Tunisia's Speech at the Conference: "Women and Shariah: Separating Fact from Fiction" Who Determines the Rights of Women in the Muslim World: Shariah or International Law? (Translated)
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the name of Allah and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family and companions and those who follow Him:
Dear Respected Guests in the countries that we are holding our conference, "Women and Shariah: Separating Fact from Fiction", we greet you wherever you are, as we also extend our greetings to all those following the coverage all over the world, As Salaam Alaikum Wa Rahmatuallah Wa Barakatuhu.
The enemies of Islam have not wasted any effort in confusing people, thus distracting them away from the laws of their Lord, through lying, slandering, and distortion, and women have received a fair share of this, showering a multitude of poisoned arrows targeting Shariah Laws relating to women, because they have a deep awareness of her important role in the family and society. Therefore, it is incumbent to expose these lies and slanders.
Indeed, this March, of this year, is different my dear sisters, the litmus test clearly shows the failure of the experiment of feminism to deliver justice for women. For a whole century feminists have not managed to put matters right or succeed in giving women their so-called rights, and this was expected. How can they serve justice to women when feminism was developed and closely related to the colonialists, wrapped up in its overcoat!! The call of Mustafa Kamal to destroy the Khilafah "Caliphate" was accompanied by calls for the emancipation of women, and we all know the close relationship between Mustafa Kamal and malicious Britain; it was also accompanied by colonists' calls in Egypt, Tunisia and other places. In Egypt, for example, Lord Cromer, the British High Commissioner, the official sponsor of the women's movement, was the carrier of the banner of liberation and empowerment for women, while his real purpose was to show that his own civilization is superior, thereby consolidating the intellectual colonization, which is considered more dangerous than military colonization!!
This was one of various styles and numerous means to export Western concepts and laws in order to colonize the countries and the people. There were international treaties and conventions, and conferences and International days. There was also a fierce attack on the ideas of Islam and its laws, especially the social system and everything related to the Muslim woman; portraying Western concepts as the light and whatever opposes it as darkness; they portrayed their way as the system of progress and modernity and whatever opposes it as retardation and backwardness! Moreover, it reached the point that the colonial powers justified their occupation of Muslim lands and spillage of their pure blood as seeking to liberate Muslim women! The most prominent example of this is George W. Bush's justification of the war on Afghanistan as being the means of liberation of Afghan women from their imprisonment in the houses of the Taliban!!!
Sisters, the West would not have succeeded in marketing its concepts to the Muslim countries without being able to rely on local apparatuses: governmental women's organizations and non-governmental organizations took it upon themselves to implement the West's objectives and adopted all that was promoted of International agreements and treaties, like the protocols of human rights such as the CEDAW Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and others... The West was successful in some endeavors by being able to gain the endorsement and commitment of several countries' in establishing these conventions. Here in Tunisia, for example, the CEDAW Convention has been ratified since 1985 with reservations on some items that are contrary to the Shariah law; while in 2011 the government lifted all reservations. Recently the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, linked to the African Charter on Human and Peoples, took place!! Also recently some articles in the Egyptian constitution were changed that contradict the Islamic Shariah, claiming it is in the interest of women and their freedom! These women were oppressed because of regimes that claim they are Islamic, while in reality customs, traditions and non-Islamic values exist in our countries, east and west. These are the regimes that facilitated the work of the West and its war against Islam and its rules, and rather backed and supported it.
One who looks closely at those international conventions and treaties will realize their violation of the rulings of our Lord; they include Western concepts about women and establish a distinguished societal framework that contradicts the fundamental rules of Islam. They cunningly and deceptively promote these conventions, presenting them as the guarantor of women's rights and gains; and work to modernize the laws to their advantage, until they deceived the women. This saw the rise of what is known as "Islamic feminism"; which attempts to read the Islamic text from a "modern" perspective, according to their claim, to reform the Islamic legal system to fit in with the gains of modernity i.e. with the corrupt Western concepts!!
But Alhamdulilah, my dear sisters; despite the great efforts of the West and its collaborators, the failure of feminism and its conferences, organizations and conventions to achieve their professed goals, has become clearer today more than ever,. We ask them and ask you: Did they really fulfill what they have promised?! Did they liberate women and return her usurped rights?! Did they eradicate or at least ease the problems of poverty, ignorance, disease and violence against women?! Did they achieve the alleged equality or was it just a mirage, as a thirsty person is deceived in thinking it is water?! Did the decisions and recommendations from their conferences and agreements result in beautiful flowers or a stinging bitter taste?! Did it produce happy content families or dysfunctional miserable families?! In their struggle with men, are women content on the grounds of equality and empowerment, or did this struggle increase their strain and suffering and frustration? Did man-made law deliver equity or increase their injustice?! Were their claims about the modernization and reform of the social system, that contradicted the concepts of Islam, a lifeline or a rope of death?!
The answer, my sisters, is clear by looking at the situation of women, which is getting worse with more injustice and suffering. Women's movements against feminism have even emerged; after they tasted the bitter fruits of "equality" and rejected this message, instead carrying slogans such as: "I do not need feminism because I do not see man as an enemy", "I do not need feminism because it destroys the family and fights family traditions", and other loud slogans of rejection of the control of feminism and their monopoly on women's issues. So is there any worse failure beyond this failure?!!
Here arises some questions: Is there another project able to provide justice to women all over the world, that women can embrace!? Is there a project that gives women and men, children and society and all its members their rights without discrimination against the other, where each one knows of their rights and duties within clear, fixed, and fair rulings (Ahkam)?! Are there rulings that take into account the humanitarian aspect within human beings and gives them their rights, and obliges them with duties according to this role so that the wheel of life runs smoothly, easily and pleasantly?!
Indeed my sisters, the great project of Islam is the project, which is emerging day after day as the only political vision capable of overturning reality and changing it radically, of bringing justice to the whole of humanity by Allah's Mercy and bringing justice to women, of course, because it is from the Lord of humans and their Creator and the One who Knows them:
((أَلَا يَعْلَمُ مَنْ خَلَقَ وَهُوَ اللَّطِيفُ الْخَبِيرُ))
"Does He who created not know, while He is the Subtle, the Acquainted?" [Al-Mulk: 14]
O Dear Muslim women, elevated by Islam in all parts of the earth; the time has turned and the plots of the West, by the Grace of Allah (swt) are blatantly exposed. Through your awareness and intelligence you can look into matters with a sharp vision and insight. The time has come for you to be on the frontline in the fight against Kufr and its collaborators. It is time that you become the impregnable barrier, which prevents the implementation of their malicious plans and their evil goals. Through the rejection of their agreements and conventions; by rejecting the erroneous concepts and viewpoint on life; and by rejecting the petty issues that they want to become the concern of women.
Our Islam is the clear truth and the message of the Lord of the Worlds, it deserves to be our source of dignity; we must reject all that contradicts it; we must expose what they call reform and the development of the rulings of Islam and confront them! And proclaim loudly in all of the earth: We will not forsake our Islam; will not give it up; we will not depart from it. Stop the distortion and changing of our Deen, we are no longer fooled by your lies and tricks, we are certain that our Islam is the savior and solution for the whole of mankind:
((وَقُلْ جَاءَ الْحَقُّ وَزَهَقَ الْبَاطِلُ ۚ إِنَّ الْبَاطِلَ كَانَ زَهُوقًا))
"And say, "Truth has come, and falsehood has departed. Indeed is falsehood, [by nature], ever bound to depart" [Al-Isra: 81]
Wa Asalaam Alaikum Wa Rahmatuallah Wa Barakatuhu