Women and Islam.?

Question

Why are western women converting to Islam?. Islam sites say 80% of the converts to Islam are women. What do they do it for?

Answer 1

‘Heaven lies below mother’s feet’ – Prophet Mohammad.

Fourteen centuries ago when Europe was living in dark ages and America was yet to be found. Islam gave equal rights to women. Those were the times when women were treated worse than animals in the entire world. In India she had to sacrifice her life and was forced to sit in funeral pyre with her husband’s dead body. In such a grim scenario Islam give women the revolutionary right to marry and divorce on her will, to remarry after her husband’s death, to take part in all the social activities and even a right in the property.

http://www.geocities.com/adnan022/l_women2.html




http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/3673730.stm

" She says she "was horrible to [her] captors. I spat at them and was rude and refused to eat. It wasn't until I was freed that I became interested in Islam."[3]


Yvonne Ridley: From captive to convert
By Hannah Bayman
BBC News Online


If you were being interrogated by the Taleban as a suspected US spy, it might be hard to imagine a happy ending.
But for journalist Yvonne Ridley, the ordeal in Afghanistan led her to convert to a religion she says is "the biggest and best family in the world".

The formerly hard-drinking Sunday school teacher became a Muslim after reading the Koran on her release.

She now describes radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri as "quite sweet really" and says the Taleban have suffered an unfair press.

Working as a reporter for the Sunday Express in September 2001, Ridley was smuggled from Pakistan across the Afghan border.


Afghanistan was about to be bombed and all [the Taleban] were concerned about was my big knickers
Yvonne Ridley

But her cover was blown when she fell off her donkey in front of a Taleban soldier near Jalalabad, revealing a banned camera underneath her robes.

Her first thought as the furious young man came running towards her?

"Wow - you're gorgeous," she says.

"He had those amazing green eyes that are peculiar to that region of Afghanistan and a beard with a life of its own.

"But fear quickly took over. I did see him again on my way to Pakistan after my release and he waved at me from his car."


Ridley was interrogated for 10 days without being allowed a phone call, and missed her daughter Daisy's ninth birthday.

Of the Taleban, Ridley says: "I couldn't support what they did or believed in, but they were demonised beyond recognition, because you can't drop bombs on nice people."

It has been suggested the 46-year-old is a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, in which hostages take the side of the hostage-takers.

But she says: "I was horrible to my captors. I spat at them and was rude and refused to eat. It wasn't until I was freed that I became interested in Islam."

'Flappy knickers'

Indeed, the Taleban deputy foreign minister was called in when Ridley refused to take her underwear down from the prison washing line, which was in view of soldier's quarters.

"He said, 'Look, if they see those things they will have impure thoughts'."

"Afghanistan was about to be bombed by the richest country in the world and all they were concerned about was my big, flappy, black knickers.

"I realised the US doesn't have to bomb the Taleban - just fly in a regiment of women waving their underwear and they will all run off."

Once she was back in the UK, Ridley turned to the Koran as part of her attempt to understand her experience.


"I was absolutely blown away by what I was reading - not one dot or squiggle had been changed in 1,400 years.

"I have joined what I consider to be the biggest and best family in the world. When we stick together we are absolutely invincible."

What do her Church of England parents in County Durham make of her new family?

"Initially the reaction of my family and friends was one of horror, but now they can all see how much happier, healthier and fulfilled I am.

"And my mother is delighted I've stopped drinking."

What does Ridley feel about the place of women in Islam?

"There are oppressed women in Muslim countries, but I can take you up the side streets of Tyneside and show you oppressed women there.

"Oppression is cultural, it is not Islamic. The Koran makes it crystal clear that women are equal."

And her new Muslim dress is empowering, she says.

"How liberating is it to be judged for your mind and not the size of your bust or length of your legs."


A single mother who has been married three times, she says Islam has freed her from worry over her love life.

"I no longer sit and wait by the phone for a man to ring and I haven't been stood up for months.

"I have no man stress. For the first time since my teens I don't have that pressure to have a boyfriend or husband."

But there has been a phone call from at least one male admirer - north London preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri.

"He said, 'Sister Yvonne, welcome to Islam, congratulations'.

"I explained I hadn't yet taken my final vows and he said, 'Don't be pressured or pushed, the whole community is there for you if you need any help, just call one of the sisters.'

'Straight to hellfire'

"I thought, I can't believe it, this is the fire and brimstone cleric from Finsbury Park mosque and he is quite sweet really.

"I was just about to hang up when he said, 'But there is just one thing I want you to remember. Tomorrow, if you have an accident and die, you will go straight to hellfire'.

"I was so scared that I carried a copy of the vows in my purse until my final conversion last June."

And the hardest part of her new life?

"Praying five times a day. And I am still struggling to give up cigarettes."


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/3673730.stm

Published: 2004/09/21 08:59:09 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Answer 2

The facts are plain and simple. The Koran is really the first religious book that spelled out certain rights for women. If you go and get a copy of it you can read them for yourself. There is a chapter called "Women" which has a lot of them. There are other chapters that deal with women and their rights, too. But seriously, Islam did bring many rights to the women of the time (and still today) that didn't exist priviously in the Arab/Semitic/ancient world. That appeals to many a woman.

Answer 3

I would say as a Muslim women the benefits are great for a women because you are respected never treated as a sexual object or used only for men's pleasure you have so many rights in Islam that protect you from harm things that a western women can only dream of.
http://www.islamqa.com/index.php?ln=eng
http://www.islamqa.com/special/index.php?cref=62&ln=eng&subsite=16

Answer 4

Yes there are many western women converting their religion to Islam because:
1)Islam is the only religion which gives the equal rights betwe
en men and women
2)Islamic teaching (Qu'an,Hadith and Fiqh law) gives democ
racy in the family and in the community .God instructs men or husbands to discuss the important decision in their own fami ly with their wives. before inacted
4)Islam gives protection to women .God instructs islamic women to wear hijab and untight cloth for securing their lives and for prensenting different than non muslim women clothes
5)God in Qur'an spoke that all children should serve first their mothers and then after that serve their fathers.
6)God spoke in the Qur'an that wives should give assistance to their husbands for securing their children and their wealth
7)God spoke in the Qur'an that heaven is under the foot arms of a woman.Mothers should teach their children well
8)God spoke in the Qur'an clearly that women have the right to receive inheritance half of their brothers.
9)God spoke in the Qur'an cleatrly that women have the right to accept or reject the marriage proposal from a man
10)God spoke in the Qur'an clearly that women have the right
to ask for divorce if certain reasons are met
11).God regulates clearly when a widows or widowers can remarried after divorce or their husbands or their wives died
12)God spoke clearly in the Qur'an that after got divorce there
is still the obligation for ex husbands to give financial assis tance to their ex wives and their children for certain periods
13)God spoke clearly in the Qur'an that hard harrashment
of husbands is not allowed toward their wives and children
.Husbands should treat their wives tenderly and lovely
and respect each other for reaching a happy family.
14)God spoke clearly in the Qur'an that husbands should take care their parents as their responsibility.
15)God spoke in Qur'an that husbands should be a fair leader
in the family to eak out income as their main responsibility and the wives only to assist their husbands
16)God gives a very strict limitation and qualification for husbands to have another wives.God spoke in the Qur'an that hardly no husband who can act fairly to all of his wives with the maximum 4.

Answer 5

if you read fair writings about Islam you'll find that it dignified the woman and gave her a high dignity in society speaking in this topic needs too much space if you really wanna know search on the Islamic web sits and you will find it

Answer 6

I can't really answer...issue though is non western women .that practice islam....its not islam they entirely practice....its culture and islam mixed together....where sometimes culture becomes religious law.

Answer 7

Just to see something new they convertes, otherwise, Islam is totally against the women rights.

Answer 8

probably because..... they... love islam.......

Answer 9

Why is it that so many women who have been born and brought in Europe and America are willing to reject their 'liberty' and 'independence' to embrace a religion that supposedly oppresses them and is widely assumed to be prejudicial to them?" This is a question that I found on one of the sites while surfing around, and I found it an interesting question and which I'd like to draw this article around.




Can Islam be prejudiced to women, and yet appeal to women? Can Islam lower the status of a woman and still have more women embracing it as their way of life than men? According to an article written by Lucy Berrington in the Times Magazine (London) dated 9th Nov. 1993: "It is even more ironic that most British converts should be women, given the widespread view in the west that Islam treats women poorly. In the United States, women converts outnumber men by four to one, and in Britain make up the bulk of the estimated 10, 000 to 20, 000 converts, forming part of a Muslim community of 1 to 1.5 million "

How can the case of those women be explained?! Well, I could say that there are only one of two choices that one can decide upon. Either all those women who choose Islam don't know what they are doing or that they discovered Islam is not prejudice to them as others have yet to discover. New convert to Islam since September 11, US Navy petty officer, Heather Ramaha. "Islam gives us Elevation; not Degradation"

In the Noble Quran Allah (Arabic word for God) says:
"Mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honorable of you in the Sight of Allah is the believer who has Taqwa (i.e. piety and righteousness)and loves Allah most. Verily, Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware." The Holy Qur'an(49:13)

"I shall not lose sight of the labor of any of you who labors in My way, be it man or woman; each of you is equal to the other. The Holy Qur'an(3:195)"

On the light of those verses, Islam declares that it has not come to disadvantage women, but in fact has been revealed to elevate women ever since 1400 years ago, when women in many parts of the world and especially in the western societies were considered objects that are owned and with little to no rights in the society they live in.

Before any other religion or system in the world Islam gave a woman the right to inherit, the right to vote and voice her opinion, the right to trade invest and improve herself financially, the right to own - buy and sell, the right to seek knowledge and have a good education, the right to work and has even gone further to oblige the males in every stage of her life, whether it was a father, brother or husband ... It's their duty before God to take care of her, to spend on her, to provide her with the food , clothing and shelter that she needs, to provide her with a good education, to protect her from anything that can harm her and to never hesitate to put their lives in stake for her if the need calls them to do so. "As a modern westerner with a career, of course I had to look into Islam's attitude to women - I couldn't be oppressed all of a sudden. But I discovered that it is pro-women and pro-men; in Islam, women had the right to vote in the year 600. Men dress modestly, women dress modestly; neither should flirt with the eyes, but rather they should lower their gaze. I think it's unhealthy to flaunt your sexuality - it attracts the wrong energy back." (MTV Presenter Kristiane Backer after being a Muslim) "Since I called myself a feminist, my early reading centered around women in Islam. I thought Islam oppressed women. In my Women's Studies courses I had read about Muslim women who were not allowed to leave their homes and were forced to cover their heads. Of course I saw hijab as an oppressive tool imposed by men rather than as an expression of self-respect and dignity. What I discovered in my readings surprised me. Islam not only does not oppress women, but actually liberates them, having given them rights in the 6th century that we have only gained in this century in this country: the right to own property and wealth and to maintain that in her name after marriage; the right to vote; and the right to divorce." (Karima Slack, an American feminist from secular humanism to Islam)

Some Muslim societies today lack those values. Some people may rightly ask then, why do we see some Muslim societies lacking those values? There is a beautiful and very true example I heard from a lecture by an American Muslim called Khaled Yaseen, who said that every person can be a father; but if a father does not turn out to be a good father then it's not fatherhood that we would blame. Similarly, Islam is a rule and order. A Muslim who does not act according to that rule and order then by all means its not Islam that should carry the blame.

Karla, a young Blonde haired Blue eyed young American from Washington DC who is a recent convert to Islam said in an interview made with her: The main question people seem to ask, is "How could you, an educated American woman convert to Islam--a religion that oppresses women?" They are quick to try and equate the rights of women in Afghanistan with the rights of Muslim women everywhere. Basically, what I tell them, is that the Qur'an gives women more rights than the Bible does--in print. That was one of the things that first drew me to Islam. Unfortunately today, Islam is no longer the leader in women's rights. I had a choice--deny what I believe (i.e. that There is only one God, and that Muhammed is a Prophet of God)...or accept what I believe, but work to change the problems that exist within the Muslim community. I chose the latter.

In the world today, one could say that the Taliban government in Afghanistan have been considered as the top example of Women Oppression in Islam. But what's ironic is that even when a woman falls captive in the hands of those supposedly most hateful men in the world, Islam does not fail to win her heart.

Yvonne Ridley is an award-winning journalist of more than 25 years standing and author of two books, In The Hands of the Taliban and Ticket to Paradise. She has spent the last 10 years working for several prestigious Fleet Street newspapers including The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Independent on Sunday and The Sunday Express. She has also expanded into television and radio producing several documentaries from Iraq and Afghanistan. Yvonne hit the headlines in September 2001 when while working for the Daily Express she crossed illegally into Afghanistan and was subsequently held captive by the Taliban for 11 days. Following her release, she read the Qur'an as she had agreed to during her captivity, and converted to Islam in the summer of 2003.

Last but not least I would like to conclude by the blessed sayings of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him:
"It is the generous (in character) who is good to women, and it is the wicked who insults them."
"The most perfect believers are the best in conduct and best of you are those who are best to their wives."
"Treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers."