Oppressive Views
\r\nIn a climate of ignoring the divine rules of individual and social rights and obligations, one usually finds small despots beside the big ones, and despotism becomes the pattern of social relations at different levels. The standard concepts and practices of Muslims through centuries in their mutual relation, including husbands-wives and parents-children, cannot be separated from what is dominant in the cultural and social environment.
\r\nHowever, not all our intellectual heritage of social practices represented a deprived status of women. Al-Tabari and Ibn Hazm, as has been repeatedly mentioned, stated that a women can be a judge - a very distinguished position from the religious and social angles in those times. Women had their place in the history of Islamic civilization in various field, such as: religion, literature, medicine, art...etc. Although one may agree that Muslim history - the same as of any other people - does not include only glories and positives, many Muslims men and women both in the early history of Islam represented an admirable model in fulfilling the responsibilities of their faith however difficult it might be. The Sunna and the early history of Islam revealed how Muslims — males and females — met together in the mosques, farms, markets or battlefields in a highly respectable manner.
\r\nStories of some drinking wealthy men and female slave-singers, and anecdotes of some sexual misbehavior, could not represent the whole Muslim society in all times. Even in times of social deterioration, one can find positive examples. No one could claim - on grounds of the Quran and the authentic Sunna - that women are a liability in relation to religion and morality nor that they are the allies of the devil by nature! This has been the outcome of certain historical circumstances, under which the Muslim women were not the only oppressed women in the world, nor the only oppressed person in the society.
\r\nIslam can help people to develop their potential and resist deterioration when they observe its teachings. However, it does not provide a "privileged" community that is immune from the physical and social laws that are created by God to control this world, on the grounds of a claimed belief, while the practices of this community contradict God's message and common sense.
\r\nCompiled From:
\r\n \"Muslim Women\" - Fathi Osman, pp. 28, 29