Islam and Womens Rights

The Quran indicates that Consciousness is female (AlNisaa; 1, Al-Nahl: 72-73); And from Consciousness all Life proceeds.

There is much said about Islam being the bastion of womens rights and liberation; often apologetic literature struggling (and seldom succeeding) to reconcile the gross abuse of women in many Muslim majority societies. The claim is that Islam provides for and upholds the rights of women; it certainly does and Muhammad demonstrated deep respect and love for women. However, just as Jesus taught Love and Compassion, the Christian Crusaders still acted brutally in his name; a fact in history with which the Arab world still finds itself inconsolable in the bitter memory of. Principles divorced from practice do humanity no good and thus all the principles and rights Islam provides women (and humanity) is of no value in the face of repeated and continued abuse and denigration of women.

Politicians and patriarchs abound proclaim, do as I say and not as I do in explanation of the blatant mismatch between what they promise and what they actually deliver or uphold. Likewise, every abusive man who calls himself a Muslim offers the pathetic explanation that the Quran and Muhammad are the perfect exemplifiers of human conduct and thus the ideal is ever perfect and pure but the human is weak and imperfect; a weak attempt at explaining his abusive behaviour towards another/other human beings who stands equal to him in Allah.

Muhammad was human and fallible, as indicated in several recorded incidences that occurred during his lifetime and passages of the Quran (Al-Ahzab and AlTahreem). Secondly, one may revel and rave about ones imperfection as much as one feels happy to indulge in it as long as that imperfection is not projected onto others as abuse, denigration and denial of anothers God-given inviolable human rights. The sad truth however, is that one cannot exist in a fragmented state (the inevitable

state of one who does not perceive the oneness of consciousness and humanity) without projecting outward ones inner fragmentation and conflict on others and thus inflicting harm on others. To live in fragmentation is to perpetually live in conflict in and with ones self (born out of the separation of ego) and to escape that conflict in and with ones self, one projects that perpetual state of conflict on others.

The profundity of the illusory sense of separation between the abuser and abused is that it guises the fact that the abuser IS the abused; that one IS what one condemns in the other! In this one sees the profound wisdom in seeking out good in another however and whenever one can because the good in others is equally the good in ones self. Thus, as one subjects the other to abuse and denigration, that one is himself subjected,

extemporaneously to abuse and denigration. Likewise, when one elevates and alleviates the condition of another, one is equally elevated and alleviated in condition. This is the patent miracle of existence.

Fact is, Islam teaches that no human being is superior to another and certainly none can condemn another to abuse at his/her discretion least of all because of physical distinctions of race, gender, wealth, sexuality, religious beliefs etc. Muhammad condemned and dismantled every single manifestation of abuse in the society he lived in. Thus, it is imperative to emphasise that the principle underlying the different forms of abusive behaviour that Muhammad vehemently condemned and put an end to is that human beings are ALL equal and each an indivisible part of the whole regardless of ones faith, creed or any physical or outward manifestation.

The one distinction the Quran points out is that of God Consciousness (Taqwa) that grants one, naturally, an elevated state of being. This is not a superiority badge over any another human being in fact, those of God consciousness, as exemplified by the Masters and

messengers of the Divine, are characterized by humility, love for all beings and compassion toward the indigent

and outcasts in their societies. One is/must be of high consciousness to perceive God and therefore, Cosmic Consciousness is literally an elevated state of being that distinguishes those who embody it from those who do not.

The human being of God/Cosmic consciousness is in a non-temporal relationship with consciousness for one recognizes ones self as ONE with that consciousness; there is a death to all thought based separation that is sustained through the ego. Thus, God consciousness is a state that exists upon the transcendence of the self/ego; it exists when one dies to ones self; a death the Quran speaks of and calls human kind to, repeatedly.

However, one existing in and as God Consciousness cannot, by definition, be superior to anything or anyone else for one exists in a state of unity or oneness with/as all things. In this, one understands what Jesus meant when he says that he was the least among the people though those around him honoured him as the messiah and son of God; Likewise, one can understand Muhammads kind

and gentle manner toward the poor, indigent, orphans and women (all of whom the Arab society denigrated) for he not only identified with them, he saw himself as (one with) them.

The elevation of God Consciousness is not even a moral superiority for in God, morality is not an issue and superiority is non-existent. The elevation in being is in the perception of Truth, in the Oneness of Consciousness and the Oneness of all Humanity that the Quran repeatedly speaks of and points out for human beings to ponder and perhaps realize. This is the purpose of life on Earth in different forms, genders and guises to realize that the separation of form is illusory and false. Thus, one who is in essence elevated in consciousness having perceived the Truth of Oneness would never pass judgment on another, unless absolutely compelled to, and in so doing would lean toward caution and lenience lest one acts on error. More so, however, a Cosmic Conscious human being would never harm another being, let alone blatantly abuse another, for such a human being knows that he/she IS the

other. And thus to pass judgment on the other is to pass judgment on ones self and to abuse the other is certainly to abuse ones self.

It can only be human beings who are blind, deaf and dumb to the Truth of oneness who would act in a derogatory manner to any other human being; though they see, hear and speak in the physical sense, they perceive not and are beguiled by the illusion of separation sustained by the local mind through the ego. In such illusory state one acts against the other on the false premise that the other is separate from ones self and thus that one is separate from the hurt and suffering inflicted on the other. Notice however that the pleasure of hurting another is short lived at best and if one is true to ones self, the hurt inflicted on the other is felt by the inflictor.

The only variable factor between human beings is those who perceive and realize this Truth in their lives and those who live in ignorance of this Truth; the Truth, however, operates equally on all just as gravity or energy,

regardless of ones perception of its existence and nature.

We return then to the issue of womens rights and realize that the very fact that womens rights are still relevant today is indicative of the barbarism of our present day civilization. Human beings were created, and are, equal; the fact that we have abused and subjected one half of the whole to discrimination and denigration speaks of our ignorance of who we are and the nature of the

consciousness we bear equally within each one of us.

Women were treated better in the wake of Muhammads message in the 7th Century AD and shortly thereafter than they have been for the past 10 centuries at the hands of those of us who call ourselves Muslims and proclaim the ideal perfection of the Quran and Muhammads example. So one asks, what use is ideal perfectionism in a text and an image of a man long dead if we act contrary and in contradiction to that perfection? What good comes from the image we hold up on a pedestal to pat our ego in superiority to others whilst being barbaric? What good are

proclaimed principles in the face of the harm and suffering they inflict on those they are intended to serve? And how do we call ourselves Muslims whilst being completely ignorant of the essence of Islam and thus of what it means to BE a Muslim?

If we truly were Muslims, we would embody the principles we proclaim (as the Quran admonishes us why do you say that which ye do not? (61:2) and Do you order the people to do good and forget yourselves? (2: 44). If we were Muslims, we would not have to live in the nostalgia of past images of persons and places in apologetic attempt to explain the barbarism that we embody and project outwardly onto others; we would simply be the embodiment of that ideal.

To be Muslim, in essence, is to perceive and thus embody a higher consciousness of reality; the reality of Oneness (Tawheed) through which one necessarily moves from a state of separation/fragmentation to that of Oneness. In Oneness, one sees ones self in all, others and naturally

acts towards the other as one would towards ones self in the realization that other is ones self.

All Is One; this is Tawheed (Oneness)