future of the Muslim people and the prospects for the Islamic faith in the 21st century? Do you see a vision of hope which bases itself on the inherent strengths - howsoever negligible - of the Muslim Ummah today, as against one which has for its premises the myriad weaknesses of the community? 

MJ: As despair and hopelessness are forbidden in Islam, I view the future with great caution. The destruction of most of the outward signs of traditional environment and atmosphere in Islam, particularly architecture and Islamic dress for males as well as females is a catastrophic loss. Taqwa will remain in the next century although it will grow less and less and harder and harder to find. Many signs of the Last Days predicted by Hadith are now present. When asked what to do at the approach of the Last Days, the Holy Prophet replied: 'Separate yourself from the evil ones, concentrate on your own affairs and cling to the roots of the tree (of Islam) until death overtakes you in that state...'

Monday, January 5, 2009

What others say about MARYAM JAMEELAH'S books.



ISLAM VERSUS THE WEST
 
Maryam Jameelah (formerly Margaret Marcus) is quite a well-known figure in the Muslim world now. This book, comprising various essays by her, some of which were written even before she formally, embraced Islam. Starting with the story of how she got interested in Islam when in New York, the book is by and large a critical survey of the writings of modernist Muslims like Mr. A. A. Fyzee of India and Ziya Gokalp of Turkey. The writings of orientalists like Mr. Wilfred Cantwell Smith have also been critically examined. Maryam Jameelah is a great admirer of al Ikhwan al Muslimun of Egypt. The two Muslims of this century highly praised by her are Sayyid Qutb and Allama Muhammad lqbal. Towards the end of the book she has also treated in a philosophical vein such topics as the prohibition of pictures and the significance of "Taqbir." The book ends with a negative answer to the question, "Is Westernization inevitable?" The book is well bound and deserves wide publicity. 

The Radiance Viewsweekly, Delhi,

  In this collection of essays, she makes a brilliant analysis of the folly and futility of compromising the principles and spiritual values of Islam in a vain attempt to prove their compatibility with the material aspirations and drive or aggrandizement that set apart the spirit of the modern West. She is firmly opposed to the so-called westernizers within the fold of Islam and with eloquent reasoning, she argues that Islamic society can flourish and contribute its own in a technocratic civilization without having to sacrifice the inner principles of its being. 

Dawn, Karachi,
ISLAM AND MODERNISM

  It goes to the credit of an American-born convert that she made a searching criticism of the philosophical sources of western materialism, modern philosophy, and the fallacy of modernism. Showing the futility of the apologetic approach of Muslim modernists towards Islam, she demands that they should put an end once and for all interpreting Islam through foreign criteria and summon the courage to stand up and defend an unadulterated Islam. She upholds Islam in its pure form and stresses the necessity for a re-evaluation of Islamic history in that light. Written in a bitter tone but lucid style, the book makes very useful reading. 

The Pakistan Observer, Dacca.

  The book is extremely readable and thought provoking. Also it contains a number of seminal generalizations, each one of which asks for a book. Like all true Muslims, the author combines practice with preaching. Her photograph at the beginning of the book shows her enveloped from head to foot in Islamic Purdah. This eminent lady has proved that Purdah, if observed according to Allah's laws, cannot impede women's mental development but in fact is a sign of her dignity and nobility. 

The Criterion: Journal of the Islamic Research Academy, Karachi

ISLAM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

  This is the inquiry of a restless soul, courageous and bold, frank and forthright, promising and challenging. The day of Islamic supremacy, this American-Jewish convert pleads, shall not be far away if only the Muslims realize their destiny, live up to the ideals of Islam, strive to uphold the Word of God in every walk of their lives to establish Islam in its entirety in political, social, economic cultural and all other aspects. Then Islam would be a living force and not just an academic proposition. As in other writings of hers, Maryam Jameelah is at her best when she takes to account Western philosophy, thought, ideals and practices. Her advantage is that she was brought up and nurtured in Western society and educated and trained in the Western tradition, so naturally she is better fitted to know its dark spots and the mainsprings of evil which have polluted Western society and which are now corroding the foundations of Muslim society with its obnoxious influences. The personalities, movements and parties dedicated to the cause of the revival of Islam, particularly in our own age, have been very ably summed up and the penetrating eyes of the author have been able to assess remarkably well the real worth and status of persons and parties of the recent past and present. Few writers on Islam have that balanced outlook, that courage to speak the truth, that integrity of mission, that maturity of thought and detailed grasp on the subject which this American-born lady displays in her short, terse essays. 

The Criterion, Karachi.

ISLAM VERSUS AHL AL KITAB PAST AND PRESENT

  Really! Amazing! Incredible! What? - are exclamations that come out often as one feels the impact of this great exposure and indictment of Zionism and the Christian church. The author conveys much of her points by the very words of the people she talks about. To avoid quoting out of context, she uses many lengthy extracts. The result is a very fair, balanced and objective presentation. None can deny that this is the greatest assault on Judaism and Christianity both in theory and practice coming from a Muslim pen for a very long time. How has she set about it? Firstly, it must be mentioned that the author's history places her at a position of advantage to perform such a task. She grew up in a Jewish family, a member of the Jewish minority in Christian America and then embraced Islam. Being a near insatiable bibliophile as well entitles her to a claim of inside knowledge of the three faiths. All these assets are brought into good use here. The lengthy chapter on Judaism is a well-documented outline of Jewish beliefs, culture, complexes, deviations and history. The author provides an analysis of the background to the rise of Zionism and how a racist religion, garbed with modern political and military sophistry and bred on the support of Western treachery and collusion, has grown into the menacing monstrosity of Zionism. The second chapter contains the post energetic refutation of Christianity that I have ever come across. It is a historical, a moral, an academic and indeed, an outright refutation of Christianity. The author answers the usual Christian accusations against Islam with even greater vehemence. In this, one sees how much she detests the apologetic approach of answering back. Rather she throws the whole table on the Christians. She gives a lucid and highly informative analysis of the aims and moods of operation of the Christian missionary. The last chapter rounds off beautifully her arguments against racist Judaism and neo-imperialist, man-made Christianity. She presents Islam as the only authentic religion through which mankind can be united. This book is Maryam Jameelah's best work to date. 

The Muslim: Journal of the Federation of Student Islamic societies in the United Kingdom and Eire, London.

AHMAD KHALIL: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PALESTINIAN ARAB REFUGEE

  This nicely printed book has much to commend itself to readers. Since the story was written by a convert from Zionism who herself witnessed all the ups and downs, her treatment of the whole tale is superb. Besides the elements of suspense and surprise, vivid description and good characterization sustain the reader's interest at high pitch. The plot from beginning to end is so well woven that the reader's interest never sags. The pen-portraits of Ahmad Khalil, his brother, Khalifa and his cousin, Rashid are very well drawn and life- like. 

The Pakistan Review, Lahore

  Religious exaltation is well known but faith has its depths too when overwhelmed by suffering, pain and defeat, man is sustained by Allah's love. Ahmad Khalil in parts successfully conveys the quiet piety of those who live in true humility before Allah. The book catches the religious dignity or the common Muslim family living next to the soil where women are modest and hardworking and the men brave and industrious. The characterization of the sensitive boy, Khalifa, whose life is haunted by the brutality of the Israelis, shows that the author is capable of presenting psychological realities. Many people in the West believe that the Israelis have a better right than the Arabs to Palestine because they are "progressive" and have made the desert bloom. The poor and the backward deserve the worst that comes to them. Ahmad Khalil is a stirring repudiation of this theory of "progress". 

The Criterion, Karachi.

Short Biography Of Maryam Jameelah

Maryam Jameelah was born Margaret Marcus to a Jewish family in New Rochelle, NY, on May 23, 1934. She grew up in a secular environment, but at the age of nineteen, while a student at New York University, she developed a keen interest in religion.


Unable to find spiritual guidance in her immediate environment, she looked to other faiths. Her search brought her into contact with an array of spiritual orders, religious cults, and world religions; she became acquainted with Islam around 1954. She was then greatly impressed by Marmaduke Pickthall’s The Meaning of the Glorious Koran and by the works of Muhammad Asad, himself a convert from Judaism to Islam. Jameelah cites Asad’s The Road to Mecca and Islam at Crossroads as critical influences on her decision to become a Muslim.


Through her readings in Islam she developed a bond with the religion and became a vocal spokesperson for the faith, defending Muslim beliefs against Western criticism and championing such Muslim causes as that of the Palestinians. Her views created much tension in her personal life, but she continued to pursue her cause.


She embraced Islam in New York on May 24, 1961, and soon after began to write for the Muslim Digest of Durban, South Africa. Her articles outlined a pristine view of Islam and sought to establish the truth of the religion through debates with critics. Through the journal, Jameelah became acquainted with the works of Mawlana Sayyid Abu Ala Mawdudi, the founder of the Jamaati Islami (Islamic Party) of Pakistan, who was also a contributor to the journal.


Jameelah was impressed by Mawdudi’s views and began to correspond with him. Their letters between 1960 and 1962, later published in a volume entitled Correspondences between Maulana Mawdoodi and Maryam Jameelah, discussed a variety of issues from the discourse between Islam and the West, to Jameelah’s personal spiritual concerns.


Jameelah traveled to Pakistan in 1962 on Mawdudi’s advice and joined his household in Lahore. She soon married Muhammad Yusuf Khan, as his second wife.


Since settling in Pakistan, she has written an impressive number of books, which adumbrated the Jamaati Islami’s ideology in a systematic fashion. Although she never formally joined the party, she became one of its chief ideologists.


Jameelah has been particularly concerned with the debate between Islam and the West, an important, albeit not central, aspect of Mawdudi’s thought.


Her significance, however, does not lie in the force of her observations, but in the manner in which she articulates an internally consistent paradigm for revivalism’s rejection of the West. In this regard, her influence far exceeds the boundaries of the Jamaati Islami and has been important in the development of the Muslim world.


The logic of her discursive approach has recently led Jameelah away from revivalism and the Jamaati Islami. Increasingly aware of revivalism’s own borrowing from the West, she has distanced herself from the revivalist exegesis and has even criticized her mentor Mawdudi for his assimilation of modern concepts into Jamaati Islami’s ideology. Her writings in recent years embody this change in orientation and reveal the influence of traditional Islam.


Today she lives in Lahore and continues to write on Islamic thought and life.

THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT AND THE MUSLIM WOMAN

THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT AND 
THE MUSLIM WOMAN

Maryam Jameelah

 


The most radical movement in recent times which is revolutionizing the whole social structure and changing the entire basis of human relationships is the Feminist movement, popularly known as the drive for Women’s Liberation.

The Feminist movement is not a unique product of the modern age. Its historical precedents reach back into antiquity. In his Republic, Plato advocated the abolition of the family and social roles determined by sex; in literature, the ancient Greek classical comedy, Lypsistrata and much marc recently, Henrick Ibsen’s (1828-1906) drama, A Doll’s House preached feminist ideals. The Victorian economist and philosopher, John Stuart Mill and the German socialist, Friedrich Engels in his essay, The Subjection of Women, which he wrote in 1869, laid the core foundations of Feminism. In 1884 Angels publicly proclaimed marriage as a “dreary mutation of slavery,” urged its abolition and suggested public responsibility for the rearing of children.

In America, Feminism was the outgrowth of the movement for the abolition of slavery and the Temperance movement for the legal banning of liquor. Women who joined these organizations soon discovered that to make their cause effective, they required political power. The historical milestone of the Feminist movement was the Seneca Falls Convention in 1948 which in its manifesto, demanded women’s rights to her complete control over her property and the he right to divorce her husband, guardianship of the children and an end to sexual discrimination in employment along with the right to receive equal pay with men for the same work, and most important, female franchise. As the campaign for women’s suffrage grew, the more conservative Feminists limited their cause to the single issue of suffrage. In 1920 with the passage of the 19th amendment to the American constitution giving women the vote, the majority of women activists as ‘well, as the public assumed that with female franchise, women’s rights had been fully obtained. After this, the Feminist movement lay dormant for more then than forty years. 

On December 14, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an Executive order establishing the President’s Commission on the status of women. Its mandate was “to examine and recommend remedies to combat the prejudices and obsolete customs and morals which act as obstacles to the complete realization of women’s rights.” The President’s Commission was the first official body ever to examine the status of in the United States.

Thus the “silent fifties” came to an abrupt end with the beginnings of Feminist confrontation politics in the early 1960’s – marches, pickets and sit-ins. College and university girls began to participate in these political activities.

In contrast to the women who assembled at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and merely protested against the ill-treatment and abuse of women by drunken husbands and achievement of their legitimate rights in marriage, control of property and earnings and equal pay with men for the same work, the demands of the modern successors are far more radical. In the largest most enthusiastic Feminist demonstration ever held, on August 26, 1970, hundreds of women marched down Fifth Avenue, New York City carrying placards which read: 

HOUSEWIVES ARE UNPAID SLAVES! STATE PAY FOR HOUSEWORK! OPPRESSED WOMEN! DON’T COOK DINNER! STARVE YOUR HUSBAND TONIGHT! END HUMAN SACRIFICE! DON’T GET MARRIED! WASHING DIAPERS IS NOT FULFILLING! LEGALISE ABORTION! DEPENDENCY IS NOT HEALTHY STATE OF BEING!

Today’s Feminists are implacably opposed to any social roles being determined by sex. Feminists assert the absolute and unqualified equality of men and women, not withstanding anatomical differences. They deny that there is any inherent biological distinction between men and women on the basis of sex which determines that the wife should be the housewife and mother and the husband the breadwinner and authoritarian head of the family. They believe that women should take just as active role in sexual intercourse as men and not be passive. They demand the abolition of institutional marriage, home and family, asset complete female sexual freedom and that the upbringing should be a public responsibility. They insist that all women should be given the right to complete control over their reproductive lives. They are demanding that all restrictions must be lifted from laws governing contraception so that devices can be publicly advertised and available over the druggist counter to any women regardless of her age and marital status and purchasable without a doctor’s prescription. All laws restricting abortion should be removed and that women have a legal right to abortion at any stage of pregnancy. Abortions should not only be available at demand but should be supplied free by the state to any women who wants one so that the poor can take full advantage of facility. 

In schools all course must be equally co-educational – home economics must no be exclusively female and shop mechanics for boys. Segregation must be broken down in gymnasiums and physical education. Girls should be allowed to compete in all sports and physical exercises with boys at all ages. All mass-media must be radically changed to eliminate sex-stereotyping roles and portray women as equal to men in all fields of work and production. Children’s books are criticized by feminists because they do not show in their stories more single-parent families, unmarried mothers and divorces women as models for the children. Girls should be given mechanical toys to play with and boys should be given dolls. Instead of traditional institutions of marriage, home and family, radical Feminists propose men and women living in large communes where the welfare and rearing of the children would be public responsibility. They are demanding that child-care centers are made available to parents on a 24-hour basis provided to the public as free on demand just as parks, libraries and recreational facilities are taken for granted in most American communities. Women must be financially independent and no profession or occupation should be banned to her on account of her sex.

A lot of women who may say that they just want to play the traditional roles are simply fearful - or unable to imagine other ways of being. Old roles can seem to offer a certain security. Freedom can seem frightening especially if one has learned how to achieve a certain degree of power inside prison. Perhaps they are just afraid of choices. We don’t seek to impose any­thing on women but merely to open up all possible alternatives. We do seek choice as one of the functions, which makes people human beings. We want to be full people, crippled neither by law or custom or our own-chained minds. If there us no room in that in nature, then nature must be changed!1

One of the “alternative choices” for women the Feminists seek to make socially acceptable is Lesbianism (female homosexuality). One of the branches of feminism is the homophile organization known as The Daughters of Bilitis the aim of which is to promote Lesbianism.

The women’s liberation movement has members who were lesbians before its existence and those who have become lesbians since their involvement with the movement. For some of the latter, Lesbianism is a form of political protest. Say the radical feminists. “Lesbianism is one road to freedom - freedom from oppression by men.”2

The Lesbian minority in America, which may run as high at ten million women, is a woman, who is drawn erotically to women rather than to men. Perhaps the most logical and least hysterical of all statements about homosexuality is the following by Dr. Joel Fort psychiatrist and public health specialist and Dr. Joe K. Adams, psychologist and former mental health officer. The statement made in August 1966 is as follows: “Homosexuals like heterosexuals should be treated as individual human beings and not as a special group either by law or social agencies or employers. Laws governing sexual behavior should be reformed to deal only with clearly anti-social behavior involving violence or youth. The sexual behavior of individual adults by mutual Consent in private should not be a matter of public concern.3


What is the end-result of the radical feminist movement? What kind of society does Women’s Liberation seek to attain?

Thus women for men are alternatively angels and slaves to be worshipped one minute and spurned and exploited the next but seldom treated as equals. Concerning sex, our society has taught total abstinence for the first decade of sexual maturity (even masturbation is considered at best an unavoidable evil,) then life-long fidelity to one partner. All the while society does its best both to keep us ignorant and confused about what a well developed sex-life can be and to convince us that the forbidden fruits of promiscuity surpass anything the “moral’ person can ever taste. What a bundle of paradoxes! If instead we could face without flinching our homosexual impulses and curiosity about how this or that act with such a person might feel, then we might be able to distinguish between an impulse which is immoral and involuntary and action which of course must be taken deliberately in accordance with its likely consequences and our overall values and goals. What would happen if men rejected the male stereotype and acknowledged the values of oneness, humility, discussion, consideration, cooperation and compromise along with humility, respectful disagreement and conflict. We would not deny the richness of our sexual imagination nor the natural sexual element in all relationships. Just how it occurs-talking, touching, dancing or making love should be our guilt-free choice based on our own honest needs rather than a “moral” “masculine” stereotype.

What about the question of “fidelity” to one partner versus a diverse sex-life? Most adults seem to need to have a primary relationship, which comes before all others. If a problem in the primary relationship, which is the most demanding but also the most potentially rewarding kind, makes us try to escape through an outside flirtation or “affair,” this is bad not because of the sexual acts committed but because it is an escape. The problem remains unsolved.

All our relationships tend to be over-reserved. We need to loosen up and learn to express affection-openly and physically. Would men’s and women’s liberation of the sort I have just described destroy the traditional American family? I think so. It is an institution with many drawbacks. Considerations of efficiency and economy and exposure to the difficulties and opportunities inherent in larger groups living and working together make it a good idea to experiment with some “communal” kinds of arrangement.4

In Muslim countries, fortunately, the Feminist movement has not yet touched such extremes as this but as a result of westernization, Purdah is rapidly disappearing and women, revolting against their tradi­tional roles, are patterning their lives more and more am the models of their Western sisters.

In the more fashionable and well-to-do urban classes, particularly in Tehran, the women spend less time in household work and more in social, professional, recreational and philan­thropic activities. To go to the dress-maker or the hair-dresser, to have morning coffee or lunch with friends, to shop and attend parties, these constitute the daily routine for such women. They also enjoy taking meals in fine restaurants, going on holidays and engaging in sports. An increasing number of women of this class take an interest in cultural and charitable work. (p. 77)

In the cities of Lebanon, women are increasingly seen outside the home. On Sundays there are as many women as men on the crowded beaches of Beirut - the younger generation, of course. Beach behavior undoubtedly is a symbol of the loosening of bonds. In Lebanon the acceptance of Western dress styles has reached a stage where among the westernized middle and upper classes, there is little restraint even on those girls who wish to dress provocatively. In all social groups girls display a tremendous preoccupation with clothes and they are not usually casual clothes except for beach wear or picnics. In the winter suits are worn but in summer the standard garb for the university girl is a tight silk dress or skirt and a more or less transparent blouse. High heels and nylon stockings are standard and make-up is elaborate. Some Muslim girls (not university students) wear a completely transparent symbolic veil over their faces. A few years ago, girls were shy about being seen on the beaches with bathing suits, especially in a bikini. Now they take it in their stride and many wear scanty two-piece bathing suits. (pp. 122-123)5

Feminism is an unnatural, artificial and abnormal product of contemporary social disintegration, which in turn is the inevitable result of the rejection of all transcendental, absolute moral and spiritual values. The student of anthropology and history can be certain of the abnormality of the Feminist movement because all human cultures that we know of throughout prehistorically and historic times make a definite clear-cut distinction between “masculinity” and “femininity” and pattern the social roles of men and women accordingly. The disintegration of the home and family, the loss of the authoritarian role of the father and sexual promiscuity have been directly responsible for the decline and fall of every nation which these evils become prevalent. 

Some may argue that if this is so, why is Western civilization so extraordinarily vigorous and dynamic and despite its decadence and moral corruption, still unchallenged in its world-domination?

When moral depravity, self-worship and sensual indulgence have touched extremes; when men and women, young and old have become lost in sexual craze; when men have been completely perverted by sexual excitements, the natural consequences leading a nation to total collapse will inevitably follow. People who witness the progress and prosperity of such declining nations, which indeed stand on the very brink of an abyss of fire, are led to conclude that their self-indulgence is not impeding their progress but accelerating it. They think that a nation is at the peak of its prosperity when its people are highly self-indulgent. But this is a sad conclusion. When the constructive and destructive forces are both working side by side and the constructive aspect on the whole seems to have an edge over the destructive aspect, it is wrong to count the latter among the factors leading to the former.

Take, for instance, the case of a clever merchant who is earning high profits by dint of his intelligence, hard-work and experience. But at the same time, if he is given to drink, gambling and leads a care-free life, will it not be misleading to regard that side of his life as contributing to his well-being and prosperity? As a matter of fact, the first set of qualities is helping him to prosper whereas the second set is pulling him down. If on account of the positive qualities, he is flourishing, it does not mean that the negative forces are ineffective. It may be that the devil of gambling brings his whole fortune to naught in a moment and it may be that the devil of drinking leads him to commit a fatal mistake rendering him bankrupt and it may be that the devil of sexual indulgence leads him to commit murder, suicide or some other calamity. One cannot imagine how prosperous and triumphant he would have been had he not fallen a prey to these evils.

Similarly is the case with a nation. In the beginning it receives an impetus from constructive forces but then, due to lack of proper guidance, it begins to gather round it the means of its own destruction. For a while the constructive forces drag it along under the momentum already gained. But the destructive forces that are working simultaneously weaken it so much that one stray shock can send it sprawling to its doom.6

Where can salvation for humanity be found?

From the point of view of social structure, the teachings of the Shariah emphasize the role of the family as the unit of society - the family in the extended sense and not in its atomized, nuclear modem form. The greatest social achievement of the Prophet in Medina was precisely in breaking the existing tribal bonds and substituting religious ones which were connected on the one hand with the totality of the Muslim community and on the other hand with the family. The Muslim family is the miniature of the whole of Muslim society and its firm basis. In it, the man or father functions as the Imam in accordance with the patriarchal nature of Islam. The religious responsibility of the family rests upon his shoulders. In the family, the father upholds the tenets of the faith and his authority symbolizes that of God in the world. The man is in fact respected in the family precisely because of the sacerdotal function that he fulfils. The rebellion of Muslim women in certain quarters of Islamic society came when men themselves ceased to fulfil their religious function and lost their virile and patriarchal character. By becoming themselves effeminate, they caused the reaction of revolt among certain women who no longer felt the authority of religion upon themselves.

The traditional family is also the unit of stability of society and the four wives that a Muslim can marry, like the four-sided Ka’aba, symbolize this stability. Many have not understood why such a family structure is permitted in Islam and attack Islam for it as if polygamy belongs to Islam alone. Here and again Muslim modernism carries with it the prejudice of Christianity against polygamy to the extent that some have gone even so far as to call it immoral and prefer promiscuity to a social pattern which minimizes all illicit relations to the extent possible. The problem of the attitude of the Western observer is not as important as that segment of modernized Muslim society which itself cannot understand the teachings of the Shariah on this point simply because it uses as criteria categories borrowed from the modern West.

There is no doubt that in a small but significant segment of Muslim society today, there is a revolt of women against traditional Islamic society. In every civilisation a reaction always comes against an existing force or action. In Islam, the very patriarchal and masculine nature of the tradition makes the revolt of those women who have become aggressively modernised more violent and virulent than, let us say, in Hinduism, where the maternal element has always been strong. What many modernised Muslim women are doing in rebelling against the traditional Muslim family structure is to rebel against fourteen centuries of Islam itself although many may not be aware of the inner forces that drive them on. It is the patriarchal nature of Islam that makes the reaction of some modernised women today so vehement. Although very limited in number, they are, in fact, more than Muslim men, thirsting for all things Western. They seek to become modernised in their dress and habits with impetuosity, which would be difficult to understand unless one considers the deep psychological factors involved.

From the Islamic point of view, the question of the equality of men and women is meaningless. It is like discussing the equality of a rose and a jasmine. Each has its own perfume, colour, shape and beauty. Men and women are not the same. Each has particular features and characteristics. Women are not equal to men. But neither are men equal to women. Islam envisages their roles in society not as competing but as complimentary. Each has certain duties and functions in accordance with his or her nature and constitution.

Man possesses certain privileges such as social authority and mobility against which he has to perform many heavy duties. First of all, he bears all economic responsibility. It is his duty to support his family completely even if his wife is rich and despite the fact that she is economically independent. A woman in a traditional Islamic society does not have to worry about earning a living. There is always a family completely even if his wife is rich and despite die fact that she is economically independent. A woman in traditional Islamic society does not have to worry about earning a living. There is always the larger family structure in which she can find a place and take refuge from social and economic pressures even if she has no husband or father. In the extended family system, a man often supports not only his wife and children but also his mother, sister, aunts, in-laws and sometimes even cousins and more distant relatives. Therefore in city life, the necessity of having to find a job at all costs and having to bear the economic pressure of life is lifted from the shoulders of women. As for the countryside, the family is itself the economic unit and the work is achieved by the larger family or tribal unit together.

Secondly, a woman does not have to find a husband for herself. Site does not have to display her charms and make the thousand and one plans through which she hopes to attract a future mate. The terrible anxiety of having to find a husband and of missing the opportunity if one does not try hard enough at the right moment is spared the Muslim woman. Being able to remain true to her nature, she can afford to sit at home and wait for her parents or guardian to choose a suitable match. This usually leads to a marriage which, being based on the sense of religious duty and enduring family and social bonds between the two sides, is more lasting arid ends much more rarely in divorce than the marriages which are based on the sentiments of the moment that often do not develop into more permanent relationships.

Thirdly the Muslim woman is spared direct military and political responsibility although in rare cases there have been women warriors. This point may appear as a deprivation to some but in the light of the real needs of feminine nature, it is easy to see that for most women, such duties weigh heavily upon them. Even in modern societies, which through the equalitarian process have tried to equate men and women as if there were no difference in the two sexes, Women are usually spared the military draft except in extreme circumstances.

In return for these privileges which the woman receives, she has also certain responsibilities of which the most important is to provide a home for her family and to bring up her children properly. In the home the woman rules as queen and a Muslim man is in a sense the guest of his wife at home. The home and the larger family structure in which she lives are for the Muslim woman her world. To be cut off from it would be like being cut off from the world or like dying. She finds the meaning of her existence in this extended family structure which is constructed so as to give her the maximum possibility of realizing her basic needs and fulfilling herself.

The Shariah therefore envisages the role of men and women according to their nature, which is complimentary. It gives the man the privilege of social and political authority and movement for which he has to pay by bearing heavy responsibilities, by protecting his family from all the forces and pressures of society, economic and otherwise. Although a master in the world at large and the head of his own family, the man acts in his home as one who recognize the rule of his wife, in this domain and respects it. Through mutual understanding and the realization of the responsibilities that God has placed on each other’s shoulders, the Muslim man and woman are able to fulfill their personalities and create a firm family unit which is the basic structure of Muslim society.7

In the vehement rejection of the cultural, moral and spiritual values, indispensable for maintaining the institution of the family, those who support the Women’s Liberation Movement are revolting against the whole Christian heritage of their own civilization.

Despite the evils of its feudalistic society and the abuses of the authority of the priesthood, medieval Europe enjoyed a social integration, stability, peace and harmony which is unknown to modern Europe. Here is a vivid and moving description of Christian family values practically implemented in medieval Europe as taken from the family chronicles of the famous German artist, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) who, although a devout Christian, presents a picture of his own home life as very close to Islamic ideals.

Albrecht Durer, my beloved father, came to Germany, and stayed for a long time in the low countries, working with the great masters and finally came here to Nuremberg in the year of Our Lord 1455 on St. Eligius’s day. And on this same day (June 25th) there was the wedding of Philip Pircheimer in the castle and a great reception under the big lime tree. Thenceforth, for a long time, my beloved father, Albrecht Durer served the old Hiercrnonymus Holper until the year of our Lord 1467. Then he gave him his daughter Barbara, a handsome, virtuous maid, fifteen years of age and they were married eight days before St. Vitus (June 8).

This good mother of mine bore and brought up eighteen children, often had the pestilence and many other severe illnesses, endured great poverty, ridicule, scorn, alarm, and misfortune, yet she never bore revenge. These brothers and sisters of mine, my beloved father’s children, are all dead, some died young, the rest when adult. Only we three brothers are still living, so long as it may please God; namely, I, Albrecht and my brother Andreas, likewise my brother Hans. the third of that name out of my father’s children.

This said Albrecht Durer, the eider, worked hard all his life and had nothing else to live on but what he earned for himself, his wife and his children with his own hands. He also had all manner of grief, temptation and adversity. And all who knew him praised him for he led an honourable Christian life, was a patient and gentle man, peaceable towards everyone and he was very thankful to God. He had little-use for society and worldly pleasures; he was also a man of few words and Godfearing. My beloved father took great pains to teach his children to honour the Lord. For his greatest wish was to bring up his children well so that they would be pleasing in the sight of God and man. Therefore he continually told us to love God and behave honourably towards our fellow men.

And my father was especially fond of me for he saw that I was eager to learn. Therefore he sent me to school and when I had learnt to read and write, he cook me away from school and taught me the goldsmith’s craft. And when I had mastered this, I felt that [would rather be a painter than a goldsmith. When I told my father this, he was not pleased for he grieved at the loss of time I had spent as his apprentice. But in the end, he let me have my way and in the year of our Lord 1486, on St. Andrew’s day (30th November) my father hound me as apprentice to Michael Wolgemut to serve him for three years. In that time God gave me diligence and I learnt well but I also had to suffer much at the hands of his assistants. 

And after I had come home, Hans Frey negotiated with my father and gave me his daughter, Agnes and with her gave me 200 forms and we were married on Monday, July 7th before St. Margaret’s day in the year 1494.

Later it happened that my father became ill with dysentery and no one could cure him. And when he saw death approaching, he submitted to it calmly and patiently and commended my mother to my care and bade us to follow in the way of the Lord. He received the last sacraments and died a Christian death, leaving my mother a sorrowing widow. He had always praised her to me exceedingly as a most godly woman. Therefore I resolved never to forsake her. 

All my friends! I ask you in God’s name when you read of my pious father’s death to say a Paternoster and an Ave Maria for his soul and for the sake of your souls too, that we may, by serving God succeed in living a good life and dying a good death. For it is not possible that one who has led a good life should die an evil death for God is merciful. 

Now you shall know that in the year 5513, on a Tuesday before Rogation, my poor mother -whom I had taken care of for nine years since she came to live with me two years after my father died when she was quite penniless - was taken so ill early in the morning that we had to break open her door - for she was too weak to let us in and that that was the only way we could get to her. We brought her downstairs and she received both sacraments for everyone knew she was about to die. She had never been well since my father died. 

More than a year from the said day on which she fell ill, in the year of our Lord, May 17, 1514, two hours before dark, my pious mother, Barbara Durer departed from this life with all the sacraments, absolved from pain and sin by papal authority. Before she died, she gave me her blessing and wished me divine peace with much good advice to guard myself from Sm. And she was most afraid of death but she said she was not afraid to meet God. And my mother’s death grieved me more than I can say. May God have mercy on her soul ! It was always her greatest pleasure to speak of God and see that we honoured Him. And it was her custom. to go regularly to church and she always scolded me heavily when I did wrong. And she was always anxious lest I or my brothers should sin. And whenever I went out or came in, she would say, “God be with you !“ And she constantly gave us solemn warning and had continual concern for our souls. And I cannot say enough about her good works and the kindness she showed to everybody or of her good name.

And it was in her sixty-third year when she died. And I buried her fittingly in accordance with my means. May the Lord grant me that I too die a Christian death and that I may join Him and His Heavenly Host, my father, my mother and my friends and may Almighty God give us eternal life! Amen. And in death she looked far sweeter than when she was still alive.8

A uni-sexual society be proposed be the feminists - that is, a society which makes no cultural or social distinction between the sexes, a society without marriage, home and family, where modesty, chastity and motherhood are scorned, does not represent “progress” or “liberation” but degradation at its worst. The result is pure and unadulterated anarchy, confusion and chaos.

If so, why is Feminism so popular?

The social order founded on materialism is the oldest and most popular. No social order is more satisfying, none so easy to evolve and so readily acceptable to the majority of men in all climes and at all times. It has such a deep attraction for the masses that its roots need not go deep into the soil nor is it necessary to raise the level of human intelligence or make any sacrifice for its sake. One requires no altruism or endurance. One need only drift with the “times.” History bears witness to the fact that no social order has so persistently come to have its sway over humanity as it has done.9

Never has moral corruption and social decadence menaced mankind on such a universal scale as is the case now. The adoption of feminist ideals degrades humans lower than the animals. For animals live by their instincts and cannot do anything opposed to their nature. Among animals, homosexuality is unknown. The male is only attracted to the female of its own species. The male animal never goes with lust to another male or a female to another female. Among animals, the maternal relationship is completely severed as soon as the young are able to look after themselves. In most species, the father takes no interest in its offspring. There is no such thing as modesty, chastity, marriage or filial ties among. beasts. These concepts are unique with human beings. They are found in every culture at every stage of civilization and history. The feminists wish to abolish the very characteristics, which make man human and undermine the foundation of all his relationships and social ties. The result will be suicide, not only of a single nation as in the past, but of the entire human race.



1 The Rebirth of Feminism, Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, The New York Tomies, New York, 1971, pp. 228

2 Ibid, p.240. 

3 The New Woman; A Motive Anthology on Women’s Liberation, edited by Joanne Cooke and Charlotte Bunch-Weeks, New York, 1970. pp. 79-81.

4 Ibid., p.122-125.  

5 Women in the Modern World, edited by Raphael Palai. The Free Press, New York 1967. 

6 Purdah and the Status of Woman in Islam, Sayyid Abul ‘Ala Maudooda, Islamic Publications, Lahore, 1972, pp. 52-53. 

7 Ideals and Realities of Islam, Syed Hossein Nasr, George AIIen & Unwin, London, 1966, pp. 110-113. 

8 The Durer House in Nuremberg: Extracts from Durer’s Family Chronicles and Reminiscences, English translation by John M. Woolman, Nuremberg. pp. 34-46. 

8 Religion and Civilization, Abul Hasan All Nadawi, Academy of Islamic Research and 8 Publications, Lucknow, 1970, p. 45.