Tariq Ramadan – Chronicles of Ramadan #26 Women

Peace be with you.

We are talking about the victims and all

the victims,

and in which way we have to repair

what should be repaired in our historical

tradition. And when we come to Islam, we

understand that there is something which is essential

in the way we are dealing with women

because the way our scriptural sources and the

text were interpreted were was very much influenced

by the cultural surrounding at that time, the

environment,

and it was very much based on the

patriarchal

in the way the men were reading the

scriptural sources.

And when you come to the text, you

understand that there are many, many things that

were

misinterpreted

and wrongly

which which has to do with the equal

dignity of men and

women before God and within the society equal

rights for the same competence, the same salary,

for the same,

presence and,

interpersonal

relationships

within the society. They have to get the

same rights, and we have to repair this.

And this is part of

the way we have to come back to

the sources

and to

disentangle

the sources and the scriptural sources from

the cultural constraints and the cultural understanding.

That's important, but at the same time, what

we have to do is to avoid,

3 traps

within this process. The first one is to

understand this as a battle,

a struggle between men and women,

in the name of women's rights,

and that's completely wrong. What we have to

do is to come together to reread the

text, to reinterpret

the text in order

to change the cultural understanding.

This is the first trap, and this is

an important one.

The second one is this kind of victimization.

It's as if because of women,

it's, the victims of discrimination and exploitation

in the patriarchal system.

That as the victims, we have to nurture

the sense, oh, I am a victim and

this is because,

I'm treated in such a way that I

should not or I cannot,

deal with,

my duties as a woman, and this is

something which is wrong and presenting the man

as,

in fact, the one who is oppressing.

And this is wrong because even men are

the victims of the cultural setting, the cultural

environment within which they were educated, and this

has to also to be understood, so we

have to come together to do this. And

the third one is,

the first trap that we have to avoid

is this kind of sacralizing,

what the victims are saying. It's as if

because a woman is complaining. She's always right,

and she's right by definition.

No. That's not true. In your car if

you come to the Quran and you look

at Bilqis, Bilqis is the voice of wisdom,

and she's saying the

truth. But,

the wife of the governor,

in the story of Yusuf is just lying,

and she recognized at the end that she

was lying. So she can say the truth

and she can,

lie at the at the same time

exactly as a man. This is the reality

of our condition,

and this has to be avoided at the

same time. Three traps, that's something which is

essential. Repairing,

and fixing the reality of cultural discrimination

in the name of what the texts are

telling us.

Equal right and equal dignity

before God and within society. Don't forget to

tell the people you love that you love

them. Life is fragile.