Muslim Women and Current Affairs

By: Allama Syed Jawad Naqvi
Today we Muslims and specifically you women should be aware about the current affairs of the Muslim world. It should not be that you are so busy with kitchen and other household chores that you are not aware about what is happening around you, in your city, in your country and not aware about the system in which you are living.
At times we say that the intellectual level of our women is very low, and hence the scholars should only deliver very simple and preliminary talks. This perception is an insult to women. These women are also human beings and they have a role to play in the humanity of this world, they also have to deliver a character and they also have to live with the current era. They also need to feel and sense their social and religious responsibilities along with household duties. These women who went to Karbala and delivered the message of Karbala afterwards also had homes with kitchen. They could have also made excuses and done kitchen work, cleaning the house and other things throughout their lives, but they decided to go shoulder to shoulder with the men in Karbala.
Religion has not prohibited women at any place. In fact, women have a very specific role which can be only delivered by them. This is a reality that many leaders and martyrs of Karbala were the outcome of efforts of women behind them. If the wife of Zohair Ibn Qain would not have been present with him in his journey, things would have been different for him. He was a supporter of the third caliph and was not a supporter of the mission of Aba Abdillah (as). It was his wife who reformed him and changed his opinions. After this reformation he got listed in the names of martyrs of Karbala and that too amongst the leaders. This is the great courage of this woman who made her life partner reach such a high divine status and all this was because she realized and felt her responsibilities.
Do not sit unconcerned. You should be aware about the world you are living in and the happenings around you. Do not think or say that you have nothing to do with this governmental system and you want to live a normal life. You might not be having any concerns with this system, but this system definitely has serious concerns about you. If we say that we have nothing to do with the heat of summer or the cold of winter, then also the heat and the cold have concerns with you, they will impact you and hence you have to adopt preventive measures. If some virus or a disease spreads and someone informs you about this, will you say that you have no concerns about this? You have nothing to do with this virus but the virus has certainly something to do with you. This virus is a danger to your body; hence if you do not fight this virus you will become its captive.
We don't have rights to live in all types of systems. Can you drink any kind of water? Can you drink water from a stagnant pond? If someone says this is my personal life and I can drink any water I want, then he is wrong. Intellectually and also religiously you don't have rights to drink impure and filthy water; you should drink pure and clean water.
If Shariah can impose laws regarding water even to the extent of purity of water used for washing clothes, then how is it possible that the same Islam is not concerned about the purity of the social system governing us? It is so concerned about the washing of our clothes but not about our lives, our humanity, our spirituality, our children and our generations? Though the intelligence and Shariah both prohibits from drinking dirty water, but there are people who are still drinking it.

Dictatorship under the Veil of Democracy
We don't have the rights to live in any type of system, neither by Shariah nor by our intelligence and specifically living under the Fironic system. These governmental systems which have raised the slogans of democracy are all representative of Satan (devil).
As Allama Iqbal narrates in one of his poems, that Satan called for an annual conference, where all his representatives came. Satan analyzed the work over the past year and drafted a plan for the coming year to misguide people. Iqbal says, when Satan inquired about the situation in the world from his representatives, they replied to him that our devilish plans are failing in many places due to certain reasons. One of the representatives of Satan came forward and said that one of the biggest dangers to Satan is from democratic system of governance which is spreading across the globe and democracy is a very good system. Satan said there is nothing to be afraid about this, because this democracy is the same dictatorship.
This is the same Fironic system, the same arrogant system of the past and I have just changed its outlook. First it was imperialism, dictatorship, feudalism and now also it is the same but I have changed its dress to democracy.

The Effects of Fironic System
We think that the democratic system in which we are living is the best system, but in reality it is the same dictatorship which is hidden inside this democracy. Let me explain this also from the Holy Quran. Allah (s) commanded Prophet Moosa (as) in the Quran to go to Bani Israel and give them relief from the Fironic system, because the Ummah has become senseless, adulterated with this system and their beliefs were corrupted. This is the point to be concentrated, where we will see now that what kind of devastating affects a Fironic system can leave on the religious ideologies of a nation.
They witnessed several miracles of Prophet Moosa (as). He had the miracle with his staff and his enlightened hand was a miracle. There were many such miracles given to Prophet Moosa (as) out of which twelve are listed in the Holy Quran. The greatest miracle of Moosa was his wooden staff, through which he split the river, defeated the magicians, destroyed Firon and gave salvation to Bani Israel. All these miracles were witnessed by Bani Israel by their own eyes, but just see later what happened.
After all these miracles and finally passing through the river they moved from Egypt to Palestine and the area of Jordan. When they reached in this belt of the land of Jordan, they saw a community busy in idol worship of hand-made gods. Now, emphasizing on this fact that Bani Israel had seen the miracles of Moosa, had heard the preaching of Moosa and have seen the end of Firon through the hands of Moosa, they demanded from Moosa something which stunned him. As mentioned in the verse of the Holy Quran, they demanded from Moosa: "O Moosa, make for us a God as they have (their) Gods" (Surah al-A’araaf,7:138)
This shows how low they had gone in their thinking and ideologies. This proves that the lessons of Monotheism (Tauheed) which Moosa was delivering to them were not understood by them. But the question is why? The reason was that the long period, in fact several generations, which they spent in the Fironic system, had weakened their level of thinking to such an extent that even now they could not discriminate between Idol worship and Monotheism. Hence they demanded from Moosa to make a similar idol for them. They made it a practice now to demand for an Idol god whenever they saw anyone worshipping a God other than the God of Moosa.
Then Moosa took them towards the land of Qinan. After reaching there, Moosa told them that Allah (s.w.t.) has asked me to camp for thirty days on Mountain Tur so as to get the Torah. These thirty days then increased by ten more and became forty days for which Moosa was away from his community. He made Haroon as his vicegerent and representative before leaving. There is one point to ponder over here, that Moosa only went away from his community for one month and ten days period, but still he did not leave the community on their own, he made Haroon as his representative and leader of the community. So how is it possible that the HujjatAllah (a.t.f.s) is in occultation for 1300 years and he has left no representative in the Ummah?
When Moosa returned back after forty days, he saw a shocking scene. This scene was that the community had left Haroon isolated and was following Saamri. The question here is how Saamri was successful in taking the community away from Haroon. This is where we can again see the character of women.

Saamri and His Idol Calf
Women can play a role on both, the positive as well as negative side. They can help in turning down the system of Firon and also in strengthening the evil mission of Saamri.
Saamri approached the women and requested them to bring all their wealth and specifically their ornaments, so that he can make a God for them to worship. He told them that the God he will make, will fulfill all their worldly wishes and desires; if they talk to him the God will reply, you can touch and feel the God, and above all this you can even kiss the God. Now, this kissing part is very important even for us; unless we kiss the holy and sanctimonious things we don't feel we have delivered our duties. Saamri played a cunning game; he presented all those things Moosa could not present. The God of Moosa was not touchable, people could not kiss that God, and they could not see or listen to the God introduced by Moosa. Hence Saamri used this to inspire the women to gather their ornaments which they had brought from Egypt along with them. The Quranic Ayah says that these women gave all their jewellery, even from their arms and shoulders to Saamri. Saamri now lighted up an oven, melted these ornaments and made a Calf out of this gold and silver. This was an idol imitation of the shape of a calf made out of gold and silver.
Saamri was an intelligent person and an engineer. He was spiritual and a religious personality. He was aware about the technology otherwise he would not have been successful in making a calf by melting ornaments. He just did not make a metallic calf, he inserted inside it such an effect that the calf was mooing also. Later, when Moosa asked him how he succeeded in making this idol calf speak, he replied that he had seen the remains of a messenger. Remains of a messenger, means either he took something from Gabriel or he took the sand from below the feet of Moosa and used it in the calf to make it speak. This proves that his intellectual level was so high that either he knew the effects of the sand below the feet of Moosa or he took something from Gabriel and made the calf active. The entire community with this technique of Saamri got deceived, left Haroon and started to follow Saamri.