The answer is yes.

Furthermore, there is no time to waste when it comes to exercising this essential right.

In “Women’s roles take divergent paths in First and Third Worlds”, Rosa Brooks quotes Francis Fukuyama’s article titled “Women and the Evolution of World Politics,” which debates that “a truly matriarchal world would be less prone to conflict and more cooperative than the one we now inhabit” although “masculine policies will still be essential even in a feminized world.”

Brooks takes Fukuyama’s point a step further to state that because of the increasing female infanticide in Asia, Asian men are in “surplus” and “unless we take the changing demographics of gender as seriously as we take other emerging global trends such as weapons proliferation and climate change the future could be as dangerous as a cage full of Fukuyama’s furious male chimpanzees.”

Interestingly, Islam in the 21st Century has been reduced to a dangerous cage full of furious men not because of demographics of gender but because of the patriarchs of our society and community, people such as Abubakar Ahmad Gada, the author of Political Irrelevance of Women in Islam.

Gada’s basic premise is the hadith in which the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) had said, “A nation which placed its affairs in the hands of a woman shall never prosper.” Sanusi wrote an informative article, “Women and Political Leadership in Muslim Thought,” which sheds light on the relevance of the hadith to preceding events and circumstances under which the Prophet (pbuh) had said that.

However, many Muslims read the hadith in isolation and insist that a nation led by a woman will not have Allah’s blessings.

History suggests otherwise. The sun never set on the British Empire under the rule of Queen Victoria; Russia flourished under Catherine the Great; and Spain was ‘Christened’ under Queen Isabella and her Spanish Inquisition. India prospered under the premiership of Indira Ghandi, and Golda Meir defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

Where women leaders have prospered, they have failed greatly too. It is particularly the failures of Muslim female leaders that have involved men protecting patriarchal interests. A’ishah Bint Abi Bakr was the first Muslim woman to be defeated. She played an important role in the civil war, was defeated and captured in 656 and only released on the promise that she would abandon political life. It is paradoxical that when A’ishah lost the Battle of the Camel against Ali, her companion Abu Bakra opportunistically narrated the hadith spoken 25 years that “A nation which placed its affairs in the hands of a woman shall never prosper” Definitely, A’ishah’s resignation from politics served the interests of the menfolk who had started to reclaim the rights of Muslim women in Arabia. 1400 years later, women in several Muslim societies are denied their rights by men, rights which are promised by Islam. Such societies are, of course, very patriarchal.

Muslim women have appeared in history either as political leaders or as political decision-making consorts to their husbands. Some prominent Muslim consorts and leaders are: Khayzuran of Baghdad, a slave turned caliph-consort who made important political decisions for her husband; Empress Shulü Hatun of Qidan, who ruled Qidan until her son was elected as a successor; Asma Bint Shibab al-Sulayhiyya of Yemen whose husband Sultan Ali al-Sulahi delegated much of the administration of the kingdom to her; Radiyya Altamish; Kassi of Mali; Oghul Qamish; and Dudu of Janupur. Almost all of these Muslim consorts and leaders are famous for sermonising at the Friday Khutbas, waging wars, setting up health and education programmes, improving state economy, and have proved to be capable leaders.

Although they can be as dishonest or brutal as men, women usually take longer to decide whether or not to engage in wars because “violence and the coalition-building is primarily the work of males… most murderous violence is the province of males, and the nature of female alliances is different” (Fukuyama). Women are better at multitasking by nature and are “trained to be more empathetic”. These are two important leadership qualities.

Muslims believe that the Prophet (pbuh) married A’ishah so she could carry forward his traditions and she did become a prominent authority on Muslim tradition. Lately, contemporary Muslim leaders are marrying young and intelligent women that boost their political careers. Queen Rania of Jordan is one example of a bright Muslim woman leader. In 2004, the Ruler of Dubai, Mohammed Bin Rashed married Princess Haya of Jordan, who is a very prominent and popular community figure. There is also Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, the Consort of the Emir of Qatar.

There have been other winds of change lately. Last year the Kuwaiti parliament voted to give women full political rights but this amendment to the electoral law came 1400 years after Islam had declared that women had the right to vote. It is unfortunate that contemporary Muslim men have been denying women the rights that their religion had promised them so long ago.

As Amina Wadud points out, there has been a “historical absence of female voices in the interpretive process for most of our intellectual legacy. Some have erroneously taken this absence to mean irrelevance of female voices or experiences in determining meaning and application.” Wadud suggests that to “bring about a more complete human articulation of textual meaning” of the Quran it is urgent to “include women’s voices and perspectives within the interpretive process and to sustain those perspective as integral to our intellectual legacy.”

A Muslim woman’s moral excellence has been a Muslim man’s greatest excogitation and it is time that we see beyond the pale to include women in Muslim governance and the development of government. We have waited too long while Muslim men attempted to sort out our political problems and taught us how to practice our religion, sometimes failing miserably by nurturing a male chauvinistic society for years at the expense of house arrested women. If women are not given a chance, the world will soon witness more and more furious men rattling the bars of the Muslim political cage.

Rudyard Kipling, who was born and raised in India amongst Muslims who were the last Mogul kings, describes a boorka in his short story Beyond the Pale as an ‘evil-smelling’ garment ‘which cloaks a man as well as a woman.’ The main character, Trejago, dresses in a burqa to meet his Indian lover and symbolically throws it away at the end of the story.

No matter how I personally feel about the burqa, I think it is not anyone’s right to ridicule the garment and its wearers.

Two articles against the burqa have left me speechless not because they are insensitive in tone but because of their writers’ innate lack of knowledge about the religion they seem to target with their vile words. One is by the Bangladeshi ex-Muslim Taslima Nasrin titled “Let’s Burn the Burqa” and the other is “Death Before Burkas” by Kyle-Anne Shiver.

There are two popular opinions on hijab by Muslims; one is that it is required in the Quran and the other opinion is that it is not required and only modesty is emphasized. Ms. Nasrin claims that Quran requires niqab because of “an individual’s personal reasons” and “since then millions of Muslim women all over the world have had to suffer it.” Nasrin suggests that women

“should protest against this discrimination. They should proclaim a war against the wrongs and ill-treatment meted out to them for hundreds of years. They should snatch from the men their freedom and their rights. They should throw away this apparel of discrimination and burn their burqas.”

It was amusing to read Nasrin’s words because her knowledge about Islam, a religion she consciously abandoned, is extremely weak. A few examples:

She calls Hadith, “Quran Hadith.”Then she quotes from Surah Al- Ahzab and calls it “Surah Al – Hijab”! There is no Surah in the Quran called Al-Hijab.Nasrin uses a South Asian translation of the Quran and even that version never once mentions that a woman must cover her face. The emphasis is always on hiding and covering the female parts like chest. I wonder how she bases her argument on the ayahs that never say that a woman must cover her face? In her argument she says, “Frankly, covering just the hair is not Islamic purdah in the strict sense.” That is exactly it. Face veil is “strict” and therefore a vast number of Muslim women do not cover their faces. What’s the premise then?Muslims are supposed to know how hijab was prescribed for the Prophet’s wives but Nasrin does not. She writes, “Prophet Mohammed’s wife Ayesha was very beautiful. His friends were often found staring at her with fascination.” The reason behind asking Prophet’s wives to speak to strange men from behind a curtain, as we know, was the rumour that had spread about Ayesha (pbuh) and not because men used to stare at her.

Then there is Shiver who begins her hate-filled rant with the following:

‘Anyone who thinks I’ve spent the last 40 years of my life learning how to properly apply makeup and avoid bad-hair days, only to end up donning that hideous black thing at the command of some foreign guy with a severe case of Male-Chauvinist-Pig syndrome, is in for a fight. Give me death before burkas!’

Fair enough! No non-Muslim woman who has spent 40 years of her life learning how to apply makeup should be asked to hide that face, but Shiver does not stop there:

‘And in my opinion, the ultimate oppression of our age, no matter how one cares to cut it, slice it, dice it, whatever, is hands-down the subjugation of females – from birth to the grave – in places ruled by this cockamamie Sharia law. Liberals may be scared to call a spade a spade, but I’m not. So, I’ll say it again, Give me death before burkas!’

Again some people may find her words tolerable. The infamous Saudi rape case has stirred Shiver so one can understand where she’s coming from until she writes:

‘In my book, a gang-rape victim deserves a whole heck of lot more peace and blessings than the Prophet, who continues to inspire such barbarism in the name of his religion.

In 2002, again in Saudi Arabia, a mob of very “religious” followers of the Prophet surrounded a girls’ school that was engulfed in raging flames, and refused to permit firefighters to save the young girls, or even to permit the ones that could to flee the building.’

Many Muslims have already spoken out against the punishment awarded to the Saudi rape victim. The 2002 incidence disturbed not only me but many other Muslims. However, how does Muhammed (pbuh) fit in here? I never read one hadith awarding punishment to a rape victim. I cannot recall the Prophet asking any firefighter to let an uncovered woman burn to death.

Later Shiver goes on to talk about the Taliban, the Turkish Muslim immigrants in Germany, the mutawa (religious police) of Saudi Arabia, and cases of barbaric female genital mutilation. I have never liked or supported the Taliban or anyone else who abuses Muslim women in the name of Islam so I could be seen nodding, although Shivers information on the topic is flawed, once again:

‘The type of FGM specifically practiced and taught by the Prophet is the milder form, and limits mutilation to the removal of the clitoris. On the other hand, other forms practiced by Mohammed’s followers today are so grotesque and cause so much permanent damage, that only a truly monstrous God could possibly condone them.’

First, the hadith on female circumcision is a weak one and second even in that weak hadith the Prophet (pbuh) is said to have supported trimming of the clitoris and not its removal. Majority of Muslims do not accept the hadith as genuine which is why female circumcision (which has its roots in Pharaonic times) remains today a culture-specific practice.

Also, just for record, there is no Muslim God. The God of the Jews is the God of the Christians who is the God of the Muslims. And no “the God” is not monstrous, thank you very much. I am a Muslim woman and I am not “mutilated.”

Somehow somewhere down the line Shiver loses it again and begins lashing out at Islam:

‘Whenever I see a woman wearing one of those hideous symbols of oppression — the burka — I just wonder how many beating scars or bruises or disfigurements she is covering. I don’t blame her for being brainwashed into submission, or even for identifying with her oppressors. She is, in my view, to be pitied, not scorned.’

Let’s be honest, I am no fan of the burqa, and I am a Muslim living in a Muslim country so I know exactly what all can happen to a woman (unlike Shiver who reports gossip) but I would never be stupid enough to claim that Muslim women who choose to wear the burka do so to hide a black eye. Save yourself further disgrace, Shiver, majority of Muslim women who wear the burka are not “brainwashed into submission.”

After another crazy story of domestic abuse in a Muslim family (as if domestic abuse only takes place in Muslim households!) Shiver issues some truly classic statements:

If a Jewish or Christian man beats his wife, or otherwise abuses her, he does so against his religion, and his worship community. When a Muslim man does likewise, he does so in full obedience to the Prophet himself. It’s in the Koran. (There is enough woman-bashing fodder in the Koran for many future columns, but one of the specific admonitions to men to beat their wives is 4:34) … As an American woman, blessed by God and the Constitution, that is all I need to know about Islam. [Emphasis mine]

This just tells any reader that Shiver is just as poor at Christian and Judaist theology as she is at Islamic theology. For the interpretation of the Quranic verse 4:34, read this. As for the Bible – one may be interested in reading Deuteronomy 25:11 or Numbers: 511-21.

To conclude, I’m not arguing here whether or not hijab or niqaab is required by the Quran. This is not my place to argue that. My argument and criticism is that if a person decides to write on a topic and worse argue on a topic on a public forum then s/he should do their homework.

I am also not trying to prove Islam’s superiority over the other two Abrahamic religions. I have deep respect for all religions and special love for Abrahamic religions. All I am trying to say is that in essence many religions are not different from each other. Several years of interpretations and filtering has given rise to modern Christianity and Judaism. While Muslims cannot dare to re-write the Quran, we are trying to reinterpret it, do ijtihad, and fit traditional theological concepts in the modern world.

Give Muslims a chance. One can wish death before the burka for all I care, but please leave Islamic theology out of your rants because you clearly do not know what you are talking about.