“Where is Islam, Quran and who follows them?” retorted my angry friend, when I tried to make her understand that the whole Quranic discourse about women is right based and for men duty based. I could well understand her anger, predicament and deep abhorrence towards preaching Islam without its practical manifestation. Her father a rich businessman, and an apparently pious Muslim who prays five times a day. Her mother is a home maker. The relationship between her parents was never cordial, since her childhood due to a number of reasons. Her father always downplays her mother. He inflicts physical and mental torture on her, though the frequency of physical torture has gone down, since the children grew up, but the mental and psychological torture still continues.
Her father accuses, her mother of embezzling and misappropriating the money, he grants her for running the house. He alleges that, she siphons and channelizes his money to her sisters and brothers. There is no truth in such a claim as the kith and kin of her mother are quite rich and well off. When the children tried to revolt against these atrocities of their father on their mother.
The whole family was punished, as the father stopped paying the monthly sustenance, which also constrained the educational needs of the children. By imposing these economic sanctions the father like Uncle Sam, tried to discipline the family.
These tactics weakened the resistance of mother and the children. The father tried to buy their obedience through economic means and to a limited extent he was successful. The bruised mother always complains now, only if she had been working or employed somewhere, she wouldn’t have witnessed such bad days. My friend also insists that she must find a job, in order to be economically sound, independent and stand on her own legs. She plans to give a befitting reply to her father and restore her mother’s dignity. She has a practical experience of suffering the pangs of financial constraints despite her father being rich.
She even confided to me the worst of her fears about the rumors of her father having married another younger woman, about which she and her mother are ignorant. She despises and is fearful if these rumors are true how can they live with that man?? If he divorces her mother they would be rendered homeless and have to bear the pangs of poverty.
She raised her voice and her face became red with anger, when in the zeal of an Islamic Feminist I further tried to deliberate about the numerous rights, Islam and Quran has bestowed on women. Women need not to earn, as Islam has made it mandatory on Men to provide for the sustenance of their wives and children. Islam elevated the status of women, and even gave her right of inheritance. I could sense her anger growing and her whole body shivering and I could sense a hard slap being a result of my Islamic Feminism. This apprehension made me stop and saved me from a slap, she retorted and shot back, “Islam, Quran and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) granted women various revolutionary rights, but patriarchy, Muslim Men and Mullahs took them away. Muslim women no longer enjoy those rights and shut up your discourse on Islamic Feminism, there is no such thing. It only exists either in books, dreams or academic conferences. Woman needs to be economically independent only then can she lead a dignified life. What if she is divorced by her husband, would your Utopian Islamic Feminism save her and her children from starvation?” I had no answer to her brutally honest questions and observations. I deemed it right like a defeated soldier to leave the conversation and her company with these questions ringing in my mind for several days to come.
“We want an employed bride”, were the pre requisite condition of the bridegroom’s family for marriage. A distant relative of ours despite being orphan, but employed was married off in the same family. The bridegroom’s family took no consideration, of the bride being orphan, while conceiving the marriage with austerity. Instead as agreed, they were invited for one hundred guests to accompany the bridegroom for a gluttonous feast, they breached the agreement by one hundred and twenty guests accompanying the groom.
After marriage, in which a lot of dowry was paid to the hungry groom and his family. The groom and his family made the newly wed bride to loan out car for her husband with in a couple of months of their marriage. Next with the help of more bank loan they raised two more stories of their dingy dark house. She being employed in a bank was able to secure those loans, with the money being deducted at source from her salary for years to come.
The pathetic husband, instead of providing the sustenance for the wife and children shuns away from his economic responsibility. The wife maintains her own sustenance and provides for the children’s education from her own salary. The husband rarely asks about her economic needs. To add insult to injury, the husband and even father in law demands the salary to be handed over to them. They would then decide to grant her money, after she begs before them. This demand she hasn’t given in yet, which has led to a familial discord.
The wife earning as a slave, has to shoulder the burden of household responsibilities too. These two burdens have made her look older than her age. In between the tug of war, the children have become a casualty. They couldn’t get proper guidance, as the father doesn’t shoulder the responsibilities of the children. The mother over burdened with the work of household and office with resentful nagging in laws in the background, have rendered her unproductive towards the welfare of her children.
She always remains busy as a bee. The huge amount of money is appropriated by her husband and in laws, while she finds no rest or solace to spend them on her leisure or happiness. The economic independence has become a myth and a trap for her freedom and dignity.
What is the way out? Islam has the best solution and most favorable rights bestowed on womanhood, but they remain ill conceived, unrealized and utopian. When materialism, greed and blind hedonism had entered the pious relationship of marriage too, then what is the need for marriage? Satisfying biological need is not the ultimate aim of marriage!! If marriage can’t offer you solace, Peace and Tranquility.
where else would you find the same? These bitter experiences also make clear the dichotomy of economy in different circumstances, perspectives and situations.
The real challenge is to undermine the patriarchal mindset and hegemony of male chauvinism, through inculcation of real education about Islamic discourse on women and practically delivering and honoring the rights of women as enshrined in Islam. Then Economic Independence or San Economic Independence, women will be honored, dignified and respectable.
Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander is Writer-Activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir and can be reached at: sikandarmushtaq@gmail.com .