Oh The Irony...

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I recently came across the results of a survey which found that 69% of the people asked believe that Islam encourages the oppression of women.

If there is one thing I absolutly cannot stand it is when people hold uneducated opinions - or more accuratly, guesses - about Islam.

Let's forget about opinion here and just look at the facts so that we can set the record straight. Islam brought women their rights during a time that in other countries women were being bought and sold as cattle.

We Muslim women gained ownership over our money and were able to inherit while women around the world were themselves being inherited. 

We were given the right to education and work, and the right over our husbands' to provide for us regardless of whether or not we choose to work and regardless of how and when we spend our money.

Muslim men are commanded to treat women with kindness and respect and not to take them as objects. Islam is the only religion to limit the number of wives a man can have, putting heavy conditions on the man, making it very difficult to marry more than one woman (in a time when men would marry hundreds as and when they pleased).

Unlike other religions, Muslim women could choose their husbands' and were given the right to initiate a divorce. We are not seen as commodities with an expiry date, rather have an elevated and respected status in Islam as mothers, wives and daughters and important contributors to society.

Women are NEVER degraded in the Quran and are described as equal to men. The words "male" and "female" are mentioned the same number of times in the Quran - 23 times each. The Prophet (SAW) mentioned the mother three times before mentioning the father once, when asked about the importance of parents.

Unfortunately though, in this society most people are under the impression that being "equal" to a man means being the "same" as a man. It is for this reason that if a woman doesn't work, she is considered backward, oppressed and lower than a man because she is not acting like a man.

The reality is that if women had been told to work so that the government could tax another 50% of the population instead of being told that they were being liberated, far fewer women would have jumped on the feminist bandwagon.They would have used their logic to deduce that men and women are ALREADY equal and it is totally ridiculous to gain equality with somebody simply by 'acting' like them. If I acted like my pet hamster would it make me equal to it..?

I am genuinely so very thankful that I am a Muslim woman because I do not need to prove myself to men or to "gain" equality from anybody - I already have it, in it's most perfect form from my Creator (SWT). And it was given to me 1300 years before the women who did this survey.

And there's the irony.