Similarities Between Feminism and Islam

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh I hope you're all doing well in sha Allah. So inshallah for this week's video we're going to be asking or answering a very controversial question. And that question is does Islam need feminism? Now for that I have a special guest Brother Mohammed hijab, who will be helping us with this question and giving us some insight on Islam's view on this and also talking a little bit about maybe modern day feminism. Try to weigh the two Elton's we can kind of see a clear picture to Allah. So please don't go anywhere you don't want to miss out kita Bologna do story

to Sumatra Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim. So Mohammed Jani, how would you start about talking about this topic feminism and Islam, many, many people around the world. They truly believe that Islam oppresses women, and that Islam completely disregards women's rights. And they think that feminism or modern day feminism is the answer that they're looking for that this is the solution that the world needs. And obviously, as a Muslim, I like to think otherwise. Yani, where would you go about this, I think with with this kind of discussion, there are usually a lot of hidden presuppositions and assumptions which we need to unpack of them is that

is Islam in and of itself is in need of anything. So we would say that Islam is a system of religion, obviously, which we believe was revealed from God, the all powerful, all knowing the all wise, and which has laws that are put in place in injunctions and prescriptions, which are meant for all peoples in all times.

And within this system of Islam, there is a built flexibility if you like, which is like the sword of Islam, which sort of, you could you can call it, which is a kind of, in certain circumstances, some of the rules or very, yeah, these are all things which, which are known to people of Islamic law and jurisprudence, and these things. So that's Islam feminism

is basically a term used for what can be sometimes referred to as a political philosophy, but more commonly referred to as an ideology,

which spanned, you know, a good amount of time, some people started off at 1780, or the vindication of women's rights written by Mary Wollstonecraft in the later kind of enlightenment period, or the Enlightenment period and why and up until kind of what you referred to as third, third wave feminism, some have dubbed as third wave feminism. So this is a the breadth of the if you like scholastic tradition, deterministic scholastic tradition. Some say no, this is you're starting with the vindication of women's rights were those things that were written before, I think that were done before. And I would agree with that as well. And what that wouldn't be referred to as feminism in

the modern sense. Even Wollstonecraft herself is referred to as a pseudo feminist. And she's not, she wouldn't be in line with say, second or third, definitely not third wave feminists have to date. So

feminism is different depending on what time we're looking at what time period we're looking at. first wave feminism is not necessarily something which we, which is in contradiction with Islam, frankly, because a lot of the things that we're kind of elaborated upon by people who kind of advocated the rights of women, and what you refer to as universal suffrage or women's suffrage,

wasn't in disagreement with Islam and Islam. At the time of the former House, when he was, obviously I live, and after him with the Sahaba, that became the leaders, we don't have a system which can be described for being totally in genuinely as democratic in the western sense. But we do have a system which is, which has a an element of social contract, which is kind of like, also in line with liberal theory. And so it's called bi, which is like a pledge of allegiance, that, that people would give to an elected individual who's elected by we can say the Hollywood Act, which is different conversation, like people have particular status and people particular

abilities in the society.

After that, they'll be eyes taken our beta is the social contract is almost completely equivalent to the social contract that was described by Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan and even more so in his book, the social contract. Now what the social contract entails is basically that there would be representation by the government, in this case, it would be the halifa, the representative on behalf of his people. So in the case of the whole affair, or actually they had this bi in place, and it was men and women who would give the band This was 1400 years ago.

Obviously in ancient Greece, where democracy first

It was initiated. According to the majority of historians, there wasn't that equal representation and women were not counted

as part of the electorate, and neither were children slaves. And moving forward, fast forwarding up until 1915, in Canada 19. Because in 1960, I think is when female suffrage was put into place in England, that was 1918 for women that were older than 18. And then 1928 for women that were sorry, a woman that older than 13, in 1928. woman that was an 18. So if we fast forward, up until that point, the Islamic system allowed representation obeah pleasure of allegiance to please, both men and women 1400 years ago predated the feminist movement. So it allowed the same kind of representation between men and women in the political system, if you like.

So, and even predated any Western kind of, I'm not going to generalize completely, because I haven't looked at all the crevices of history, but most western civilization, I mean, I don't know of any that particularly come to mind where women were represented in that in that equal way in on a political level.

So firstly, feminism is not is I would say it largely in contradistinction with the, with the heavies and stuff like that it's not in complete contradiction in its sentiment, obviously,

we don't have a problem with the with the claims here that and one of the things I did once looking at the primary sources of the parliamentary record, because of that, it had debates in Parliament, in the UK, and some of the debates I had was, um, what like arguments for and against

feminism, or sorry, arguments, one against women having to vote and things like that. And it was usually the liberals. And the, it was the liberals at the time that were labeled by the liberals and the conservatives or the liberals, who would be pro and obviously the conservatives, largely that would be against

the idea of women. So the arguments for food are really interesting in a way, but we wouldn't necessarily agree with those arguments that are put forward by the conservatives. And if you look at their reasoning,

it's kind of like, is a lot of is not justified. A lot of the reason why there was a shift, or a paradigm shift, even in the in the body politic, in the UK, and otherwise, and by the way, is really interesting here, seeing the, the way in which all the Western countries kind of copied each other because you had Canada, I think, 1960 1960 years of America, I think it was something 1917 or then England, UK 1918, something like this, like this was when they all kind of agreed, yeah, what will happen to World War One.

And we're at the time of World War One, which was a time where women were needed to work. So in other words, women were needed to be a part of the

body politic, or they were needed to be a part of the sociological environment as a helping hand, because they'll go into factories and building all kinds of things and doing all kinds of

things that men were no longer able to do. So with that came, okay, well, you could do this, you can also do this, right. But it took a long time for them to come to that conclusion and a great wall. In fact, the great one of the greatest wars of

human history, you know, for them to even come to the conclusion that Islam had already come to 1400 years ago, you see, so it's kind of ironic that they come back to us and say, Well, you know, you're against feminism, and you're against these things, because looking at the first wave feministic movement, look, look, look what you have to go through in order to give women a vote, right? And then, you know, the suffragette movement and the suffragists and all these things and people committing suicide, you know, these and all kinds of violent acts happening in order for me to get the vote at the end of it. And we don't know what really tilted over by according to me, I would say

that is probably the wall or whatever. So having said that

first wave feminism is not really in. It's more in contradistinction in its sentiments, with the Islamic discourse. A second wave feminism as well we start to see problems