Islam and Feminism - Dr Bilal Philips [HD]

[Music] oh [Music] all praise is due to allah and may allah's peace and blessings be on the last messenger of allah and on all those who follow the path of righteousness until the last day my topic as you have already heard is feminism from an islamic perspective or islam and feminism and this term feminism we hear regularly in the newspapers on television in the media magazines etc it has become one of the hot topics of our time it's a topic which came up in the 20th century and it has carried on into the 21st century and it's a topic which represents in the hands of some an attack on islam or the basis from which islam would be attacked however feminism in its origin was not against islamic teachings it is what feminism has become in our times where we find a challenging and seeking to displace islamic teachings in the muslim ummah the female element of the muslim ummah so for us to understand this topic let me first give you a definition the definition found commonly is that feminism is the belief in the social economic and political equality of the sexes the social economic and political equality of the sexes this is the the essence of what women western women in particular were fighting for for the last three to 500 years the social equality which had to do with family and how family operated economic which had to do in the workplace wages an equality of pay for equality of work and in the political sphere it was focused on voting up until 1920 in the us there wasn't an opportunity for most americans american females to vote voting was the right only of males but by 1920 1918 in the uk women were given the right to vote and with that right they progressed with the civil rights issues of the 20th century where black americans sought their rights which were supposed to have been given to them and the women's movements women's rights movements they followed up behind the civil rights movements in the u.s now when we look at the issues of feminism we have to understand that feminism in the west is quite different from what many of you might think feminism is as muslims because the background the history which produced feminism in the in the west is different from the background for muslims because if we consider that one thousand four hundred years ago in the seventh century prophet muhammad sallam had stated in his farewell address he had said there in that khutba ya'ay nas allah o people your lord is one well what and your father is one allah by allah there is no superiority of an arab over a non-arab voila and there is none for whites over blacks [Music] for blacks over whites except based on the fear of allah this statement 1400 years ago is a statement of civil rights a statement of equality which was only reached by western civilization in the 19th and 20th centuries so we have a different background our laws are divinely revealed laws revealed by the creator of this world and everything in it their laws while initially based on the bible and the bible is corrupted it is not the pure revelation from allah so it has in it many many statements which go against the teachings of god but it does have a moral core which is preserved in islam in its purity so with that corruption then it was not surprising that in the west slavery was promoted people of color were looked at as inferior to europeans and even in the most highly regarded document of america's existence the american constitution in it and this is written in the 18th century by the leading thinkers the most enlightened leaders who put together this document known as the american constitution in it in article 1 section 2 called the three-fifths compromise it enshrines their the concept that people of color black people were equivalent to three-fifths of a white person this is in the american constitution this is in the 18th century and this not repealed in the full sense until the 1960s with the civil rights movement when finally laws were made to ensure no discrimination uh over race and added to that was also no discrimination for the sexes so there is a different background here because the laws in islam were revealed by god those laws will not be evolving they will not need to be changed not to say that in some parts of the muslim world where culture has overcome the teachings of islam that women may not have to fight for rights which were already given to them in islam so this is the perspective we are talking about the rights which western women fought over in the early 20th century like owning property this was already established in the quran and the sunnah one thousand four hundred years ago that khutbah or speech which prophet muhammad gave us his farewell speech 1 400 years ago you will not find in any civilization from the 7th century all the way up until the 20th century where a clear statement of equality and opposition to nationalism and tribalism is there you will not find it no matter how hard you search in all of the european countries countries of the far east near east it's not there and the reason why it was there at the time when nowhere else in the world was this said is because it is revelation from allah that's why it could be found 1 400 years ago when nobody in the rest of the world was thinking about this it was not comprehensible people were caught up in tribalism in racialism nationalism etc etc so when we look at the issues of feminism we have to look at them from this perspective that islam has already given us the foundations for women's rights they're all there women's rights which benefit them they're all there there are some rights which western feminism has introduced which are anti-family which are really anti-femininity promote lesbianism and other deviant behaviors and practices this has become chartered in the u.n in their women's conferences these are being promoted so when we look at the mainstream feminism from the west most of what is sought by them is supported by islam equal pay act in 1963 they passed that islam is all for that whether it's males amongst males white and black or males and females if both have done the same work they deserve to get the same pay so this is quite legitimate also restricting jobs in the west women were not allowed into certain professions so islam that door is open they are not restricted from where and when and how they would work in the society if it's beneficial to the society islam is in favor of it it doesn't oppose women uh entering into various fields of work which may be even well known or commonly held by males islam doesn't say simply because males are normally in these fields you can't what you find is that it was not until the 1965 race relations act that followed also by the civil rights act that women were now given the opportunity to take jobs as airplane pilots uh in construction workers soldiers bankers bus drivers they could do take all these jobs this was a revolution in the 60s but really islam never prohibited women from taking these professions the bus drivers you might say but what about saudi arabia women are not allowed to drive there well you know that some changes have taken place recently but that's not islamic islam's ruling on women driving that's just saudi arabian culture that's all that is saudi arabian culture it's not islamic culture islamic law and how you know in general what is islamic law and what is islamic culture is that culture is found in some places and not found in others whereas law is going to be everywhere like praying five times a day it's everywhere in the muslim world we don't have any country which says pray three times a day fasting in ramadan is law everywhere you go in the muslim world muslims fast they fast in the month of ramadan they fast for 30 days or 29 days nowhere do you find them fasting in sha'ban instead of ramadan nowhere so you know this is islam but when you find things in one place practice for example here in nigeria but you go elsewhere you don't find it then this is one of the signs that this is cultural it's cultural it's not really from islam so important for us to understand the distinction between the two so as i said much of what the early feminist movement in the west sought islam had either already provided or the opportunity to find it was there in islam so when we look into certain practices for example we said the right to own property women in islam had the right to own property 1400 years ago the right to education which is one of the things that the feminist movement fought for in the 19th century the right to education we know that aisha radhiallahu was one of the leading teachers after and in the time of prophet muhammed we know that herself and um salama they taught the generation to come the dean maybe one fourth of the sharia was taught by them so they had that position 1400 years ago no problem whereas in the west women were denied education they were not allowed to go and study back in the middle ages they were even debating whether women had souls whether women had souls because they were generally holding the opinion that women were just created for the pleasure of men and even the most enlightened thinkers of the uh renaissance period and the enlightenment period they made horrendous statements about women that they're frivolous they're not they're silly they're not to be consulted like these kinds of statements so that's the tradition that uh feminism in the west is coming out of actually even in during the the uh 18th century into the 19th century early 19th century in germany men had the right to sell their wives in germany men had the right to sell their wives to somebody else i mean this is something unthinkable in islam that a man would have the right to sell his wife to somebody else that's what existed and that's the view that they had of women so you can understand that as women woke up in the west with the various uh civil rights movements that were developing in france in in germany and england etc that they sought for those rights they fought for those rights so as i said what we have to keep in mind is when we look at issues feminist issues we have to keep in mind that our background is different from theirs and when the countries of europe and the west became secular countries secular democratic countries then even the moral principles which govern the society were lost the moral principles which govern the society were lost because morality now was decided by the majority morality was decided by the majority of the citizens so what was forbidden considered evil etc 10 years before fifty years before what it was now considered good and fine and what was considered good and fine before was now considered evil and that's how the situation changes in the west so you will find new issues coming in the feminist movement which go against the understandings of the early feminists of the 20th century so just as an example we can look at the issue of what is called marital rape marital rape in the 90s 1993 it was made a crime punishable with jail in the u.s and it spread across a number of countries in the world marital rape now the reality is that according to sharia there is no such thing there is no such thing as marital rape because when a husband and wife marry in islam there are rights which have been specified for the male and rights which have been specified for the female and amongst the rights of the male is that if he calls his wife to have relations with him she's supposed to come and she marries under that basis so the idea that she is going to say no and he forces himself on her and that now becomes a crime punishable with 12 years in jail 12 years in jail we can say well maybe you know he shouldn't have forced himself if the force is coercion non-physical then still should he be charged if it's physical he is beat her up he broke an arm or whatever okay we have an issue this is now violence and the punishment is not for marital rape but for violence for for harming his wife that's the point in islamic law but not rape in marriage and in fact though the west has taken it on and now it's become quite a standard some of the biggest countries in the world china there is no marital rape india there's no marital rape here nigeria there's no marital rape biggest country here in in africa second biggest ethiopia muslim population wise general population wise no marital rape and a number of other countries around the world indonesia 300 million people no marital rape so this is something limited to a particular part of the world with their view in terms of the male female relationship so what has happened is that feminism went from practical institutional efforts to ensure women their fair just and equal rights into areas now which went beyond the boundaries of what was just fair and just it now shifted into radical feminism which identified men as being the enemy they talk about the patriarchal society that the only way women are going to be truly free is if they divorce themselves from men practically they especially now with technology women can have a baby without the direct intervention of a man they have sperm banks where you just make the arrangements you get it and you can have a child so they say we don't need men of course they still need the men to provide the sperm so it's not that you don't need men right but the point is that even marriage now was being looked at as being a place of oppression of women because the idea that the man you know is the head of the family and all this no they looked at that as being oppression so they have launched an attack on the family itself and this is what has now dominated the women's conferences that are connected with the u.n et cetera the american and european uh feminists you know they have dominated the discussion their main focus is on fgm female genital mutilation the veil hijab we need to liberate our third world sisters from the oppression of male-dominated society so that is their view while women from the third world are concerned about things practical things connect in their countries which have to do with national debt and health care and all these other kinds of things their main concern is contraception sterility you know sterilizing the third world women so they don't have too many babies you know they say too many babies is affecting your economy etc so we need to cut down the number of babies so that the resources you know last so that the west can continue to benefit from those resources so this is their approach this is their focus this is their idea so we have to be very careful when we connect ourselves with the feminist movement from the west what most of the various groups are calling for go against the teachings of islam now there are a number of issues i have listed about 17 of them which represent the areas where the west being led by western feminists attack on islam the time doesn't permit me to go into all of them you know i can list them here polygamy which was talked about earlier by my brother arranged marriages which are forced marriages guardianship you know wilaya do you have to have a wali when you get married and this child marriages what they call child marriages marrying non-muslims this is all women's issues divorce it's easy man's right he has the right women don't seem to have the right you know marital rape that we spoke about as well as issues of alimony abortion contraception the veil inheritance two witnesses separate education these are all topics which the west attack the muslim world on in the name of feminism what i would suggest to you because time doesn't permit me to tackle all of this what i would suggest to you is that these have been tackled already in a course called contemporary issues which is available at my university website islamic online university this course in the free diploma doesn't cost you anything go there and take this course they give you a certificate at the end of the course these issues which are hot issues of our time which have to do with you as women please take this course take the benefit from it it will help you in dealing with these various uh issues which are being raised constantly in the media et cetera in the name of feminism so inshallah this presentation islam and feminism is really about distinguishing between what we may call islamic feminism and muslim feminism cultural muslim feminism islamic feminism is where a muslim woman who knows her rights in islam insists on her rights to get those rights where those rights are not being given as they should for example female divorce where a woman has the right to initiate divorce in most muslim countries it's very difficult even though it may be on the law books because it's in all of the schools of law islamic law sharia the math it's there in every one of them but because of decisions made at a point in history where the scholarship islamic scholarship was at its low this right to a large degree is denied muslim women today if they try to get it it's so much going around and here they're up down left right put this paper in get that stamped and all kinds of things till the end you say ah it's not even worth it this is unfortunate because in the time of the prophet sallam when a woman came to the prophet sallam and said listen i want to divorce my my husband and people say well we have to have a good reason she said i don't like him in fact i find him ugly okay i find him to be the ugliest of men and it is affecting my iman the prophet sallam informed the man and the divorce took place of course he asked her are you ready to give back the dowry which he gave you the mahar she said i'll give him back double he said no need no need okay just give him back what he gave you so this is a right which women have the right to push for that divorce should be initiated or initiatable from women it should not only be in the hand of the man and most women don't know that it's also possible in your marriage contract to put it as a condition that i have the similar right to divorce as my husband so even without going the hula root you can pronounce divorce as the husband pronounces divorce you can seek it in your contract most women don't know this what really yeah so this is uh this is a part of islamic law but people are not informed that so you don't know so you are put in the position you know in many cases where it is extremely difficult for you to get out of uh you know marriages which are harmful even harmful to yourself so islamic feminism stays within the bounds of the sharia it doesn't seek what is contradictory or violating those principles so if a woman for example she can't [Music] conceive in her own womb in the west it's possible for her to either combine ovum from her wu from her fallopian tubes combined with the sperm of her husband or the sperm of anybody else from a sperm bank and that combination put in the womb of another woman who becomes a surrogate mother and she has a child from the islamic perspective this is not permissible the only in vitriol fertilization ivf uh acceptable format acceptable is where the ovum of the woman is combined with the sperm of her husband and it is placed in her womb that's it if she can't bear a child in her womb then she's patient adopt a muslim child that's possible to adopt that muslim child the prophet sallam had said that myself and the orphan are like this on the day of judgment so find an orphan child and adopt them but any other combination islamically is not allowed it's not acceptable that child that grows child of yours that grows in the womb of another woman she is being nurtured by that woman by all the things that are connected to it that child is not really yours anymore it's not really your child and if you combine it with the sperm of another man is it can how is your husband going to claim this is your child his child can't so it's very clear in this matter though prophet muhammed did not speak on it directly the sharia has principles which ensure that only one form of ivf in vitro fertilization is acceptable from the sharia perspective so we need to know our limits and when allah had said that in this way we have made you you muslim females we have made you a moderate middle nation not going to one extreme or to another extreme just in your practices righteous in your beliefs to be a witness to the rest of humankind because they're changing modifying going up and down left and right all over the place you become the witness for humankind of what a woman should be what is the proper perspective of a woman in these times fulfilling her rights and fulfilling her duties so allah has made us in that way so we should stay within the sharia limits and avoid the extreme views of those who may be muslims in name and culture but who don't have any problem with breaking the sharia because as far as they're concerned muhammad saw sallam was a male a patriarch and as he represents a part of the enemy that's what it has come to he represents a part of the enemy and as a result in turkey and in tunisia they made polygamy illegal polygamy was made illegal when allah made it permissible and the prophet sallam reaffirmed it they have gone and made it illegal in the country and they're seeking other laws to ban different islamic practices with related relationship to women so the west basically feminism functions according to the whims of the extreme movement today there are some among them who are not to those extremes they do recognize the role of women and family and all this you know but they're a minority the majority now who call themselves feminists are people who are anti-family they're anti-family of course you have the issue you're out working your husband's out working but you have to come back home and cook the food wash the dishes everything else he comes back home and rests well if your husband is having you work then he has to share in the housework you know if you choose to go out and work he says i'm not stopping you but don't let your going out to work reduce your housework so you're not taking care of the home because it's not necessary for you i have the means to look after both of us so it's not necessary but if you want to i don't object however not at the expense of taking care of the home taking care of the children in the home so that's the arrangement which can be worked out and you make that arrangement accordingly but if he's telling you no go on work because i don't have enough to take care of both of us we need a second income and this is in many cases like that today in these times we need that second income then okay if i'm going out to work you tell him hey you know don't expect me to come home after working you know nine to five just like you and then the first thing i come home i have to be rushed into the kitchen and cooking this and that and you know no no that's not fair it's not just you know yes primarily that is your role but once you have the man has required the woman to shift out of her primary role and her primary role now becomes secondary her primary role now becomes the earning of income and the husband is benefiting from it then he has to make arrangements to have a maid or whatever else in the home to take care of that housework that's fair that's just that's not western feminist it is just functional for us to be able to function in a fair way in a just way then that makes sense for us to be able to do that so again just closing uh because this is really as i said only an introduction to this topic insha allah we plan to offer a course in gender studies professor binta from buk she has a center alhamdulillah there in kanu which is which focused on gender studies she's going to be working with my university the islamic online university as well as professor zinet kauther from the international islamic university in malaysia the two of them are putting together a curriculum for certificate diploma and degree courses in gender studies because we do need to have women who are thoroughly grounded in this field to be able to speak on behalf of muslim women i shouldn't be the one up here speaking this is your issue primarily and i'm sure among you there are those who can express this far more eloquently than i do i'm just a substitute but we need to see more and more women step up and take this on and become spokespeople because when the west sees this they say see the men this is a woman's issue and it's men telling the women no it needs to be women telling the women women discussing with the women so i encourage you to join the islamic online university and access the knowledge that is available because your future is going to depend on your current knowledge you need to have a thorough knowledge about the dean first and foremost when the prophet sallam had said seeking knowledge is a religious obligation on every muslim that's male and female equally an obligation on both according to their ability so this is a responsibility for the sisters of jannah for you to achieve that goal of jannah you must have correct islamic knowledge it is what will guide you with the skills that you already have to be in true service to the ummah to truly be sisters of jannah to help other sisters get to jannah and for you to get to jenna yourselves so please sisters make that commitment today it is something which each and every one of you can do studying online doesn't require you to stop doing what you're doing and starting something else studying online means right at home while you're doing housework etc or even when you're working outside of the home in your spare time studying improving on your knowledge inshallah sharing that knowledge and inshallah we will have a brighter future for the muslims especially the muslim sisters of nigeria in the years to come barack obama islamic online university prevents you with the golden opportunity to study the various branches of islamic studies from the comforts of your home now you get to study at your own time schedule and at a pace that suits you best iou is the brainchild of dr bilal phillips who envisioned an institution that would offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses online and completely tuition free choose from the widest range of programs that you can ever imagine bachelors in islamic studies intensive arabic program global koran memorization program bridge to masters in islamic studies bachelor's certificate and diploma in psychology education islamic finance business administration and information technology and the crown masters in islamic studies our syllabus is based on the bachelor's degree program of madinah university om durman islamic university al-azhar university and other reputable islamic institutions your journey to acquire islamic knowledge is just a click away 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Channel: Bilal Philips

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Keywords: Islam and Feminism, female, women activist, womenhood, sisterhood, women in islam, muslim women, Dr. Bilal philips official youtube channel, bilal philips, abu ameenah bilal philips, bilal philips khutbah, bilal philips sermon, islamiconline university, iou, bilal philips islam lecture, sheik bilal philips, islam, tv series

Id: 6wWglfMXDLg

Length: 52min 5sec (3125 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 14 2019