Islam - Elevation of Women's Status

We can see from other things, one of the major issues which the United Nations was created for after World War II, was the slaughter of so many million human beings, six million Jews in Europe, and yet fifty years later, in the year of the fiftieth celebration of the UN, a genocide has taken place in Europe of the Bosnians. All the human rights, all of the declarations in the last fifty years has not been able to change anything on the ground. Now when the prophet Muhammad (sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) was sent to the Arabs, the Arabs had the same practice. They used to kill their girl children. The Arabs killed their girls for a number of reasons, most of the time due to poverty. Being a desert people without industry or any sort of means of trade, existence was very minimal. And as a result, out of fear of poverty they would kill their girl children, and they would bury them alive. This is a fact which is mentioned in the Qur'an and was well known during the time of the prophet Muhammad (sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam). God condemns in the Qur'an with verses, the idea of killing of the girl child, the burying in the ground, and also the attitudes of the Arabs towards girls. One verse in the Qur'an says that "when he is given the good news that his wife is given birth." God calls it a good news, " - to a female child, a girl - his face becomes blackened and he becomes ashamed. Will he hide the fact "that he has given birth to a girl and not tell the people, because he feels it as a shame. "Or will he bury it in the ground", this is a condemnation of the practice of the people. And likewise the companions of the prophet Muhammad (sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) before they accepted Islam, many of them killed their girl children. One man came to prophet Muhammad (sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) and said I killed ten of my daughters in my lifetime, will I receive paradise? For will God accept my repentance for this sin, now that I have left this pagan religion of before, worshipping idols and killing girl children and so forth. Within one generation, within 23 years this was how long the prophet was amongst the Arabs, the practice of killing girls ended. It no longer existed in Arabia. And likewise, it didn't just stop like that, but a change in attitude came towards women, in educating them and making morally upright people.

People receive no other reward, but paradise. Again that is the greatest aim for the Muslim and that is their motivation and reason of being. So Islam not only tried removing the negative aspect of murdering girls, but also included the positive aspect of educating girls and raising them in society, and this brings me to my final point. This is something of course which we can look at the previous declarations of human rights or whatever, irrespective of whether these being true or false, but they have not been able to achieve the aims which they have stated. As the example of human rights and the UN in Bosnia shows.

Fifty years after the creation of the UN, there is no change in Europe, the same land which killed six million Jews. The same genocide of the Bosnians occurs fifty years later by the same people who started the UN. They are unable to stop their own from this matter, and with this I come to my final point, that I would like to leave you with. Islamic civilization unlike any other civilization is based, of course on revelation, but it is in its essence supported and founded by women. The first person to believe in Prophet Muhammad (sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) was his wife Khadeejah, and it was through her money and through her support of him, her financial backing, and also her encouragement that the prophet was able to spread the message of Islam in his first year of prophecy. The pagans did not have the ideas of freedom of religion, that you can take your own beliefs. This was not practiced by the pagans of Arabia - they saw this as an insurrection, they saw this as a changing of their ways, so they sought to stop it out by torture, by killing and by all other means that they could. And likewise, they tried to stop the Islamic revelation, this tradition, when the prophet Muhammad (sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) converted only the people of Arabia. But as you know there are about one billion Muslims in the world. They are in every single continent of the world, even in Beijing where the UN was convening. There was a mosque there which is over a thousand years old. And the neighborhood that lives there is about forty to fifty thousands Muslims. Now the king’s palace, the forbidden city in front of Tien Anh Man square which many of you have heard of, is only 500 years old. This shows how the growth of Islam and the sprit of Islam is not just a Middle Eastern phenomenon or an Arabian phenomenon but extends to all people and races throughout the world.

Where is this teaching from, of course when prophet Muhammad (sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) died after twenty three years Islam only spread in Arabia. This religion of Islam was basically spread by four or five individuals who had the most in teaching. One of them was the prophet's wife `Aa’isha. She is among the most to have narrated his statements and likewise she is amongst the three, four, five who have mostly given religious pronouncements, who have given religious verdicts, explained what these verses in the Qur'an meant or what the words of the prophet meant.

Look at any other civilization in the history of humanity, you will not find a women playing a role in its establishment where it can be attributed to her efforts for its establishment. The Greeks - look at the philosophers Plato, Aristotle and others - all were men. The early church fathers writings were basically men and until today the idea of women scholarship is limited in some areas of the church. The French writers at the French revolution and Voltaire and the Russians were men. The founding fathers of the United States were men, and also other civilizations are basically based upon men. Islam is the only civilization which is known by humanity where a leading input in terms of its transmission and establishment was based upon the efforts of women. Central - and this is an historical matter which is not open to interpretation, it is a fact - these are the people who transmitted these teachings these are the people who supported it hereafter. Those are just some thoughts and impressions concerning how Islam uplifted women.