News & Comment
The Education Rights of Muslim Women cannot be ensured through Liberal Secular Laws or Religious Police working in absence of the Khilafah "Caliphate"

News

On the 15th of February 2017, the Syria Direct reported on the raid of al-Orouba School for Girls in the Syrian city of Idlib by members of the religious police, al-Hisba. “The all-male patrol gathered together the women—schoolchildren, teachers and administrators—and began an impromptu inspection of their clothing.....traditionally a conservative city, the women all wore long, loose-fitting attire. The men singled out a handful of girls whose overcoats were more than five centimeters off the ground, ordering them to leave the school immediately.” Following the arrests of some of the students, the women organized a protest which led to the release of the offending girls.

Comment

The implementation of Islam can never be one that is partial or superficial as Allah (swt) orders mankind to submit to the laws of Islam in its totality regardless of modernity, benefit or convenience. This is clear in Surah Al Baqarah verse 85;

[ثُمَّ أَنتُمْ هَـؤُلاء تَقْتُلُونَ أَنفُسَكُمْ وَتُخْرِجُونَ فَرِيقاً مِّنكُم مِّن دِيَارِهِمْ تَظَاهَرُونَ عَلَيْهِم بِالإِثْمِ وَالْعُدْوَانِ وَإِن يَأتُوكُمْ أُسَارَى تُفَادُوهُمْ وَهُوَ مُحَرَّمٌ عَلَيْكُمْ إِخْرَاجُهُمْ أَفَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِبَعْضِ الْكِتَابِ وَتَكْفُرُونَ بِبَعْضٍ فَمَا جَزَاء مَن يَفْعَلُ ذَلِكَ مِنكُمْ إِلاَّ خِزْيٌ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَيَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ يُرَدُّونَ إِلَى أَشَدِّ الْعَذَابِ وَمَا اللّهُ بِغَافِلٍ عَمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ]

“Then, you are those [same ones who are] killing one another and evicting a party of your people from their homes, cooperating against them in sin and aggression. And if they come to you as captives, you ransom them, although their eviction was forbidden to you. So do you believe in part of the Scripture and disbelieve in part? Then what is the recompense for those who do that among you except disgrace in worldly life; and on the Day of Resurrection they will be sent back to the severest of punishment. And Allah is not unaware of what you do.”

Presently there is no political entity in existence that operates on the model of the Khilafah "Caliphate" in the manner of Mohammad (saw) and the Khalifs after him (saw). What exists globally are people trying to impose various disunited versions of rules that are attributed to Islam but in reality are far from the protocol of how an Islamic State should function. Islam came to rule in a comprehensive manner to solve the problems of humanity holistically and in a manner that agrees with the nature of men and women.

As such it is nonsensical for any authority to claim they are an Islamic State when they punish non-Islamic dress of women and yet do not have a functioning Islamic Economic system, Judicial system or Education System that provides for the needs of women. The contradiction and resulting problems of such partial implementation of Islam are expressed in the frustrated response of one of the women at the school whose exchange with the reporters is as follows;

Question: “How do you feel about somebody telling you what you can and cannot wear?”

Answer: “The war has made just getting by extremely difficult, and most families don’t have the money to buy their daughters more clothing. So it’s not the fact that the girls object to wearing Sharia-appropriate clothing but rather the ridiculous, excessive way that [the Victory Army] has gone about it. They don’t have any consideration for the position that families are in and the ways they’ve been affected by poverty. These days you aren’t going to find a manteau [Ed.: A long, loose coat often worn by Muslim women] for less than SP 30,000 (approx. $140)].”

From this news report a number of things are clear;

1) Muslim women are punished for the crimes of western leaders who have unleashed war, death and poverty upon them so that their natural desire to live and learn about Islam is made as difficult as possible.

2) Muslim women face an internal struggle with their own authorities who have no understanding of what it means to implement Islamic Law in its entirety.

3) The same secular system that causes the problems for Muslim women is promoted in the biased and neo-colonialist reporting of news agencies that is the global norm so that the real solutions to the problems of the Muslim Ummah are misrepresented.

It is vital to exercise independent thinking when looking at any news that come to our attention so we can realize the whole picture and not submit to the narrow pro-secular agenda that will only further secure our doom and destruction. The Women of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir have launched a new dynamic campaign to explain the truth about the Education Crisis in the Muslim world and how a true Islamic State would combat the great faults in our current political models. We urge all or our Ummah to support this vital campaign and benefit from the outstanding opportunity to learn about Islamic politics in its true form so that we can, as a united Ummah, increase in our effort to call for the return of the Khilafah "Caliphate" system in the manner of the Prophet (saw) so that the injustices faced by our sisters become a thing of the past, along with the treacherous liberal values and incompetent Muslim puppet leaders that have failed us.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Imrana Mohammad
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir