Globalization & Americanization of the World: Dilemmas faced by Muslim Women

MUFTI MOHAMMAD ANWAR KHAN

The word “globalization”, in the present age, is most frequently used by the Mass media. According to the definition of the word presented by them, its meaning is that: in the past, the people of the world had extreme difficulty in interlinking with one another in different locations across the globe, in terms of communication, migration, for exchanging ideas and thoughts. However, the recent scientific discoveries, improved means of transport, and vast technological advances made in the mass communication sectors have turned the world into a courtyard. For the first time in the history of Mankind, it has become possible for the entire human race to tune in, and share their ideas with international thought, diverse cultures, fashions, and wisdom instantly. The advancements of the satellite technology, the invention of radio and television, and the arrival of the Internet on the world scene have caused the distance between countries to dramatically shrink, by crossing all geographical and manmade boundaries and barriers, to link the people of the world into a “Global Village.” This has resulted in a massive explosion and cohesion of modern thought and culture, which was spread to all the areas of the world, cutting across all geographical divisions, with the result that the whole world is influenced and overwhelmed by it.

Among the trends and fashions that have appeared across the globe as a result of “Globalization”, the most outstanding feature of this phenomenon was the liberation of women from all restraints. This resulted in women across the world accepting Western culture, and embracing modern thought that gave rise to “Women’s Liberation Movements,” which has spread to all the other parts of the globe. The end result of this phenomenon was that women started copying Western styles in their dresses, holding the same views, and behaving in the same manner as their counterparts in the other parts of the Western World. The entire credit for this phenomenon to develop into a mass-movement goes to the social and the political think-tanks of the United States of America. That was heavily indebted to, and influenced by European thinkers who spared no efforts in remaking of a New World Order. Their ideology was solely centered on promoting their ‘self-interests’ and political ambitions of the hegemony of the world by removing all cultural barriers that differed from their own. They made, and are making, all possible efforts to abolish the different kinds of conflicts and the clash of ideologies that sharply contrasted with their way of life in order to reshape the world into a new mold with a design that was never seen, imagined, experienced or heard in the former times of the History of the World.

Nonetheless, the Muslim women of the Islamic world always proved to be one of the biggest obstructions to their goals of globalizing the world, a plan that was masterminded by the US modernists, psychologists, policy-makers, and the other architects of strategies of the likes of Samuel Huntington etc. After a deep thought, they came to the conclusion that in order to overcome the monolithic brotherhood and the invincibility of the Islamic World, they need to first concentrate on breaking up of the strongest link in its chain. That is, of course, the Muslim family with its sound values, which bonds the Islamic society as a monolithic entity. The most easy to prey upon in this family unit would be the Muslim women who should be alienated from this unit by making them abandon their inherent Islamic values, religious rites, making them part ways with the Moral and Islamic Code of life demanded from them by the Religion of Islam.

After a long study, the US Strategists devised a comprehensive plan to liberate the Muslim women from their religion by a perverted method of brainwashing, leading them to believe that the Religion of Islam acts as a hindrance towards progress. It proves to be an obstacle in furthering their economic development, and acts as an obstruction in their careers, and in this way, making them hate the veiling of their faces as a curse. In order to translate their strategies into realities, they hatched different plots that showed their Western counterparts brazenly acting out parts scripted for them on television screens. They showed them as highly-educated, sophisticated, bold, outspoken, career-minded, materialistic, dressing them up in immodest clothes and alluring costumes, living their lives in the lap of luxury, surrounded by all the good and lasting things of the materialistic world.

If we turn through the pages of Islamic History, we come across a number of women who were highly educated scholars, businesswomen, accomplished linguists, gifted with brilliant minds. They occupied important posts, with a well-rounded education that was known to the world during their times, along with a sound religious education of Islam that made them despise all the evils of modern societies. They played an enviable role in propagating Islamic teachings, and battering their Western counterparts in all good things in life, by keeping themselves completely within the bounds set on them by the Religion of Islam. They have left a history of their lives recorded in golden words as examples that can be acted upon and followed by the generations of Muslim women to come.

However, many among the present day Muslim women who have completely divorced themselves from the excellent deeds and examples set by their illustrious predecessors of the Islamic world, have left the Muslim world shell-shocked and perplexed by becoming blindly dazzled by the glamour world. They have thrown all caution to the winds and have taken themselves in imitating blindly the Western way of life in their dress, their code of behavior and conduct, their devilish lifestyles and ideologies. They have accepted them as examples worthy to be followed in order to stay ahead with the times to achieve the comforts and the lasting benefits of the material world, after giving short-shrift to all the ‘good’ that has been taught to them by the Religion of Islam. As a result, they have fallen prey to the evil snares, and the devilish traps that were laid out for them by the enemies of Islam. This consequently has led them to break the family as a unit, with divorces becoming rampant among the Muslim community by women who have set out to chart their own careers, and in the process causing a rift that has sharply divided the Muslim Ummah into two camps. The first camp is the one which still insists on adhering to the Islamic Concept of family life and is labeled as “fundamentalist and conservative,” whereas, those who have thrown their lot with the opposite camp are called as “liberal, modern and progressive-minded Muslims!” Of late, there are a few among the fair sex of the freethinking camp who, after having discovered the error of their ways, being exploited by others, in their quest for name, fame and glory, are now reverting back to their Islamic roots. Now, they have realized the erroneous decision of leading a hollow life having fallen into the trap of following the footsteps of the “modern-thinking Muslim women.”

Those who remain back as loyalists of the so-called progressive camp do not realize that those in the West, who talk about their emancipation, and urge them to break the shackles of ‘self-restraint’ imposed on them by the teachings of Islam, have set out with a mission to destroy their modesty, chastity, and family lives. The empty slogans of liberating the Muslim women and their glib talks about sharing compassion with them are nothing more than misleading them, and putting them on the path of personal ruin and moral bankruptcy.

In the current world, pressure groups have been formed to loudly raise slogans about the torture, confinement, and seclusion of Muslim women. They encourage them through seminars, literature, and other forms of propaganda, actively aided in their task by the mischievous among the Media who by presenting one set of views to the general public, urge women to come out of their seclusion and participate actively in social, public, and political arenas of life. On the face of it, the idea presented by the modern analysts and the experts in the Mass Media may appear to many as excellent, impartial, and based on equality and justice, but in the long run, it is a dangerous signal to victimize and dehumanize womanhood.

The evils of modern trends, and the free inter-mixing of both the males and females, advocated by the champions of Women’s Liberation Movements have created grave threats and moral dangers to the very existence of womanhood. According to a report that appeared in a newspaper, 80% of the girls below the age of eighteen lose their virginity in the United States of America. One million girls who are still in their teens become pregnant every year as a result of having sex out of wedlock, and 56% of them give birth to illegitimate children and become unwed mothers at a very young age, whereas, the rest of them abort their fetuses or suffer miscarriages. All this happens under the name of ‘freedom of sex’ and takes place without entering into any responsibility for the children born out of such sexual unions or the sacred ties of matrimony. This phenomenon has resulted in a huge financial loss that costs seven billion dollars per year to the United States of America’s State Exchequer in providing medical care, and doling out welfare handouts to the unwed mothers to help them bring up their children.

According to a newspaper report, a nudist marriage ceremony was organized in Delray Beach, Florida, May 10, 1964, which went against all the norms and rules of a civilized society. The report said: “The shapely brunette wore a veil on her face, and high-heeled shoes – but nothing else – and her 23 year old groom wore only a Florida sun-tan when they were married today in what was described as the largest nudist wedding ever held. News reporters who were invited to attend watched the marriage ceremony. The best man, an octogenarian, carried the ring in his hand since he had no pockets. The only person wearing clothes was the local lawyer, who performed the ceremony on the beach in sunshine watched by some two hundred nude guests.”

The Land of the United States of America falsely projects the face of a civilized society. With its fake slogans of gender equality, justice, and liberating women, it wants the Muslim communities also to suffer from this epidemic – a way of life that has failed to project them as an enlightened society. In this way, they are inviting the Believing Muslim chaste women to immodesty, immorality, free-mixing, dancing, music, nudity, and exhibitionism etc. It wants the Muslim countries to emulate its example and keep themselves in tune with the immodest trends and other perversions before they can become accepted as a part of the group of progressive, free-thinking, open-minded, tolerant societies without realization that they are being misused by them for their target of globalizing the world, ushering in the “New World Order” to dominate the other countries of the world.

It was the Religion of Islam, Revealed to Prophet Muhammad by Allah, that for the first time in human history, it taught the humanity that a woman should be protected as a precious treasure, valued like a pearl, and should be treated as gently as a fragile glass, nurtured and provided by those family members entrusted with her well-being. Whereas they were exploited and kept as chattels in the pre-Islamic days by the males of the Arab society.

The self-styled, liberal-minded Muslims who protest, and say that the Muslim woman is a victim of injustice, cruelty, and aggression, and encourage the women to come out of their homes, are in fact, trying to alter the direction of nature, and thereby encroaching on the Divine limits set for them by the Holy Qur’an and the Traditions of Prophet Muhammad (saws). In this way, they are acting unwittingly as partners to the “globalization trends,” which is in fact another name for “Americanization,” which aims at imposing its cultural dominance all over the Muslim world by dehumanizing Muslim women, and by making them deviate from the Right Path.

A Muslim woman should always try to obey the commands of Allah and the moral values laid down by Him and His Last Prophet Muhammad (saws). She should always do her best to emulate the example of pious Muslim women before her who were the torchbearers of true Islamic spirit in the first generation of Islam. She should never run crazily to follow the example of the present day actresses, models, and the social celebrities spawned by the Western culture. She should do her best to perform her duties towards Allah and His Religion. She should do her bit to arrest the new Globalizing or Americanizing trends by adhering to the Tenets of Islam as it had first been Revealed in the Holy Qur’an in all its pristine purity. Islam is the loftiest, the best, and the most beautiful religion, which has been perfected for human beings 1400 years ago, liberating both men and women. It is the religion that made them as harmonizing members and partners of a Muslim family – a unit and the strongest link of its society. It can really give a complete meaning and a sense of direction to life, of both Muslim men and women, to further their spiritual and material pursuits remaining within the limits set by Allah in the Holy Qur’an.

8/21/2011

Related Posts