By Abdullahi Jama
The fitnah of Dunya is worsening at an alarming rate as communities deal with an increasing emergence of social degeneration, upheavals and constant re-invention of evil that continue to put the world into an endless chasm of devastation.
Feminism which is the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of equality of the sexes is one of the contemporary issues that current crop of communities have to contend with. In the spirit of secularism and at the expense of religion, women continue to hold families at ransom.
Women are seemingly out for a battle to compete with men not just in ideological spheres but also in conducting more brazen antics to give themselves new roles within the precincts of governments, businesses, organizations and within the corridors of homesteads.
It is not a bolt from the blue that feminism means a battle against the most fundamental unit of the society, the family, which is seemingly fraying at the edges due to an onslaught of confusion and opposition resulting from women rights activist and from the infection of feministic philosophies.
At family level, the society is already feeling the pinch, the roles of women are no longer the same as it was over a century ago. Women have taken up more masculine roles impacting adversely on family values.
The family is at the centre of a competition between husbands and wives where the latter are seeing themselves oppressed, unappreciated and their rights of freedom violated.
Liberal feminist believe that women should no longer be confined to homesteads only as mothers, wives and daughters and instead they should be allowed to think out of the box rationally and become a pillar of the human society.
But many liberal women fighting for the so called ‘equal opportunities’ have destroyed their own families, leaving their husbands and children while seeking fame and name in the outside world. This created misplaced family priorities. The role of a man as sole breadwinner is contested and that of a woman as homemaker is rejected by the same women.
Therefore the society inherited increased divorce rates that resulted from perennial marriage conflicts between husbands and wives. Feministic ideologies increased domestic violence troubling the structure of the family unit and that is why there are more single mothers in this century than ever before.
With liberal feminism, the family is no longer the stronghold of the father. With so many organisations coming up to advance the right of women not just in employment and leadership but also at family level, the man can no longer assert any meaningful authority.
The feministic reforms gave more sense and meaning to women careers and personal development at the expense of family values. Many women are now opposed to staying at homes, cooking for their families and taking care of their kids. They see the normal family daily chores as oppressive and inhuman. Feminist have chosen to serve their own purpose fracturing the family father and further.
So then there is the spread of evil in the form of adultery and fornication as more and more women went out to mix with opposite sex with little disregard to honour and place of marriage.
Men have lost the power of controlling and managing the affairs of their own families. Women therefore have got all the rights to do whatever they think is right. The lack of control supervised through feminism meant that women stay longer outside their homesteads, pursuing careers, employment and leadership, sometimes travelling abroad leaving family at the hands of the poor father.
It seems therefore with feminism, the husband plays a double role that of a breadwinner and homemaker overstretching the man’s mandate and capacity to support, feed, educate and manage the family.
Women with liberal thoughts have detached themselves from the reality of their families. They tend to condemn the father of the home, goad him against his own children with the hope of divulging negative opinions about men.
The family separation that came with feminism, resulted in poor educational performance among many children. Children are no longer allowed to listen to their father’s advice in terms of career guidance and development leaving them at the mercy of an absentee emotional mother.
So as a result of feminism, this 21st century fallacy brought a lot of social degenerations and the impact of this is all evident including increased street urchins, school dropouts, drug addicts and the list is endless.
More and more women are refusing to marry and instead opting to remain single and searching for the rest of their lives. This standpoint of some women tend to encourage sex as a tool of freedom that women can use anyhow within their own discretion at the expense of diseases and social distraction.
Radical feminism has destroyed the family. Its familial impact are so huge and compounding every passing day. Over the years it transformed from fighting for human and women rights to attacking the role of men in the society. The family therefore that remained as the last bastion of the man as husband is undoubtedly overtaken.
Feminism has already taken the centre stage in global leadership. Powerful women in the west are supporting and sometimes funding the emergence of female activists from the developing world to take their narrow-minded war against men at the doorsteps of the modern family.
And now it’s unimaginable to witness that more and more Muslim women are joining the canard of feminism which is against the fundamental teachings of Islam.
Divorce rates that were traditionally lower in Muslim countries are now surging at an alarming rate, cases of family breakups and domestic violence is at its all-time high while Muslim men continue to supervise distraction of their own families.
In dealing with the problem of feminism, Islamic teachings are very clear. Roles of men and that of women are expressly flawless without an iota of contradiction both within the teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah of our beloved prophet (SAW).
In fact, in his farewell speech at mount Arafah, our beloved prophet (SAW) has directed men to take care of the rights of women. This message emboldens and furthers asserts the strong place of women in Islam. There is no reason to bring in unoriginal ideologies in the form of feminism to introduce innovations in the religion. Feminism is an innovation that Muslim women must reject in its totality.
The conversation on the rights of women should be based on the fundamental teachings of Islam. As long as Muslim women use the available Islamic jurisprudence to support themselves personally and communally, family conflicts will reduce significantly.
And further conversation on this topic should be between Muslim men and women. As we often say in Islam ‘a diinu naseeha’ Islam is about advice, meaning that constructive communication between the wife and husband can literally reduce feministic ideologies furthering mutual understanding and healthy family relations.
Of course Muslim men have to understand that there are certain challenges that we must address as a result of civilisation. Muslim men must not only support their wives in career and educational development but also support them emotionally and financially so that the right of women are fundamentally protected.
And finally, it’s important that Muslim women must seek more knowledge of Islam as a way of out of the woods. They should know their rights, the rights of their husbands, that of their children, their parents and the society at large. With adequate Islamic knowledge among beautiful Muslim women, the idea of feminism will die a painful death.
May Allah strengthen our beautiful mothers, wives and daughters with the deen of Islam and May Allah protect them always. Ameen.
