Aqsa

“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman”

-Virginia Woolf.

Ah that’s my fav quote! It seems the Irani officials understand its depth!

Those who are wondering what the hell m I talking of…well I’m talking of the “women-only-island� in Iran.

That will be a treat for me and my likes that need a break from an otherwise predominantly “man’s world�.

“All the transport, restaurants and facilities on the island – on gigantic Oroumiyeh Lake close to the Turkish border – will be staffed only by women. The initiative has even been cleared by the supreme leader Ayatollah khameini’s provincial representative.�

(TOI report, Thursday, 2007-02-22)

I’m pretty excited with the very idea of having such an island. After all, I haven’t forgotten the comfort the GCR (girl’s common room) in my college. Guys always wanted a sneak peak and like aalu (a friend of mine, I called her aalu… even though she’s exactly the opposite of an aalu!) Joked,

Boys will be boys…

And girls will be fun!

We always had a good time in the GCR.

Wonder how the world will look like if all dames are marooned at that island!

This one’s surely a bad idea for the men folk. But for me… it’s a perfect place to go out on a honeymoon with…myself!

Those people who have nothing else to do in life and consider themselves to be a “criticâ€? of Islam make tall claims about their knowledge of the Quran and the try portraying divorce in Islam as nothing but a joke! The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Among lawful things, divorce is most hated by Allah.” (Reported by Abu Dawud)

Allah Almighty says, “…And consort with them in kindness, for if you dislike them, it may be that you dislike something in which Allah has placed much good.” (4: 19) In the words of Sheik Yusuf Al-Qaradawi in his well-known book, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam: “A husband must be patient with his wife if he sees something in her that he disapproves and dislikes. He should recognize that he is dealing with a human being with natural imperfections, and he should balance her good qualities with her failings. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Let a believing man not dislike a believing woman. If something in her is displeasing to him, another trait may be pleasing.â€? At the same time Allah asked the believing women to please her husband in the best possible manner.

The Qur’an admonishes those men who oppress or ill-treat women: O you who believe! You are forbidden to inherit women against their will. Nor should you treat them with harshness, that you may take away part of the dowry you have given them - except when they have become guilty of open lewdness. On the contrary live with them on a footing of kindness and equity. If you take a dislike to them, it may be that you dislike something and Allah will bring about through it a great deal of good. (4:19)

Islam has given the liberty to a man and a woman to divorce if nothing works out. Divorce is the nothing but the last resort for a Muslim man and a Muslim woman. Though it is quite easy to divorce in an Islamic way but there’s more to divorce then just uttering a few words. All the possible options are tried before taking the big decision. It’s not an easy decision and I haven’t seen people around me getting divorced. Divorce is an option for those who are sure that parting is a better idea than staying together. If both husband and wife decide to get divorced then they are again asked to reconsider their decision. No lawyers or anything is required to make things worse! When they finally agree upon divorcing each other, the waiting period begins. The waiting period lasts for three menstrual cycles to ensure the woman is not pregnant. This period gives some time to the couple to think about what they are doing and if this is what they really want to do. If the woman turns out to be pregnant then it’s the responsibility of the husband to feed and clothe the wife till she delivers. Even if she is not pregnant then too the husband is supposed to feed and clothe her till the waiting period lasts. Muslim women are gifted with all these rights and what is propagated is entirely antagonistic to what the real truth is.

Even though taking divorce is so simple for Muslims but surprisingly Muslims have low divorce rates!

Check World stats on divorce.

Muslims have undoubtedly a low divorce rate, mashaAllah! Despite the simple procedure! It can in no way be compared to the kind of ugly battles that are fought on a daily bases in court rooms around the world. In conclusion, I hope this article helped to clear up the distorted/clichéd image of divorce in Islam to some extent. 

“One in three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in some other way, most often by someone she knows. One in four women were abused during pregnancy (Amnesty International; www.amnesty.org)”

I couldn’t find anything better than this to start off with an article on female feticide!

It won’t be shocking, if told that the very birth of a female child is considered a bad omen in countries like India!

This explains why we have sex ratios (females per thousand males) as high as…

World 986

1 China 944

2 India 933

3 U.S.A. 1,029

4 Indonesia 1,004

5 Brazil 1,025

6 Pakistan 938

7 Russian Fed. 1,140

8 Bangladesh 953

9 Japan 1,041

10 Nigeria 1,016

Source:World Population Prospects (mid year estimates) 1998, revision, Volume 2, Sex and Age, United Nations.

Despite the fact that, the number of live births of females compared to that of males is higher. If we go into the biological details, there’s a fifty-fifty chance that a boy or a girl will be born. But due to higher disease resistance or simply an extra “X� chromosome more girls are born compared to boys and that can clearly explain the higher sex ratios in developed countries.

“India now has the dubious distinction of being known as the country that likes to ensure that girls are never born. We are facing a national emergency, an `epidemic’ that will have far-reaching social consequences, says KALPANA SHARMA.”

No girls, please, we’re Indian: the Hindu.

“It’s shocking figures and we are in a national crisis if you ask me,”

“The minute the child is born and she opens her mouth to cry, they put sand into her mouth and her nostrils so she chokes and dies,” Chowdhury said, referring to cases in the western desert state of Rajasthan. “They bury infants into pots alive and bury the pots. They put tobacco into her mouth. They hang them upside down like a bunch of flowers to dry,” she said.

-Minister for Women and Child Development, Renuka Chowdhury.

Uncountable fetuses are aborted on a daily basis, here in India. Though it’s a crime to determine the sex of the child in pre natal stage, still abortion clinics are a big hit! None the less, those girls who survive are doomed to a life full of misery. Women who are mother to a boy enjoy a better social status than the women who have daughters.

They are cursed and blamed for adding an extra burden on the family. That’s why most women themselves consider the birth of a girl a bad omen… if not for the family, at least for themselves!

Here’s a story….just ONE!

“Lakshmi already had one daughter, so when she gave birth to a second girl, she killed her. For the three days of her second child’s short life, Lakshmi admits, she refused to nurse her. To silence the infant’s famished cries, the impoverished village woman squeezed the milky sap from an oleander shrub, mixed it with castor oil, and forced the poisonous potion down the newborn’s throat. The baby bled from the nose, then died soon afterward. Female neighbors buried her in a small hole near Lakshmi’s square thatched hut of sunbaked mud. They sympathized with Lakshmi, and in the same circumstances, some would probably have done what she did. For despite the risk of execution by hanging and about 16 months of a much-ballyhooed government scheme to assist families with daughters, in some hamlets of … Tamil Nadu, murdering girls is still sometimes believed to be a wiser course than raising them. “A daughter is always liabilities. How can I bring up a second?” Lakshmi, 28, answered firmly when asked by a visitor how she could have taken her own child’s life eight years ago. “Instead of her suffering the way I do, I thought it was better to get rid of her.” (All quotes from Dahlburg, “Where killing baby girls ‘is no big sin’.”)”

Shocking is such a small word to define what I felt after reading this.

“As John-Thor Dahlburg points out, “in rural India, the centuries-old practice of female infanticide can still be considered a wise course of action.” (Dahlburg, “Where killing baby girls ‘is no big sin’,” The Los Angeles Times [in The Toronto Star, February 28, 1994.]) According to census statistics, “From 972 females for every 1,000 males in 1901 … the gender imbalance has tilted to 929 females per 1,000 males. … In the nearly 300 poor hamlets of the Usilampatti area of Tamil Nadu [state], as many as 196 girls died under suspicious circumstances [in 1993] … Some were fed dry, unhulled rice that punctured their windpipes, or were made to swallow poisonous powdered fertilizer. Others were smothered with a wet towel, strangled or allowed to starve to death.”

ï‚· 2 million females are killed before or at birth simply because of their sex (www.indiafemalefoeticide.org)

 More than 60 million women are ‘missing’ from the world today as a result of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide (Amnesty; www.amnesty.org)

 50 million women are ‘missing’ from India (www.thp.org)

ï‚· In China, the 2000 census revealed the ratio of girls to boys is 100:199. The norm is 100:103 (chinadatacenter.org)

ï‚· Of 8,000 foetuses aborted in a Bombay clinic, 7999 were female (learningpartnership.org)

A UNICEF report released this week said 7,000 fewer girls are born in the country every day than the global average would suggest, largely because female foetuses are aborted after sex determination tests but also through murder of new borns.

According to the 2001 census, the national sex ratio was 933 girls to 1,000 boys, while in the worst-affected northern state of Punjab, it was 798 girls to 1,000 boys. The ratio has fallen since 1991, due to the availability of ultrasound sex-determination tests.

“Even today when you go to a temple, you are blessed with ‘May you have many sons’,” she said. “The minute you empower them to earn more or equal (to men), social prejudices vanish.“

The practice of killing the girl child is more prevalent among the educated, including in up market districts of New Delhi, making it more challenging for the government, the minister said. “How do we tell educated people that you must not do it? And these are people who would visit all the female deities and pray for strength but don’t hesitate to kill a girl child,” she said.

A few months back, Vatican created uproar in the Muslim world by making false claims about our beloved prophet and now once again, Vatican is poking its nose into Muslim issues without any invitation! 

There wasn’t any need to make such comments about our prophet but the pope just did that. It’s obvious that a man of his stature was well aware of the consequences. But still he had some reason to bring it up and I still can’t figure it out! Though he apologized later on but again sparking of such a controversy is not making any sense to me!
Muslim women who wear veils won’t remove their veils because Vatican wants them to!

 

Here’s the seed to a new controversy.
 

A senior Vatican cardinal has expressed concern over the use of some Muslim veils by Islamic immigrants in Europe. This is the first time that the Vatican has joined in the Europe-wide debate on how women who insist on wearing the veil affect the integration of Muslims. Cardinal Renato Martino said immigrants must respect the traditions, culture and religion of the nations they go to. They ought to abide by local laws banning the wearing of certain types of Muslim veils, he added. 

“It seems elementary to me and it is quite right that the authorities demand it,” said Cardinal Martino, who heads the Vatican department dealing with migration issues. He was speaking at a news conference launching a papal statement calling for laws which encourage the better integration of migrants. 

Here in Italy, a law was passed during the attacks of the Red Brigades urban guerrillas three decades ago which still makes it an offence to cover your face in public if your identity is challenged by a policeman. At that time there were very few Muslim women immigrants in Italy. 

Common values Another Vatican expert on immigration, Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, said it was important in the course of dialogue with Muslims to make them understand that the consequences of some of their religious traditions might not be positive in the societies in which they now find themselves. The Italian government is trying to draw up what it calls a Charter of Common Values to get local Muslim leaders to help integrate Italy’s fast-growing population. But it is hard going. 

At one recent meeting, a radical Muslim delegate proposed separate charters for men and for women, and favoured the death penalty. Equal rights for men and women are guaranteed, and the death penalty is banned, under the Italian constitution. 

  

I understand that any migrant should respect the local law of the country in which he reside but does that mean that the local law or the people should not respect the migrant and his faith that’s entirely personal? For security reasons if women are asked to co-operate, it’s understandable but simply depriving them of their right to dress up the way they want is sheer hypocrisy. When Muslims don’t interfere with the dress code of western women then why is the west concerned about Muslim women and their dresses?? Some scholars advocate the covering of head and many advocates the covering of face as well. And that’s why many women prefer keeping their faces covered. 

This calls for another debate on the role of religious leaders in politics. I personally feel that religious leaders should limit themselves to religion only. Intermixing religion and politics is a dangerous thing to do. Religious leaders should understand that religion and politics are two different things and if they start talking like politicians it will have dangerous consequences as it further increases the distance between different civilizations. And it applies to leaders from all religions. I’m disappointed with the way Vatican is dealing with Muslims. It’s sad that religious leaders are falling prey to politics.

Hammer man haunts Bombay!
Here’s the news….

Mysterious attacker hounds Mumbai women

---

Anupama RamachandranWatch story Thursday, November 9, 2006 (Mumbai):
There is growing fear and tension in parts of suburban Mumbai after
reports of yet another attack by the mysterious Hammer Man.In the third such incident, a young girl was attacked in the city’s Jogeshwari suburb. She was hit repeatedly on the head while on her way to tuition classes.“I was going for tuitions. I saw him in the compound but did not think anything. He climbed the stairs ahead of me and when I was on my way he suddenly attacked me. I lost consciousness,” said Farhana Khan.

All three attacks have been reported between the suburbs of Andheri and Goregaon.

The victims are young women attacked on the stairs of buildings. In a similar pattern, all attacks took place in the afternoon and the victims described the attacker as someone who was young and casually dressed.

While two of the victims were hit on the head with a hammer, the third was assaulted with a cement pipe.

The striking similarity of these attacks has created fears in the minds of people. What is making things worse is that despite the victims giving descriptions of the attacker, the police have not been able to arrest anyone.

This mysterious guy who hits women and flees is haunting the roads of Bombay these days. I remember I saw the first two victims on television one of them, a young girl was coming back from her college and she was attacked at the stair case. Some parts of her body were completely paralyzed!

It’s tragic and I still wonder how the girl will spend the rest of her life. No matter how much I think over it, I don’t find a reason good enough to trouble people like that. What can be in the mind of that devil!

I know the title is quite funny and absurd as well… but the things that I’m going to talk of are nothing less!
 

Let’s talk of Delhi alone, as I’m a Delhite myself and well acquainted with the roads and the passers by! Though, I’m somewhat sure that the scene in the rest of Indian metros is nothing less.
Girls stopped walking in lonesome places … thinking, wild dogs won’t harass them in public places. But then the much talked of cases like the MAMC and DU rape case happened!
And that made the picture even uglier!
Girls aren’t safe in crowded places such as colleges as well!
When a girl walks by… at times it’s like “jaadu� (the alien in Hrithik roshan’s flicks) himself descended and the world is gazing…!
Girls are the “gazing stock� everywhere but it’s not as uncomfortable as some Delhi roads!
There’s only one option that ensures that the girl wont be pinched and that’s???
“Take a convoy along with you whenever you want to stroll down the market�
Is it possible???
In all probability its not!
So, be prepared to get pinched!!!
You get comments, you get pinched, you are chased, you are harassed..!
But that’s not all…
The latest trend is…. Propose a girl… if she accepts its fine otherwise…. Get some acid… spill it right on her face and that’s it!
I remember one such case which happened in Gurgaon (a city just touching Delhi) sometime back. This time a girl studying in tenth was targeted by another student in the same standard!!! This guy accidentally spilled acid on him as well and that’s the reason why he got arrested so easily! These cases are more common in small towns… as far as I noticed. And those girls aren’t in a position to take the help of modern surgeons.
There’s an alarming increase in acid spilling cases. Every now and then a girl is victimized. I’m not putting any link here… cause I don’t feel the need. It’s always in the news…. Time and again, it’s in the news that one girl was attacked for she refused a guy’s proposal…..

They don’t even care, that their heinous act will destroy one life completely….! May be the taste of revenge is so good that they ignore the basic thing that there’s a difference between love and obsession!
I don’t know what punishment Indian constitution or any other law has for such “aashiqs� but I strongly feel the need of a rigorous punishment for such devils! I wonder if they punished or what!

They should not be spared!
What is happening to Indian society? Why aren’t the people moved by such incidents? It can be any girl… any girl for that matter!