Umm Jamaal ud-Din – Why Choose Feminism
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the need for female empowerment and reinterpretation of Islam for their needs, as well as preserving the environment and empowering their religion. They also emphasize the importance of educating women on their rights and creating change through initiative. The need for men to focus on their inner and outer workings and empowering their religion is emphasized, along with preserving the environment and rebuilding the way men and women deal with the "fitless woman" mentality. The conversation also touches on the negative impact of too busy and vulnerable women, as well as the importance of women empowering them to take initiative and create change.
AI: Summary ©
Okay, so I comb and welcome up to muslimah talks and we have a special guest with us today. Stairs on jamala. Dean, welcome Sasha How you feeling today? and humble in there? How are you sister Madame hamzat alacrity. Pretty excited to do this topic. We wanting to do it for a while now. So we'll just do a little bit of background about you. You're a teacher, you're like I did Sydney, first off your teacher at El Masjid. And Mr. sadhana sorry, and been so for about 13 years. Am I right? Yeah. Yes. Nice. I also studied in Saudi dunkwa earn in Saudi you have you have your BA in Sydney with through Western University, and you're on your last semester through a Medina International School, studying
fit, and all sort of fit that all correct. That's pretty good. Pretty good. Okay.
So, our interesting topic for today, inshallah, we are going to talk about some things around feminism, roles and responsibilities of some of Muslims today, and some of your thoughts around
the current climate with regards to women's rights. Now, I'm going to be a little bit
I like to play the devil's advocate, you know, that's what I do as the host here.
Now, how this topic came up was a bunch of school girls were sort of talking about feminism, and this is Muslim school girls, of course, and how, you know, important it is and how they love it. And, and this was a post and I commented on it, and I was like, Can you guys like the young girls? Can you just explain to me what feminism is, and why you guys like it so much. I like the idea of it so much. And they copied and pasted a definition of feminism. So they really don't know what feminism is like, it does sound like an awesome concept feminism, it's, you know, pro women's rights, pro equality, you know, on the surface. That sounds great. So, on Jamal, if you could
just walk us through, what would the reality is feminism means different things, different people? That's, that's the difficulty here. Um,
so, you know, you've got on the one hand, you know, you've got
some women will, like innocently, affiliate themselves, you know, as being feminist, simply because for them, what it represents, you know, standing up for, you know, the rights of women, lifting the standard in society, you know, speaking out against oppression, right. So those things aren't in contradiction to Islam, right.
But on the other hand, we have to realize that feminism is an evolving ideology. And, you know, what it represents today for many, is very different than when it first began. Yes. You know, today, you'll find a lot of feminists, for example, are very, you know, for example, anti marriage, like they see marriage as, like a form of oppression for women, you know,
bit anti traditional family values as well. And, you know, we all know that, um, a lot of feminists go down that track where they become anti men, you know, where they basically, you know, blame men for all the problems that women find themselves in. Yeah, you know, what I mean? And, I mean, obviously, that's very different to Islamic teachings where, you know, a low dollar teaches us you know, or he says, Well, what we know now when you know, to Babu whom earlier about, you know, like, we're supposed to be allies, like men and women are supposed to work together for positive change in society not supposed to be enemies, they're not supposed to be like blaming each other for for the
problems that they face. Okay, so we should be working like we can acknowledge we should be acknowledging the problems we have in you know, in our society in our oma we need to acknowledge the problems we do have problems and it's not also right, correct to you know, ignore those problems, that's not going to help us get anywhere, right.
But the thing is that
when we acknowledge those problems, we need to be working together like men are part of the solution. They're not we shouldn't be seeing him as the enemies you know what I mean? Like we're never going to get anywhere as long as we see men as as enemies and that you know, and become like, basically anti men.
So what you're saying is basically what what the two
Or what feminism does ends up doing is it causes division between us. And so we end up with these sort of
two opposite sides of the fence where it's like, Yeah, well, if you can do this, I can do this. So the idea of ideology is always evolving. And so what it essentially was was basically, for women to get some rice, but what it is, and what it represents now was entirely different. And we see things like, you know, I don't know, if you're aware of something as like Nicki Minaj was seeing things like cardi B, who was a stripper. And when he called Miley Cyrus, who are naked in their videos, and they see this as women empowerment, they see this as, you know, strong women, and this is an art form. And so some of the dangers of that it's always changing. There's not this linear definition,
there's not just this uniform definition of feminism, it's constantly changing throughout the ages.
So absolutely get, like, Look, the thing is, like I said, not everybody is going to go down that path. You know, there are plenty of people who study feminism, but I've met sisters who've studied feminism at university, and they haven't turned into men haters yet, okay. Um, you know, it's similar to someone who goes and studies philosophy, like or psychology, you know, there's obviously, always going to be a lot of concern with going into man might manmade
ideologies, right, because some people do end up coming,
becoming affected by it. Okay. But, um, you know, those people that I knew that did study those things, they tended to have, like a strong academic Foundation, I'm not encouraging people to do that. But that would definitely be something that would protect them, you know, from becoming too affected, or being able to see through, you know, what they've been taught, whereas, but the problem is the vast majority people who go into studying that those different ideologies, you often find that they don't really have that strong Islamic Foundation, that's the danger.
So that's the problem, you know, that something's opposing Islamic values, they won't be able to differentiate and say, Okay, I accept feminism, if it says this, if it aligns up with your values, if it doesn't, then I'm going to negate it. Um, so yeah, the thing is, the point is that it can be like it for some people, it can really take them very far away. And I've seen and yeah, I mean, look, and the thing is to that, it's not just about the, you know, the NT men, because we have to see what we're feminine. Feminism is sort of, like this strands of feminism today that are now supporting, like, for example, things like gender society, you know, where there's not really going
to be males and females anymore, you know, and, also, LGBT is a big thing too, right? So we can see that feminism, especially some strands, are really going down a very dangerous path. And the thing is, the other thing to keep in mind that feminist feminism doesn't have any clear boundaries with like, Where do you go? How far do you go? You know, where is Islam gives you those boundaries? You know, I'm trying to say, so if you don't have a proper grounding in Islam, you're not going to know where to where to stop. That's the problem. Okay. So that's, that's what you have to realize that there yes, you know, what we can say, a nutshell, is that, yes, definitely, we could probably find
some positive aspects of feminism that, you know, like, like anything else, you know, you could study psychology, and you could find some positive things in psychology, and you can study socialism. And you could, you could probably find some, you know, positive things in socialism or communism or whatever, you know, those different men make ideologies. But ultimately, you have to realize that the Have a look at where, where is, what is the region of
feminism, you know, Where is it? Where is it? What's the foundation of feminism? You know, what's it based upon? You know, what I mean?
So, this is what you have to be asking yourself, you know, so can I ask you, I'm German. With your experience working in the community, I might be a little bit.
See what why I struggled with the concept of feminism and I'm not,
you know, anti, I sort of understand why there was a call for women's rights. But, you know, in, like, the way I was brought up my household, it was like, you know, everyone knew their roles, and everyone knew their place. There wasn't confusion and there was wasn't this oppression, like, you know, boys are treated better than girls girls are treated better than boys. There was a clear definition, clear boundaries, everyone was respected. Can you elaborate why this appeals so much to Muslim girls, especially today? Yes, so exactly what you just said. So on the one hand, we have women who have experienced legitimate grievances, you know, legitimate oppression and like you said,
I mean, anyone who has
Growing up in a home where they haven't, you know, where
there hasn't been equality, like they haven't felt equality between males and females, you know, where the boys could get to do anything they wanted, they didn't have to do anything in the house, the girls to do everything, you know, there was massive restrictions on girls, you know, all that sort of stuff. So, you know, we're all different and there's different ways that this plays out. But they have legitimate grievances. It could have been even family violence, you know.
And so we've got that then we've got the, the combination of that and
lack of taqwa. All right, we're living in a time with his lack of taqwa. So there's no, like, when you have less fear of a loss of pantalla in the house, like true fear of a lot, not just fake feet, you know, like, where, you know, the husband and wife are dealing with each other, you know, you know, keeping in mind that, you know, a lot is, you know, watching over everything we do, the way we speak to each other, the way we treat each other. So they hadn't had a lot of people don't have that in their home, like, you know, both you and I and handler, like, you know, yourself you've come from, you could call it a privileged background, that you've been able to come from a home where,
you know, you've been able to see Islam as it should be practiced. Right, but not not everybody's come from that kind of home. And, and, you know, the lack of knowledge, you know, the lack of these, a lot of these girls have come from homes where the only thing they've known really is you could call it cultural misogyny. Right. And, and then, yeah, the lack of systemic knowledge, they don't know what their rights are in Islam. And,
and so.
So that's, that's part of it. But then on the other hand, what we've got now to we have to be aware of is that there's what we could call, you know, a progressive Muslim movement, right? That has its aim is to basically dismantle and completely reframe the teachings of Islam, as we know it, right. And one of the ways that they, they, one of the ways that one of the things that they do, one of the ways that they use,
you know, one of the ways that they use to, to do that is they use, you know, Western academia and
an ideology such as feminism, as an ammunition against Islam, historically, historically, there's always been this, you know, you could say, you know, women have always been one of the targets of like the real and orientalist, and those have an agenda against Islam, they've been like the, you know, the weak target, they've tried to
sort of hone in on, you know, what I mean, to try to get to Islam, they've always tried to do that. And it's just, it's the same thing we find happening today. It's just that now it's, you know, feminism is one of the one of the one of the, one of the one of the weapons that they are trying to use to dismantle Islam, right. If the women and they ideas, because they're the rear is of the household, then they've won the battle against the slim, it's very easy to recruit people who've experienced real trauma and pain, you know, when you've got people who've experienced real trauma and pain, right, it's very easy to recruit those people, especially when they haven't felt, if you
know, that what they've experienced, has been probably, you know, acknowledged and dealt with by the Muslim community, like, if they haven't felt heard by the Muslim community, if they haven't felt like their justice has been adequately, you know, sort of heard and, you know, dealt with, then it's very easy for them to get swept up in this type of movement, you know, and what are some of the things this movement is doing? What can you just, well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Like, basically, it's, like, they going back and they basically, you know, reinterpreting, like they saying that, you know, we need to change the teachings of Islam to make it suitable for today. Hmm.
Okay, so it's a whole, like, it is like, very deep, I'm telling you, like, they trying to redefine and re reframe all the teachings of Islam and to make it into a new a whole new definition of Islam. That's what it basically is all about. Right? So it is it is actually going into a very deep office into a very dangerous tangent, okay, this movement, but they're using feminism as part of it. So, like, I'm saying it because you've got those women who do have those legitimate grievances, trauma, all of that, it's very easy for them to get swept up into in such a movement, because they feel like these people hearing me, you know, like, you're gonna think about a lot of women, right? We're not
like that. We haven't gone through that really, we're talking from a privileged position, right. But a lot of women have only known cultural Islam. Okay, they haven't had access to traditional academic teaching, or even semi, you know, some there are some you know, there are some women in this world can you believe it? Some will some women, that I'm not even allowed to have access to reading the Quran, and to now and to this day, right? So it's, it's, so the thing is, can you imagine a woman who hasn't had access to, to, to true Islam right to the true teachings of Islam, and she's only had exposure to cultural Islam. And for some of them, they feel that
You know, the only way that they can stay a Muslim is to basically reinterpret Islam in a way that she doesn't feel oppresses her, right. Because Wow, like just imagine a woman, for example, that all she's known is cultural Islam, right? So she gets, she gets beaten every single day and her husband is telling her that this is okay. In Islam, you know, I've got the authority to do this, right. So in order for her to stay as a Muslim,
then the only way she can stay as a Muslim is to reinterpret them so that she can feel that she can stay true to Islam. That's why feminism for some women, gives them that answer. You see, this is the problem. And this is why I am a big advocate of calling for women's rights, because I feel like if we were properly addressing the true injustice is faced by women as an Omar like, why should women have to turn outside to get heard, you know, if we're hearing them adequately, if they feel like, you know, their brothers and sisters up behind them, listening to them standing up for justice, they wouldn't feel the need as much to have to turn to other places to get that. Yeah. So who would you
would you blame? Who would you blame in this situation? I mean, surely, you know, yes, the men are to blame. But do we have to accept some responsibility of seeking knowledge ourselves, and not just take people's word for it? Or the men, you know, the men that they blame their word for? You know, this is how I'm and this is Hello, I find that, you know, with women who, you know, they don't know, their Deen. And so they're their husbands are allowed to put that to they can interpret it how they want, and they just accept it. I found that in a few, like, situations where there's domestic violence happening. So who's the Who? Where do you placed the I don't want to say blame. It's a
really harsh word. But yeah, no, yeah. You know, do we have to take some responsibility? Blame? I just think it's all got a responsibility here. Yes, that's what I like to say, we all have responsibility. Because when someone like I talked to sisters in domestic violence situations all the time, and unless you've been in that situation, then you cannot judge that situation, you don't have to say so.
They need us to help them, they need us to let them know, what are your rights, what are your true rights, you know, because part of the reason they often get stuck in those situations is because they too scared to get out of it, because I think a lot is not going to be pleased with them, if they, you know, try to improve the situation right now. So, um, so they need, you know, like, obviously, when I can tell you the difference it can make, I mean, unfortunately, you know, especially in the past, it's getting a lot better now. But in the past, there were many cases where, for example, we had Michelle, that did not stand up for these sisters, like they, you know, a sister
who's been like, physically and, you know, horribly abused for, like, I don't know, 1015 God knows how many years, right, and she'll come and, and, you know, the old thing that they used to get told, just be patient, my sister and go back into that, you know, and it was, you know, a lot of women, it was like, the last straw for them, you know, they felt like, you know, why didn't you you know, why don't you stand up for me? Why weren't you there to back me up when I was in that vulnerable situation I needed you, you know, like I needed you to, to help me, it's like a woman drowning, you know what I mean? I'm sorry, ignorance on the Michelle's part, like nerves and domestic optimistic,
like, a lot of men just don't realize how it is for women, they don't realize that, you know, the dynamic of what happens to a woman in that situation, you know, like, how it's so difficult for her in the first place to even ask for help is so hard, you know, even to just take that first step. So and not realizing, yeah, the vulnerability the woman is in that in that situation, right. But look, it's things have got a lot better than like, say, 20 years ago, it's, it's handled a lot much better now.
But not everywhere. You know, like, I just think, you know, I can only comment on Sydney, I know, there's been a big improvement in Sydney. I can't comment for other places, but I'm sure that other places in Australia are not as good as, as we have in Sydney, things have developed. But I'm sure there's places in Australia that I'm talking about owning Australia context, I'm not sure about the world, you know, yeah. But the point is, what I'm trying to say here is that, like, I've known of women who have had that experience, yet I've known other women who went to other mischeif, who stood up for them, and they fill in their time of need, they had that, you know, that shift that male role
model figure to, you know, back her up and feel like I had someone to protect me, you know, in that moment, right. Yeah. And that kept her any slam. Like that experience actually kept her in Islam. You know, I mean, like, that can be the final straw for someone like, you know, people just have to understand, especially when talking about domestic violence, like it can shake a woman a man so much that it can be it can make make her feel like it's just hard for him to stay in Islam, you know, I mean, so that
shift is like the lot that like the, it could be the final straw for her, you know, that makes and breaks Harris then basically, um yeah, so that's that's the thing. So what I'm saying is here that we all need to be we are all responsible to try to improve our situation like it's not acceptable and we need to speak out about it we need to not like hide away and say this isn't happening this slam because it does not slam it happens amongst Muslims shouldn't happen yes then but the fact is it happens amongst Muslims. And when we hide it, it's never gonna improve really opening up this problem, you know, because they know like, they get so many cases I'm sure you noticed this demonium
like your your dad, your respected Father, you know, Marshall, he's a chef, I'm sure he's had how many women come to him over the years, you know, with these situations? Right. So like, it's very important that the machines are speaking about this, at least sometimes, you know, especially Fridays because some women, some men don't go to the mosque except for Fridays, right? Yeah, um, you know, just making it acceptable in our society that, you know, we have a highest standard in Islam, like, everybody in this world, like every woman, when they look at women in Islam, they should be thinking, you know, Oh, God, I wish I was a Muslim woman because Mashallah they got treated like
queens, you know what I mean? Like, that's how that's where it should be. I mean, that's why I came to Islam, like I came to exam because I read about the rights of, you know, Muslim women. And that's been the case for a lot of a lot of Western women. The reason they chose this then was because of the rights we felt that was the same, you know, I mean, but but when someone don't experience that, and it's kind of like, Well, where's all that I read in the book? Yeah.
So that's why, you know, we have to we all have responsibility and like, you know, look, it's slam ultimately, you know, it's like a losses in the lava yet Moodle be largely while sand and, you know, what is them all about a law commands for justice? And he says, he, you know, he commands for justice and he inject he commands for goodness, that that's one of the basis you know, for our Deen, you know, that that's what we should be aiming towards justice. You know, people should feel justice in this, you know, in this Deen and they should feel that they're dealt with with sin, you know, with a male or female. I 100%. Agree, I get it. I was actually, in that situation. Mind juice. I
know, I can relate 100%. And, and that's why I said sometimes it's down to the ignorance of the shift. Because, you know, I was married for eight years, and I was in a domestic violent relationship for those eight years, and I was physically emotionally abused in the wrist.
And then I actually decided to tell my dad and when my dad when I told him, he was like, What the heck, why haven't you told me before this, that you're being abused? And his first thing was obviously divorce straightaway. But then,
you know, I experienced
the opposite. And with some of them, Michelle, that said, No, no stand have patients and I and I looked at them, and I said, Would you say that to your daughter? Because they say you're in t? You know, these have patients? I said, Yeah, Binti, am I really your daughter, like your daughter? Yeah. And if, you know, if I was, you know, would you be giving this advice to your daughter? I'm telling you that this is how I'm feeling I'm telling, you know, but if I didn't have that,
you know, my dad to make me feel like yeah, you don't deserve these. If I didn't have that male figure to back me up, I probably couldn't be that that strong. And I couldn't just walk away, I might have gone back like, and that's like you said that, that pivotal point where,
you know, it's a make or break, you know what I mean? That wrong advice could send you you know, a totally different way. Because you're going to then attach that to Islam, you're going to say this is what is then gave me because they're the sort of problem we can't help but think of them as representatives. This is a blunted, yeah, it's so easy to share, because they are one role model. It's a heavy burden. But
you know, and that's the thing with not having that knowledge as well. So I knew part of me like it, Sam doesn't accept this. So it didn't matter what the other chef said to me. It was just like, Yeah, but I kind of know this is wrong. So your advice isn't really, it's not really correct. But a lot of people are just, you know, they don't have that. And that's the sad thing. And I think, if we really understood Islam, for you, really, I think that's actually the core of the issue is that we don't actually no, our Dean, and if we did, we wouldn't have these issues. That's what I feel like the court issues and that's what I feel like the calling out to feminism for this almost like, like,
yeah, that's what I'm saying. See, you got to look at the family dynamic of those girls. Like they probably haven't come from your type of family environment, you know what I mean? Like
so, even though we feel that hamdulillah you know, women are being treated well, you know,
It depends on what you're experiencing in your own family unit. Like, you know, 100, if you're privileged to have a good husband that's looking after you, if you privileged to have, you know, a father that's raised you in a, you know, proper, proper stomach,
you know, we're properly setting environment around you, then you wouldn't understand what someone else is going through that, that there hasn't had that. And so, I mean, at the end of the day, what I like to do is to look at what would make what what's making those women vulnerable to want to join that movement. I think that's what we need to look at looking at more, you understand, like, why are they vulnerable in the first place? Like people only go to something when they feel like there's they're missing something else, you understand? If they felt satisfied with where they are, they wouldn't be needing to look for something else.
You don't try and say so I think it's a matter of sitting down listening to them and asking them you know, what is it what why Yoni Why do you feel that?
What's what what is it that you haven't had given to you or you feel like it's missing? Some strands of feminism will actually attack them and attack authentic teachings and stuff like that? Whereas we're not being very active in having a good look at feminism, and, you know, sort of debunking feminism, right, mythic perspective. And we need to know, you know, we need to debunk it for our youth, you know, or our women in general, you know, what is feminism? really listen, look at some of the flaws of feminism because feminism has its own flaws. You know, um, Aslan fixes the core issue of the problem, which is, for example, if there is an oppressor it Sam tells you don't oppress
others, like we have, have you found that we have, you know, there's verses on that do not oppress if you are experiencing domestic violence, it tells you mentioned beginning there was it says, This is it. So, and that's why I just like the like I was, you know, trying to say before is that we need to take that responsibility back, you know, and take that impact. For me, knowledge is power, so that take that empowerment back, you know, redefine the word empowerment for women, because I feel like the high tech So no, that's, I mean, that's exactly what we need to be doing. That's, that's part of the answer. Like, if we look at some of the answers, some of the answers number one is, you
know, we as women need to realize that, you know, we actually do have power as women to influence and rectify the affairs of the Moloch, we shouldn't see as so ourselves as helpless. You don't try to say, we have, we have the power to, you know, to rectify the fears of the oma. Right? And the reality is that
one of the greatest ways we can do that is by empowering ourselves with systemic knowledge. Okay? Because if you think about that, you know, generally speaking, women are the nurturers. Okay? Most of the roles we play in society, whether mothers or teachers or, you know, the different roles we tend to play, we tend to be, you know, like, the caretakers that the nurturer is, most of them and healthcare, the change the change makers, you know, what I mean? So, the thing is, we, and, especially, we tend to spend the most time we face especially, tend to be the ones who spend the most time, you know, raising and caring for the next generation. Right. So therefore, we in fact,
have the greatest ability to positively impact on the hearts and minds of the next generation. Right? Yeah, but the only way we can really do that, if we had the knowledge first. So that's the things if we can, if we can, you know, increase our epistemic knowledge, you know, so a better Foundation, you know, that way we learn what our rights, what our responsibilities, we know, our we then know, where we placed our boundaries, okay, and have healthy boundaries, right. And, and then, you know, teaching our children teaching our families that that then helps the next generation, like, even if we can't necessarily help some people who've,
you know, haven't had that, but we can at least fix the coming generations, you know, what the way we teach our sons, we teach our daughters, right. So that's one thing, but besides that, like I said, we do need to be the other other, you know,
the other things we need to do is we need to be, you know, highlighting our issues, you know, if we, as sisters, brothers, you know, highlight the issues that we do have the legitimate issues that we do have, that we solve them, you know, and besides that, as well, I always like to say to brothers, you know, that they have a huge role two, because if they, like for example, they may hear a friend, for example, talking about his wife in a very derogatory way, not not showing respect to his wife. Okay, and really, everybody
has a rock has a role to play in, in solving this problem, you know, where, you know, speaking out against that, you know, why is he speaking like that in such a disrespectful way? About his wife, for example, or you know about his daughter or about another female in general, right? And like, you got to think about what is the Messenger of Allah sort of lighter, some say, lady, we know, I had to come hit that you hit the, the female Hebrew NFC, right? None of you
has really has completed he's the man or, you know, truly believes until he loves for his brother, why he loves for himself. So like, you know, if, um, you know, we we wouldn't like that, we wouldn't like that, you know, like, it's before, like, you wouldn't like that for your daughter, you wouldn't like that for yourself to be in such a situation. So we need to, we need to love for our sisters, what we would love for ourself, you know, not, not always make them, like feel like the second or third class in the way that they're treated. You know what I mean? Like, they, you know, when you like, my experience, actually of use them as being the total opposite like hamdulillah. Like, I feel
very blessed that, you know, the type of
the type of Muslim men that I've come in contact with been the actual opposite. like they've, you know, I felt so respected always I felt treasured, I felt. So you know, you know what I mean? And so that's how to really be different. It's a complete different impact on myself, you know, I really, like I never forget, for example, when I first went to, for example, Saudi Arabia, you know, and I remember walking down the stairs, and it was a brother coming up the stairs, and he saw me coming, you know, I'm sure you've gone through this experience yourself, you know, he saw me coming down the stairs. And because he felt so shy for me, you know, he went all the way back down the stairs turned
his face, you know, let me go. And you know what I mean, I felt like I was a princess in Islam, you know, I'm trying to say, and that's tell if everyone felt like that, trust me, no woman would want to look out anyway, as I said, I really do believe that one of the main ways we're going to solve this problem is, we need to go back to those people to work out it on an individual basis. Why? Why is there attraction? Why is there an attraction to this ideology in the first place? You know, I mean, because most people return to it, I'll tell you, that, they there's pain behind it, there's trauma, right? And that's, that's what's made them go to that. So look, you know, 100 in LA, like I
said, before, menu and handler, we are very blessed. We have had positive experiences, but you got to realize a lot of people have not had that, you know, like I have spoken to him around the world. For example, I've spoken to just sitting around the world who unbelievably have never, for example, stepped inside a Masjid. Okay, to pray even for a duck. Imagine that. I mean, you know, Maryam, you know, handle, we're very blessed. Like leaving Australia. Yeah. Well, I have never been in situation where I've not had access to a Masjid. Like my whole life, my children, my girls, my girls that hamdulillah like, they're adults now. And they have a very positive, they've had a very positive and
hamdulillah experience with Islam. Right? Because we've had like, a semi learning everywhere available. We've had messages available, you know, they felt part of the masjid. They haven't been, you know, shut out. But look, let's be honest, there are women who haven't had that, you know. So can you imagine having coming from a family with a lot of cultural misogyny, and they haven't had the same experiences? Like they haven't, you know, there's been a lot of inequality in the home between males and females. And you know, they haven't had access to the masjid. There's a lot of damage going on. You don't mean, and this is what this is what's really fueling this. So why
wouldn't they just call it what it is? Which is, it's an ignorant problem, like, nerds. You can't sometimes I can't say that, like, I've spoken to sisters. Right? I'll be I have to be fair, you know, I have spoken students who've had really traumatizing childhoods, okay. And they actually told me, they go, look, I understand where you're coming from, they told me, you know, you've come from a privileged background, right? They go, but for someone like me, as I was saying that to before, for someone like me, who just, I know, the proper way to do it would be to go and actually study Islam, that would be the best way to do it. Okay. But because because of their experience, they have
basically just got such a strong association with what they've experienced with this lamb. That that's why someone had turned to that other ideology to kind of help them to sort of make sense of what's happened to them to blame it on something else, rather than to blame it on Islam. Like one one sister actually told me that if I didn't do that, I don't think I'd say in Islam, because they said to me that basically what feminism does what she told me, what feminism did for her is, she said, at least I wasn't blaming it on Islam anymore. I was blaming it on something else. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Like? Well, that would be the lesser of two evils you don't try to say but
like so it's difficult to different difficult situation, but look at the end of the day.
What I would say to people is
I don't encourage people to go to feminism, right? Absolutely not. Because it's it's a man made ideology. And like I said all these other reasons, right, but
I'd rather have someone, you know, sort of take the good for me spin for a minute feminism, insane Islam, then then two ladies, then you get what I'm trying to say. At the same time, if you're going to go down that path, just make sure that you don't go too far, you know, realize that it's at the end of the day. What is feminism? It is a man made ideology. There are no barriers, there are no, like, there's nothing to define it, you know, so if, and and the thing that I said before, the big danger is that that's happening now is that they want to completely redefine Islam. And the fact is that Islam is based upon very solid sources. Yeah. Okay. And so it's and cannot be it is something
like, yes, there are some aspects of Islam that, you know, are fixable, but then we have what's called the wabbit, which are like the fundamentals of Islam that don't change due to time and place, you know, trends you understand, and all of that we have, you know, we have a very solid foundation for all of this, you know, it's all derived from the Quran, the authentic Sunnah the edge now of the map, you understand. So, you know, our map, they didn't just make up like, our scholars didn't just come and make up all these rules from nothing, like this is all based that we have a base for all these we have a source for all these words. Feminism is just like, their, their, you know, their,
you know, the way they define things is just based upon like opinions or their whims, the society's direction at the time. It's a problem. Yeah. Fluid resorts, it's not, you know, there's nothing stable with it, there's no, so that's what you got to understand. So that's why really what everybody needs to be doing realize that everybody right now is at their, they are in danger actually, like, um, you know, it is, like, there is like, some sort of, like, you could say, a war against or a battle against the minds and hearts, you know, yeah. And, you know, you need to if you're not properly equipping yourself, like, if you're going to a battlefield, you should wear your
armor, you should take your precautions, but unfortunately, a lot of people battlefield and they don't have that they don't, they're not learning, including their foundations, like, they're not learning the Arpita. Right, they're not learning about or sort of feel like, you know, they're not learning about the foundations of where is our Deen derived from? Like, nobody can just come along and say, in the year 2000, and, and, and, and, you know, 20, or, like, you know, what, the job doesn't really apply anymore, because we're leaving in 2020. Yeah, you don't try to bet that's what the New Age feminism, like some strands of it, they're actually going down that path, like they
redefining it, say, well, we don't need that anymore, you know, we're living in a different time, a female,
we're having different interpretations of all this, you know, all these things are not really hard on anymore, you know, because we're in a different time. And, like, this is what I'm saying. Like, it's just being redefined. actually thinking, you know, what, what we're actually really lacking is a lot of female scholars, like, I think that's part of the, one of the biggest problems is that we, you know, because look, men can only offer so much advice from a male perspective. And, you know, when it comes to women, you know, we have so much, you know, we're so detailed, and with so much going on with us all the time. You know, I feel like we really need that, that feminine touch when
it comes to, to knowledge and application and even the weights delivered in in, like, a lot of the times, you know, men can come off a bit, you know, abrupt or a beat, you know, forthright, not understanding, you know, the delicate nature of women. Um, so I think one of, you know, the biggest, you know, problems that we have, and why, you know, we have such a problem with understanding things like domestic violence and, and all that sort of stuff is because there's just not enough female scholars, and I wish we just had as much female scholars as there was male scholars. Yeah, look at look at hamdulillah I can tell you, it's growing, and it's going to continue to grow inshallah, like
definitely,
you know, the lot more women I feel, inshallah going into scholarship now. And it's a lot more accessible to women, but it wasn't very accessible to women in the past, okay. There's a lot more barriers but Alhamdulillah. Like, it's, it's, it's somewhat easier now to, to get into that field now. So I do think that we're going to things are going to improve and they already have improved, like, I've been in the community for 30 years. And I can tell you, there's been massive improvements of handling for our sisters. In the last 30 years. We have so much more. We have so many more resources now. for women to help them and to you know,
You know, you could say empower them in a sonic sense, okay, then what we had, but that doesn't mean to say we haven't got, we don't need to make further improvements. But um, basically, like I'm saying, if we've got to go back to like, what is them teach us is them teaches us to stand up for justice, even against our own selves, right? So if we go back to this, and we realize that, you know, if we start to uphold this as Muslims, like, we shouldn't need feminism to come along and teach us that we need to stand up for justice. You know, we had this in Islam, right. But like, you know, how it is with, unfortunately, with a lot of things as Muslims, like, unfortunately, we need
sometimes other people to teach us reteach us what's already in our religion, like, like, for example, you know, like, you know, that in for example, like, if you go to Middle East, to be honest, you're gonna rebound problem with, like, putting rubbish everywhere. Yeah. Okay. Is that from an Islamic practice? No, it's not. Okay. Like, we know, that it's them teaches us that even removing the harmful thing from the path is the sort of, you know, name like, it's them, you know, is all about preserving the environment is, is all about, you know,
you know, do you know, removing the harm from the environment or, you know, you know, being clean and tidy. That's, that's all from Islam, you know, being organized even is from Islam, doing things with it on Islam, you know, but like, you know, how, unfortunately, again, our from our culture, like from a lot of Muslim culture is sloppiness, you know, not being very professional in our, you know, in our work in our, you know, turning up on time to things, all of this stuff, it's all cultural, isn't it, it's all become a, you understand. So, it said that it said that we have to sometimes have Western, um, you know, Western has to teach us reteach us that something that's
already part of Islam, but we've lost it. You know, I'm trying to say so, similar to what I'm saying he was
sending up a justice, we shouldn't need anybody else to teach us to stand for justice. But you can see what happens. Like, I know what happens online. For example, if I try to put something up about like, highlighting something that's happening to sisters, aren't, you wouldn't believe the amount of voices that come on and try to drown that out and so on. What about this? What about that? And, you know, I mean, no one wants to acknowledge the problems, like they want to just keep on making excuses for them. Like, we know, we're never gonna, we're never gonna move forward as long as we keep on making excuses for these problems. Hmm. So that's, that's, that's part of it. So it's about
us all realizing, reclaiming. Okay, reclaiming what our true authentic teachings, I think this is what we need to be doing. reclaiming our true authentic teachings. Like we said before, all of us need to empower ourselves with knowledge. Because when you know, your rights in his name, no one can oppress you. Because you know, what your rights are, you know, where your boundaries are, like.
So, yeah, and just trying to, you know, look, look, if we've gone through trauma, then we need to be addressing that, you know, going to a psychologist, going through your trauma, trying to fix that, so that you don't pass that down on to your, your family. And so they learned those behaviors all over again, I think that's important as well, right? Yeah, um, can I have things to be done? But like, you know, like I said, brothers need to be working towards these systems need to be working towards this. Yeah. And if, as I say, if women feel satisfied, this is my number one thing, if women are feeling satisfied, they will not need to look anywhere else. So let's not like what I don't like
happening, what I don't like what what happens is that
some women really do have legitimate grievances. And, and as soon as they they add that they called a feminist. That is very unfair. And that's not that's that's actually that's actually exasperating the problem. Yeah. I feel. I feel like it's, you know, even the word carries so many connotations, negative, negative connotations. Yeah. And so as soon as you say it, even men have their guard up, or she's a feminist, you know, straightaway. And that's why I also don't like the term because it might be, you know, it might have started with, you know, some good concepts. And you know, some girls use it as a means of empowering themselves, but just mentioning it, you get a box
straightaway. And then anything that comes out of your mouth after that is pretty much dismissed because you've already been boxed. But the thing is to one of the things that worries me, and this is something I get, I get, I really get hurt by this, and that is that some people spend more time arguing about feminism and worrying about demonizing sisters calling themselves feminists than what they do. Speaking about the real life issues, right, but other very issues that can cause these women to be pushed into that direction in the first place. Right? That is a big problem. Like, they just go on and on about vendors and like this. We understand there are dangers of feminism, but
those same people we don't hear them hardly talking about the issues that are causing the woman to go there in the first place. Right.
And then and the thing is to the worrying thing that I find happening now is that you find the feminist label is often readily used as a means to drown out the voice of any sister who raises her legitimate concerns regarding the rights of women and injustices faced by them. So not saying that's what it's done, it's cause more division and solve the problem. And that's what I was initially going to become, become a, you know, a male female thing, do not have a woman doing it like women, like for example, myself, I am not a feminist, and I get very offended if someone calls me a feminist, right. But the thing is, like, unfairly, what happens too many times is a lot of brothers
because it's got this agenda, such a big agenda against like, just, they've gone, they've gone overboard with how worried they are about the feminism that anyone, any woman who comes and starts speaking about anything to do with the rights of women, they straightaway are going to label her as a feminist. Yeah, yes, it's actually what's happening is you're actually drowning out trying to drown out the legitimate concerns of women. Right? So what happens is that everyone has become so preoccupied by these feminist misogynist narrative
that, you know, like, we're not even looking at the issues anymore. We're just so preoccupied with the feminist misogynist camps,
has really solved a problem with why a woman's roles so important in Islam, and why is it so important that, you know,
movements come into attack women? And what does Islam say about women?
Well,
a lot of Christians, they keep that again, okay? Why a woman's role so important?
Why, why women's roles, so important. One of the reasons why women's roles are so important, is because the fact of their central role, particularly in the family, that's, that's, that's one of the main
roles, not the only role. It's not her only role, but it's one of her central roles, you know, that she's going to be. She's like the cornerstone of the family. And I mean, the family unit is what makes up the society. Okay, so if, if, you know, if a woman is in a good place, okay, if a woman is in a good place, she's got the knowledge, she got the education, and she's been dealt with in a good way, then she can raise,
you know, she can, that enabled her to raise, you know, a very healthy next generation for our oma, right. So that's why it is very important. And like, obviously, the other thing too is,
in general, if women aren't there, if women aren't there for their role, their primary role, not their only role, but if they're not there for their primary role, then who's going to do that? You know, because other people, like I know, as a mother, like, I've had five kids, you know, like, as, as sincere as other women would be to what your children they never going to do for your children, what you can do for your children, you know, I say,
So, look, look, I mean, that doesn't mean to say that you can't have your career and you can do all that, but there's going to be a time where, I mean, I know for myself, you're going to make some sacrifices, you know, because you want to really establish your family well, and you can always go back, like, you don't have any law that doesn't that child rearing age doesn't last forever, you know, I mean, and you can be chipping away at your goals on the side. And you can be maybe working part time or something like that. And, and then whenever you feel that your your kids are in a good place, and you know, they've got stable, then you can sort of slowly get back into back into your
career. So it's not like, you can't have a career, you know, um, but just, like, like I was saying before, like, you know, we, with a lot of what, you know, some strands of what strengths a lot of strands, like, especially the latest strands of feminism call for, it's like, you know, you don't try to take sort of taking away from that role. It's like that rolls looked down on let's is not good enough that you're if you're a mother at home, raising your children, that role is not seen as good enough, you know, that's like an oppressed woman, you know, that she's at home raising her children, you know, yeah.
Yeah, instead of it being. I mean, like you said before, she's the central role. And because, I mean, I've experienced this, you know, myself, you know, in terms of, you know, a father raising, like, you know, my father who raised us versus, you know, our mother who raised us after my mom passed away, obviously, my dad took her and, and the difference is, is crazy like I don't
when Western is or when non Muslims, you know, complain about the, you know, how hard it is to balance work, work, record, work and home life, because there's that that push, like you said, the feminism movement, that it's not enough to be a housewife, but the importance
have, you know the mum raising the children I'm telling you, like, I grew up without a mum and there's nothing like it. You know, the mum knows every detail of you, every detail of your thoughts, your life, what you need at every moment, fathers just don't know that and, you know, you can fight that all you want, you can say women empowerment, you can say women a decent equal to men and all that sort of stuff. At the end of the day, Allah has gifted us with this parts of us that just that's our makeup. And you can you can do whatever you want, you can't change your makeup. You know, Allah has made us the way, you know, women, the way we are, you know, of course, everyone's
different in this certain
made us that way. And characteristics you could say, exactly. And I feel like there's so much so much too, they trying to almost condition us out of our characteristics and, and make us so much like men, when I'm just like, he should be celebrated and appreciated, because it's so it's so valuable, like it is so valuable. It's like it's supposed to be feminism, but he actually makes you throw away this somehow exactly, actually very disempowering, actually men, young men become your standard. And where's the honor for the woman, like, what you know, is like, women are lesser, because yes, because of her traditional role, that's like a lesser role. And so now men become your
standard, but who can who can do what a woman can do like you, like I said, I've seen it, and I lifted and, you know, even you know, with my husband, and myself and my current husband, because I remarried and he raised his kids, and he, and I see the difference between, you know, a mom being able to raise children and you know, a father being able to raise the children, and it's just, there's no comparison. And I just don't understand why we have to fight that, like, it's doing such an injustice to ourselves,
that putting that roll down that you're just a mom, because I grew up in this Western environment, and I was conditioned, you know, with, you know, those sort of those values influence those,
that * influence me, and I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to be just a mom, you know, I want more than that I want and now that, you know, I have, like, you know, I have three children, you know, and I did the whole, you know, I went to uni and and eight years of my life spent it outside, you know, this is like sort of my divorce period where, you know, you sort of your role becomes a bit mixed up,
in just sitting and observing, you know,
what it took to go to uni and mingle with, you know, my peers and what it takes to be a mom, and look after my children. Oh my goodness, like, it's so undermine, like, there's so much that a woman that a mom has to do, like, there's so much I worry about, with my children, there's so much I think about with my children, there's so many details
that, you know, as hard as you know, you knew it was and working as well was it doesn't compare to being at home. So I don't understand why it's so undermined. Because, you know, it's so valuable and the I think the difference with,
with what I think non Muslims are taught and how Muslims are taught to be mothers is we parent with intention, we parent with mindfulness, we we parent, you know, with an intention to create a great human being not just to be their mom, but actual, you know, a teacher, you know, mother, a, you know, an advisor, like everything, like, you know, you want your children to be you had that intention that you want them to participate and be leaders of the next generation, like that's my intention daily as I wake up, you know, I want to contribute. And that's a huge burden to play someone into forehand, feminist feminist and, you know, the Western society minimize that and say,
well, it's not enough you have to go back to work I find it very dishonouring to very dishonouring to women, because I like it and it's nothing harder than it
and it's quite discouraging for some from some women out there who who struggle with that identity. Like I feel like the Western culture really puts women down. It puts pressure on women and like there have been studies done and they found you know, increasing rates of
men yet amongst women and I wonder myself because they're trying to do too many roles in one go It's too hard for this.
Yeah, you're absolutely not we're not supposed to be everything. So yeah, so like, you know, I got pregnant have my kid and I think this is the first year like, I've just done nothing like I've just been pregnant and not being busy with a million things and I just thought like, it's so reflective and I just thought panel like what was I running? Like, what was I killing myself for and chasing like? It's Yeah, I don't know. There's this innate thing built within us where we feel weird.
We our comfort zone is with our children and in our homes. And I find that that's trying to be conditioned out of us. But really,
this is where I feel like you know, my comfort zone is where you don't have to worry about a man touching you on the train, grabbing your boss saying something inappropriate to you try to,
you know, do so many things happen on a daily basis, like, you know, it's just the sort of crazy world out there. And I'd say I'd say the main thing is just like Islam actually came to protect women from having to be
burning themselves out, if you really want to know, outside of the house, like, we already burn ourselves out inside the house without having to burn ourselves outside the house as well. Like, I know, I know, when I used to work full time, I was absolutely exhausted, you know, like working full time every single day, and have to come back and then, you know, do everything, you know, looking over your shoulder, or the one we play in the home. It's it's really going to exhaust a woman, you know, so that's why exactly why I lost the pants, I did put that burden on men to actually they're supposed to provide for their wives to protect women from having to be exposed to that, or even
fathers are supposed to, you know,
you know, protect their daughters. I mean, but like, let me compare that to, for example, my upbringing. Once I turned 18, my dad actually basically said, Well, you know, you're 18 now. And, you know, I was expected to like, I couldn't, I couldn't afford to actually keep going to uni, and I had to look for a job, like, you're basically forced into, like, not forced, but like, it just happens like that. Because they don't they stick you fend for yourself, that's what it is, they expect you to fend for yourself. And like, you're a girl, you know. And so you have to whether you like it or not, you're gonna have to work full time, you're gonna have to like because you want to
study, you want to study University. And like, they don't see it that they need to really financially support you to that level. So that's why you basically have to get job to support yourself. And then when you do get a job, they'll ask you to pay the money, you know, to stay in the home, in a sense that that's that's experience of like, not I don't know, if everyone experiences that, but that's a common experience for a lot of Western women. Okay, as opposed to the authentic teachings teachers is that know that?
A Muslim father would never do that, you know, like, they shouldn't do that. I mean, they're supposed to be financially supportive of their, particularly the diverse and sheltering, from having to, to go out and do all that. I mean, not to say she can't work outside, but not to be feel like you're forced to do it. You don't understand what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Yeah. So
why does? Well, I guess we really answered that. I was gonna say, why does the SEM say that? You know, the best face for who the woman is in her home? It really is. And I know women hate hearing those because
he's actually Yes, it's not. Chris her Mondays. Yeah. Especially if you look at the statistics, like I was saying, you go look at the statistics in Australia. Now, of course, until about even before Corona, Corona came out. It's like, yeah, before that it will burn out now than ever. Like, there's been, it's just like, well, I wonder, I wonder why are women so burnt out more than ever? Like, why? You know what, I mean, you've wanted us to be like this. And now look at the look at the result of what's happening to them. Yeah. Because as well, like, like, I'm sorry, like, let's be honest, like women, generally speaking, not all but generally speaking, women's physique is not like a Men's
Physique as well. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we can't, you know, physically cope, generally, with the same amount of
I'm not talking about having, yeah, no, we have final things as well. And we have a lot you know, in science, and that's why I love science, like I study health science, but I love the scientific aspect for me, it just, it really reinforces a slam for me where it says, Yeah, women get more diseases than men and women are more practices is diseases and men scientifically. We have breast cancer, we have cervical cancer, uterine cancer, you know, they only have prostate cancer, like, you know what I mean, but also more frankly, emotional, emotional problems, too. Like we're more prone to anxiety, generally speaking with depression, and we're probably more prone to be burnt out as
well. And why don't men Why don't men race against women in races? Yeah, you know, why don't men race against women races because women have different physique than men? Yeah, I'm gonna have PMS. Five is different. We have PMS, which is
got differences in physique full stop. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it just instead of fighting it, I feel like this, only cause a fight to me
Embrace it, and respect it, like respect your body respect that respects you, that's what it is that is respecting your femininity. And, you know, the limits that we they we should place on ourselves as well. We need to we need to focus on other things not always focusing so much on the outer because
we need to focus a lot more on the inner, inner rectifying the inner state, and booting up out amen and things like that, you know, like, sometimes we just so focused on the outer and then what happens when the inner state is rotting away, then the outer is gonna fall off. That's what's happening. But that's what's happening to the response of others, you know, yeah, because I haven't this no development have been Oh, yeah. And but you know, you know, a lot of the girls like, I see a lot of women who get divorced, for example, and they take up the hijab, and then you sort of think, Okay, well, why were you wearing the hijab in the first place? it I think it's a very delicate I
think it there's a lot of things in interplay with that. So I'm not saying that that, you know, she's, um, you know, what I mean?
was a lot of it goes back to what I was saying before, like, what I've just to something.
Part of the reason I have seen with some women why they've done that is because they actually felt there's some hypocrisy. Yeah. felt like they were being so good playing by all the rules, basically, and then the man wasn't. And then it's a rebellion. It's a rebellion. rebellion. Yeah, the thing is, what they've got to realize is what I would like them to realize is that, you know, he's going to be asked about what you do, you're going to be asked about what no one's going to get away with it if he transgressed if he transgressed his limits, and he was a hypocrite you know, don't let that take away from your Islam now. You don't try and say like, you're going all the good that you've done
yeah, you're not going to gain anything by walking away and becoming weaker. You know, I'm trying to say so I mean, that's that's Yeah, we know
it's something we need to just think about for ourselves that's it easy when you're so when you're depressed and you're anxious and makes things go Yeah, good mental health. That's mentioned Hong Kong good See, and it's easier to get down because you've already lost that connection because you've been you know, dumped on for so long so it's easy to lose that connection there. All the thing is to like I would just say to them as well, like if he's taken something from you generally take more than that. You know enough What if he's already damaged you in some way? And you feel like you've been you know, unjustly dealt we've done him take more than that from you don't take away
from your Amen. Yeah, don't try and say like this and that you go backwards and you stand like you actually allow allow him now to let you go backwards in Islam back enough what he did. You don't try to say so don't let him Don't let him more than that. He's already taken up something. Yeah. Cuz Yeah.
All right, I'm gonna wrap it up there any last words on Jamal Dean that was a really good discussion and talk? Well, he I asked Allahu Allah to accept whatever we've said, and I asked a lot Allah to forgive us for any mistakes we've made in what we've said and you know, may Allah subhanaw taala you know, help all our sisters out there. Um, you know, let us all inshallah, you know, realize
the problems, the true problems we do have in our community, let us all work together to solve those problems together. Males and females, you know, we need to work together as an Ummah, that's what Allah wants from us. And, you know, let's all you know, turn back and realize where is the truth? Where is true empowerment, power meant to be found, you know, true empowerment will only be found in the truth is our true honor as well will only be found in you know, came back to Allah to Allah and, you know, really learning the deen and coming close to Allah subhanaw taala in our Deen learning and foundations, that's what will give us that's what will empower us like just like empowered the
Sahaba like look at this The Hobbit or raised from people used to bury, you know, their daughters, you know, to women to respecting women and, you know, we had, you know, female role models back then, like Ayesha or selama, you know, pops up you know, you don't trust us a whole different generation, you know, women were honored women was listened to women could go and correct even the the halifa if you made a mistake here on transasia it was a whole different are a whole different era. We need to go back and reclaim this type of, you know, empowerment for both men and women. Right, inshallah.
And exactly right. All right, just like last time, and it was lovely to talk to you, sir. May Allah bless you and everything that you do, and inshallah I would love to have another chat with you soon. bar and
cello Alright, fine comb, Wiley, colossal amaura
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