I wanted to talk a bit about a very, very important topic that frames, I think a lot of the world's attitudes, and certainly attitudes within the United States about the religion, Islam. Which is about the treatment of women, and the way women are treated in many Islamic majority countries. And of course, returning with our friend and guest, Abdallah Ateply. We do see a lot of discrimination, persecution, almost, of women, the denial of education, things like mercy killings, really horrors. The shooting of the poor girl who wanted to learn. >> It's Malala >> Is this treatment in some way dictated by religion as some believe, or do you think it's total cultural? How do you explain this phenomenon? >> I think it is a lot more complicated than religion versus culture conversation in those societies. What the whole discussion of Islam and women, I must have done more then a 1000 presentations about Islam in various churches, synagogues, hospitals, universities. Always the issue of woman is in top three questions. Unfortunately it's been repeated enough number of times that somehow there's something innate, inherent part of Islamic theology or Muslim societies that discriminates woman, oppresses woman,treats them as second class citizens. I categorically reject that, I mean I invite all of your students and people who watch this video, not to take this propaganda as a whole. It's a lot more complicated than that. That question of thinking Islam is somewhat a bad religion when it comes to woman, also lacks in humility and openness. Also, it's very problematic. Especially if you ask it in such a way that, as if the issues of women in this country has been completely resolved. It's all these bad Muslims. Patriarchal Muslim societies are basically mistreating the women. As if we have beaten up the patriarchy in our own society. >> Muslims have no monopoly on this. We had the example in Israel of women who were getting on buses and sitting in the front being spit on by some of the Haredi orthodox. So certainly there's no monopoly. >> Absolutely even in this society, according to 2010, one in four women in the United States are subject to domestic violence. And if you look at the teenage pregnancy, if you look at the unequal job opportunities within men and woman, by far, patriarchy, or the male domination, is a big human problem. It's a problem of all humanity. And those examples that you have just mentioned in those Muslim societies, these are one of the worst manifestations of that evil patriarchy and male domination. But, we have our own share in this part of the world struggling to achieve, uphold a status of woman, and establish the absolute equality between man and woman. Coming back to the issue of Islam. >> What does the Quran have to say about this? >> Yeah, what is it based on? By all means, by all means, Mohammed was not a 21st century feminist. By all means, Islam was not the most feminist in its early years in the early seventh century. But if you look forget about the present day picture of the history. But if you look to 23 years career, the prophetical career of Prophet Mohamed. What he was able to do in his lifetime. For the women of his community. For his wives, for his daughters. And the women at large. It was unthinkable. It was unbelievably revolutionary. He grew up, he established this religion in a society. It was one of the worst in terms of the treatment of women. Just to give you an example, having your first child born as a girl, both of us have first child girls, if we were to be Arabs in the pre-Islamic world, in the seventh century, having your firstborn child as a girl was so shameful. It was so embarrassing that you lose your honor and dignity in the society. In order to claim your honor, you and I had to raise our first daughters until the age of three, and had to bury her alive. I cannot imagine how, this must be the worst possible place where humanity can fall. It must be the deepest corner of the evil that you can fall. Killing your own daughter to claim your honor. Until you have a boy, you keep repeating this. So in your case, you have to continue. In my case, my second born was a boy. So the girls born after him was fine. So whenever the father dies, the men of the family used to inherit the woman and it was to sell them as a commodity. There was no mention, it was inconceivable in the society before Islam for woman to initiate the wars, own a business, initiate marriage, have right for property and etcetera, Muhammad changed all this. He brought the concept, they have a value, they have honor and dignity, they have equal access, they are, women more than men, in Islam In the sight of Allah, in the sight of God, they are all equal because all the religious obligations are equal too. And when he was introducing these revolutions, one of the biggest criticisms that he was facing was because of this. That he was giving rights to the slaves, he was giving rights to the women. But when he was able to achieve a lot of success in giving rights and elevating the status of women in his society, a woman came to Prophet Muhammad and said, is this for real? Is this for real? Is this religion really will treat us as human being? Will this continue after you? And then there's a very famous word, because some of the verses in the Quran, it's always mentioning and talking to man, there's no mention of woman. So she was complaining that, if it is not in the Quran, if it is not in your tradition, this may not continue, the kind of better attitude that you are presenting to women. And there's a famous words that revealed is the Quran repeats believing men and believing women. The charitable man and charitable woman, just man and just woman, specifying the gender issue. In many ways, during his lifetime, not only the projection that he presented through his treatment of his own children, his own wife, his own community, own members of the community. The projection was In 23 years maybe he didn't bring the community to be absolute egalitarian, but what he tried to do, what we Muslims understood after him, he did everything he could in his power to basically humanize woman in a society that woman was completely dehumanized. I would argue Islam as a theology and religion, as we talk in our previous sessions, there were four Islam The Quran is one of the most woman friendly and progressive religions that you could ever imagine. But the question is whether Muslims throughout the history, were they able to uphold this Quranic and the prophetic ideas in the treatment of women? Or were there times and periods in Islamic history, like many of the examples that you have mentioned, where Muslims were basically fell short, or the patriarchy, the male domination, which is innate inherent human problem, defeated and knocked down the progressive women friendly theology of Islam? That's the whole conversation. The religion, Mohammad taught all his daughters and wives how to read and write. Muslim history produced many, many Muslim female scholars. The very first verse of Quran is read and recite. The women education was something that Muslims took very, very serious from early on. So to see Malala situation, to be shot at just because she wants education, or to see Muslim societies like Pakistan, Afghanistan, where the literacy rate among women is less than 5%, 4%, this is just abhorrent. This is despicable.
