Jamiat Restricts Muslim Women's Rights in India
Tue, November 17, 2009 
The Maulana Mahmood Madani faction of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind in India has announced that women who favor clothes other than burqas bring disrepute to the community.
“Our girls are going out in other kinds of clothes now. All you men here should ensure that our sisters, mothers and wives wear the burqa. We lose honour and modesty because of them and, if this continues, we will never recover from the disrepute,” a mullah said at the Jamiat’s general body meeting on Monday held in this conservative seminary town of Deoband. The Jamiat is endorsed by a body of 5,000-odd menvia India Today.
In what we interpret to be a regressive and reactionary set of new resolutions against women, individual mullahs from all over India make it clear that they feel a woman’s status in society should be “secondary and subdued”.
Another resolution suggested the setting up of “social reform committees” in all villages, whose job among other things includes stopping the youth from watching cinema, TV and “other moral killing things”. On terrorism, the Jamiat stuck to a “nationalist” stand.
The history of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind in India in one of an affiliation with Ghandi and a lack of support for the creation of Pakistan as a separate Muslim country. At their recent meetings, the Jamiat endorsed a continued stand against terrorism but admitted an influence of the Taliban, particularly in the treatment of women.
A resoution was passed supporting jihad, stating that jihad is constructive. According to multiple press reports the Jamiat made no attempt to reconcile a rejection of terrorism but resolution supporting jihad.
Deputy secretary of Deoband’s well-known Darul Uloom seminary, Shah Alam Gorakhpuri, said their ideas were far more relevant than any other “ism” that the world has seen. “Our traditions and ideas have lasted 4,000 years. Where are the others? If people think we are regressive, it is they who need their heads examined.”
A review of commentary from other Muslims media on the resolutions passed by the Jamiat meetings indicate general concern over the tenor of the resolutons, a rebuke of these new positions restricting women’s rights, and a foreboding of certain proceedings which could be described as anti-nationalist and against the interests of India. Anne
2 Comments | Share Article | in Beyond the Veil, Governance, Patriarchy, Women's Rights tagged India, Islam, Jamiat, jihad, women of India
Reader Comments (2)
It is really bad to hear that Jamiat Restricts Muslim Women's Rights in India. I think in a independent country like India women should be free to wear anything that suits to them.
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