Posts Tagged ‘Women’

Women and The Nationality Problem in the Arab World

{ April 30, 2008 @ 12:14 am } · { Islam, Muslim Women, News and Media, Women }
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Even though many Arab countries are pretty much secular, in the area of women they go back to being Fred Flinstone.

In Lebanon, women who are income earners cannot go to the \to the bank to open a bank account for her kids. There are 18 family codes.

In this Aljazeera English interview, this Lebanese women talks about how she married an Egyptian man and he left her and her kids are teenagers and they can’t get Lebanese citizenship. Isn’t this outrageous? They have NO health care and no social security and they won’t be able to go to college if they don’t get citizenship.

I am very proud of Morocco, because the nationality law was changed. A woman can now pass on her nationality to her children even if she marries a foreigner yay!. When this law was not in place, women whose husbands abandoned them with kids had many problems and I even know of one that had to forge a Moroccan passport for her son in order ti survive. And we know that Morocco is a country where the women and men alike marry foreigners frequently.

Worse, these women’s groups are subject to harassment by radical political Islamists. In Morocco, they had one of their offices bombed. In Jordan, their websites get hacked and now the website leads people to a website about Saudi Arabia. I don’t know what kind of Islamic law prevents children from basic citizenship rights if their father wasn’t the best of men.

Breast Cancer Untreated in Saudi Arabia

{ October 26, 2007 @ 12:32 am } · { Hijab, Muslim Women, News and Media, Women }
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I was reading this article. It was talking about how things like breast cancer often go untreated in Saudi Arabia, because of the stigma it has in society.

The article says that many women want to avoid being seen by a male doctor,

“One Saudi woman ignored the cancer growing in her breast because she didn’t want to risk a referral to a male doctor. Another was divorced by her husband on the mere suspicion she had the disease, while a third was dragged away from a mammogram machine because the technicians were men.”

Goodness gracious, what is this? I know the press tends to play these things up but still, if they don’t want to go to a male technician that’s fine but are they going to try and find female technicians? I hope so. Besides, I’m no fiqh scholar but I do know that the order of healthcare goes from Muslim female, non-Muslim female, Muslim male, non-Muslim male. (Let me know if that order is wrong.) It doesn’t say if there’s no Muslim female no health care!

However, I think this artcle was trying it’s best to be balanced wa Allahu alim. It told two outstanding stories at the end of it about very supportive Saudi husbands.

“Fawzia al-Zewid, a 45-year-old mother of six, said her husband’s support was overwhelming after she was diagnosed with the disease two years ago. When she began losing her hair, he shaved her hair before shaving his. Her two young sons chose to do the same.

“They didn’t want me to have the only bald head in the house. What more support could you ask for?” said al-Zewid.

Last year her husband died of a heart attack.

“When he was alive, I wasn’t afraid of breast cancer,” she said. “Today, without his support, I am.”"

Al-Amoudi has urged the kingdom’s clergymen to “enlighten the people and take up the issue of women’s health in their sermons.”

Ialso think that we do need to appeal to the male religious leaders to talk and be outspoken about women’s health and how important it is. These are the people that have an influence on the masses.

Here’s a picture of Laura Bush with 2 Saudi doctors.

saudilaurabush

Female Teacher of Ibn Battuta and Ibn Hajar al Asqalani

{ October 14, 2007 @ 6:09 am } · { Great Scholars of Islam, Hadith, Islam, Muslim Women, Takbir Worthy, Traditional Islam, Women }
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Bismillah

This post is about a notable female scholar of hadith during the Mamluk period in Egypt and Damascus.

One thing to note- these women were not anomalies in their time. The fact that women were scholars of hadith (and other things but this period there were a lot of hadith scholars) was a normal thing.

The ijaza system in the studies of hadith allowed children to receive ijazas before they came of age with the understanding that they would study and understand the texts later on in life. Hadith studies was open to everyone because many people could memorize, short and popular collections of hadith. Women excelled so much in this field that men eagerly sought them out as teachers to get ijazas from them. Another reason why the men sought them out was because these women had famous people in their chains of transmission and these men wanted to obtain these famous names in their own chains as well.

Zaynab Bint al Kamal is one example. She was a Hanbali of Damascus.  She transmitted popular and major works such as Sahih al Bukhari, Muslim and the Muwatta and many other little works as well.  Ibn Hajar al Asqalani learned from her. She appears in 139 of Ibn Hajar al Asqalani’s isnads. SubhanAllah.

Ibn Battuta also received ijaza from her In his book, Rihlat Ibn Battuta, he calls her a “traveler of the world” and she is listed a a person that granted him ijaza when he visited Damascus, Syria.

Roster of some more notable students Zaynab bint al Kamal :

  • Muhammad b. Ahmad ad-Dhahabi (d. 748 H/137)
  • Khalil al Safadi (d. 764 H /1362)
  • Taj-ad-Din as-Subki (d. 771 H/1369)

In Sunni Islamic scholarship, hadith has to be one of the most important branches. It is one of the major sources of law and women were at the forefront of its study and women never fabricated ahadith while men did.

This is during a time period when the Western women wouldn’t even imagine being schooled and Muslim women were at the forefront of the science of hadith. Look at the reputation that Muslim women have now. Many Muslim women in Muslim countries are illiterate. It’s sad that we are going backwards instead of forward. Everyone make dua that  Allah makes women come to the forefront of Islamic scholarship again side by side with men. Ameen.

And may He bless all of our wonderful scholars that have transmitted all of this knowledge to us.

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