Islamic community treats women in an inferior way and a bad way. However, Muslims argue that they treat women in the best way possible. According to Fatima Mernissi, the author of Beyond the Veil, both notions and assumption are right up to a certain degree. The book covers religious, as well as political problems, faced by women in the Muslim community. Fatima gives the perspective of an insider and gives actual and theoretical accounts of what the women face in the Islamic community throughout the book.
Sexual inequality is the greatest focus of the author where he looks at the Moroccan community and the effects of modernization in the Islam order. Fatima argues that Islamic women are sexual beings who have resulted from the traditional community in, which they live in as they have stricter regulations compared to other people in the world. She further states that tradition cannot be compatible with modernization as they contradict traditional beliefs.
The book contains two parts where the first part discusses the traditional Muslim view of women and the position they hold in the social order. The first part also contains three chapters of the book that discuss the Muslim concept of the active female sexuality, as well as regulation of female sexuality. The book further discusses sexuality, sex roles and sexual inequality in the Muslim community and how they are navigated. Theoretically, women are equal to men, but the practice is different from what is known theoretically in that women are treated as an inferior being, and they do not have the same opportunity as men.
Therefore, what is perceived in theory is not the same as what is put into practice. For example, in the introduction of the book by Fatima she states that there is a need, for Muslims to cling to their traditions because by keeping their traditions they maintain a cultural identity. Therefore, by keeping women strictly to their traditional roles in the Muslims community they define their way of life, and by so doing, the society finds stability in the chaotic and confusing times.
Umma threatens social order in the association of women with the West. This happened during colonization where the colonizers of the Middle East used women as part of social reforms. Women were allowed to walk freely without veils although they did not have equivalent rights to men. However, the programs that have been created today, to struggle for the equal rights of women are based on modernization and westernization rather than the preservation of traditions and culture. Therefore, women are not feared because of whom they are, but because of what they present according to Mernissi.
According to the Islamic order, sexual desires or libido are not harmful as they are channeled into the right outlet as proposed by the religious law. The same law proposes that if these sexual instincts are used in the wrong manner, they can destroy the social order (Mernissi 28). Sexual libido serves two distinct roles in the society as fulfillment of God’s commandments. First, it entices men into procreating with women as having children is the greatest duty that has been imposed on men. Secondly, the sexual pleasures that result from sex are an example or a taste of what people will experience when they go to heaven.
Mernissi in her book argues that Islam religion incorporates three things that ensure that they limit intimacy between man and wife (Mernissi 34). First is polygamy, where man is allowed to get sexual satisfaction from different women thus preventing psychological and emotional growth in men. On the other hand, the man is not allowed to favor one woman and leave the others, but give them all equal treatment to ensure that the treatment is not given by another man. Secondly, Mernissi talks about repudiation where a man has more rights than a woman when it comes to decisions about marriage. With this method, the man can divorce the wife any time he pleases, but the woman is not given the same privilege. Lastly, the involvement of the mother in law in the family affairs of the married couple makes it hard for emotions to be involved in the marriage. This ensures that the there is no or little opportunity for intimacy ensuring that there is no emotional intimacy.
The woman, therefore, has less time with the husband and the husband cannot involve emotions in the marriage (Mernissi 40). However, this notion is changing over time as women see their husband’s as the most important people in their life, unlike modern times where mother in laws were seen as the most important parts of the wife’s life. In the second segment of the book, Mernissi discusses issues and effects of modernization on the male female dynamics. The second part contains the rest of the chapters of the book.
The Moroccan data shows that women are changing each day with the introduction of education in girls in the Islamic community, which has brought about a lot of modernization. More women have independent thoughts and abilities about their lives in the modern era, which does not conform to the traditional Islam past where women were just allowed to follow and not ask. Traditions in the Islamic community are trying to fight modernization as they regard it as an imposition of the West on Islam. However, according to modernists, their efforts aimed at ensuring that order remains in the society as strong women will create self-awareness.
The book creates a vast knowledge about the traditions of the Muslims community and whether what they believe is right and wrong. The author shows a comprehensive understanding of the traditions of Islam community. She feels that in case they are incorporated with modernization, then they will forget their culture and their way of life. The author gets a clear understanding as to why there is the need to maintain social order in the society. Any person reading the book would enjoy the writings of Fatima as she has written as an insider and a person who has done research on the Islamic traditions.
In conclusion, many women in the world face sexual inequality. However, with modernization, women are able to stand for what they believe in and no traditions can put them down. Therefore, although traditions are trying to maintain social order by not allowing women to think on their own, women have already understood that they have abilities same as those of men.
Work cited
Mernissi, Fatima. Beyond the Veil: Male-female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Print.
