Women Leaving Islam | Documentary

Feb 1, 2021 | In this powerful film, six ex-Muslim women activists share their moving stories of growing up in Muslim families and Muslim-majority countries and the violence, loss and shunning they faced because of their apostasy.

The women talk about everything from tearing their hijab on door handles as a child, wearing a burkini on a beach in Italy, wanting to scream their atheism in Mecca during Hajj, losing custody of a child after a husband’s accusations of blasphemy, reporting a violent fundamentalist father, forging a male guardian’s signature in order to flee their country and being shunned for defending gay rights…

Despite the risks, the women speak of hope, happiness and freedom from Islam and the hijab. The brave women: Fay Rahman, Halima Salat, Mimzy Vidz, Rana Ahmad and Zara Kay reside/have resided in Australia, Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands.

They are from backgrounds as diverse as Bangladeshi, British, Egyptian/Moroccan, Saudi, Somali/Kenyan, Pakistani and Tanzanian.

The Role of Women in Islam | DW Documentary

Is there room for feminism in the Muslim world? The role of women in Islam is a frequent subject of controversy. Few other religions are so tainted with bias. But does Islam have any justification for its discrimination against women?

In this film, director Nadja Frenz introduces Muslim women who have set out to find their own path to emancipation. Together they investigate the role of women in Islam and study the Surah, the chapters of the Quran. Can the western concepts of gender equality be transferred directly to the Islamic world? Is wearing a headscarf a clear gesture of submission? Does the Quran really permit men to control women and beat them? Is the image of modern woman anti-Islamic? Must a woman choose between being a faithful Muslim or an independent feminist?

This documentary also consults women who are Islamic scholars. They say it is not Islam or the Quran that vilifies women, but rather certain interpretations of it and patriarchal traditions. They are campaigning for a more gender-neutral interpretation of the Quran and are trying to bring religion and feminism together. In contrast, women's rights advocates such as Zineb El Rhazoui, a former employee of the French satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo", refuse to reconcile themselves with their religious roots, saying that Islam cannot be reformed.

Women and the Saudi Revolution | The Economist

Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative countries in the world. But a social revolution has begun. The Economist's editor, Zanny Minton Beddoes takes a road-trip around Riyadh to examine what a more moderate Saudi would mean for its women, and the rest of the world.

Muslim View of the Rôle of Women: The Rôle of Muslim Women In The West : Sheikh Alaa Elsayed (2011)

A lecture recorded at the annual summer conference held at Green Lane Masjid. The conference was titled 'Flourish, Thrive & Succeed - Muslims in the West'

Shocking Treatment of Women and Girls We’re Importing to the West

Fox News Interview on the O'Reilly Factor - Treatment of Women in Islam

Read the article here

New Wave of Well-off Pakistani Women Drawn to Conservative Islam

THE GUARDIAN: Wealthy, educated women are increasingly embracing the trend for religious inquiry and observance

All the women working in the information technology division of the Bank of Punjab's headquarters in the western Pakistani city of Lahore wear headscarves tightly wound around their cheeks and chin, framing their faces as they tap at their keyboards. A year or so ago not one covered their heads with the hijab.

"I was the first," says 28-year-old Shumaila, as she waited with some impatience in the city's iStore for her new £800 Apple MacBook to be loaded with the software she had ordered.

"I started reading the Qur'an properly and praying five times a day. No one made me wear the hijab. That would be impossible," she laughs brightly. "I showed the way to the other girls at work."

They are not alone. Though there are no statistics and most evidence is anecdotal, a new wave of interest in more conservative strands of Islam among wealthier and better educated women in Pakistan appears clear.

It is part of a broader cultural and religious shift seen in the country over decades but which observers say has accelerated in the past 10 years.

"The other girls who were working with us left." Shumaila said. "They found the new environment a bit unfriendly."

One indication of the trend is the growing proportion of women within the conservative religious political organisation Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). Syed Munawar Hassan, the leader of JI in Pakistan, said that women made up an increasing proportion of the organisation's 6 million members and 30,000 organisers. "Our women's wing is doing very well," he said. "They are some of our best organisers." » | Jason Burke in Lahore | Monday, April 09, 2012

Afghan Girl, 15, Tortured by In-laws for Resisting Prostitution

THE GUARDIAN: Case of Sahar Gul shocks Afghans, but rights activists say serious abuses against females are still common

A 15-year-old Afghan girl who was severely tortured for months by her in-laws to force her into prostitution will be sent to India for medical treatment, an Afghan official has said.

Sahar Gul's mother-in-law and sister-in-law have been arrested and her husband is being sought, said interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi on Monday.

The case has shocked Afghans, though rights activists say serious abuses against women and girls in the conservative society are common. President Hamid Karzai has said that whoever used violence against Gul will be punished.

According to officials in north-eastern Baghlan province, Gul's in-laws kept her in a basement for six months, ripped her fingernails out, tortured her with hot irons and broke her fingers. Police freed her last week after her uncle tipped them off.

The public health and women's affairs ministers visited Gul, who is in a Kabul hospital.

"It is a violent act that is unacceptable in the 21st century," Sediqi told reporters. "We are thankful [to] Sahar Gul's uncle." He added that "if the police had not arrived in time she may have died". » | AP in Kabul | Monday, January 02, 2012

Muslim Tory Minister Says Pakistan's Treatment of Women Fails Islam

THE GUARDIAN: Lady Warsi says women are being denied rights granted 1,400 years ago in Qur'an

Pakistan is failing to live up to one of the tenets of Islam which guarantees rights to all women, according to Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative party co-chairman and minister without portfolio, who is the first Muslim to sit as a full member of the cabinet.

In a sign of Britain's impatience with Pakistan, Lady Warsi said the world's first Islamic republic is denying rights granted 1,400 years ago in the Qur'an.

As she prepares to become the first British minister to address the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) next week, Warsi said in a Guardian interview that, in a "nutshell", Pakistan is not living up to the ideals of its founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Warsi says she is able to deliver a tough message to Pakistan because she is unencumbered by "colonial baggage". She said she had raised the issue of women's rights last July in Rawalpindi, in a speech in Urdu at the Fatima Jinnah University, named after the younger sister of the founder of Pakistan. "Why is it that today you're being denied the rights that your faith gave to you 1,400 years ago?" Warsi asked, recalling her central message to her female audience. » | Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent | Thursday, July 23, 2011

Abusing Women Is Un-Islamic: Saudi Mufti
ARAB NEWS: JEDDAH: Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh has strongly warned against maltreating women in any form and said this is totally against Islam.

In his Friday sermon at Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh, the mufti said only bad people treat women badly.

"The psychological or physical abuse of wives, daughters and sisters is against the Islamic Shariah and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)," he said.

Al-Asheikh warned husbands and fathers who take the salaries of their wives and daughters that they are committing anti-Islamic acts.

"The fathers who make it a condition to have their daughters' salaries before they give their consent for marriage are equally wrong. Husbands who force their working wives to share in home expenses are committing erroneous acts. Islam made it the responsibility of the man to spend on the house," he told the worshippers. » | Muhammad Humaidan, Arab News | Friday, April 08, 2011

Does Islam make Women Outdated?

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan Harshly Criticizes the Status of Women in Islam

Women in Islam: The Stoning of Soraya M.

Shohreh Aghdashloo: 'The Stoning of Soraya M.' Interview

New Dark Age Alert! Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Who'd Be Female under Islamic Law?
THE INDEPENDENT: In Muslim states, violence against women is validated. A dark age is upon us

I am a Muslim woman and, like my late mother, free, independent, sensuous, educated, liberal, contrary and confrontational when provoked, both feminine and feminist. I style and colour my hair, wear lovely things and perfumes, appear on public platforms with men who are not related to me, shake their hands, embrace some I know well, take care of my family.

I defend Muslims persecuted by their enemies and their own kith and kin. I pray, fast, give to charity and try to be a decent human being. I also drink wine and do not lie about that, unlike so many other "good" Muslims. I am the kind of Muslim woman who maddens reactionary Muslim men and their asinine female followers. What a badge of honour.

Female oppression in Islamic countries is manifestly getting worse. Islam, as practiced by millions today, has lost its compassion and integrity and is entering one of the darkest of dark ages. Here is this month's short list of unbearable stories (imagine how many more there are which will never be known):

Iranian painter Delara Darabi, only 22 and in prison since she was 17, accused of murdering an elderly relative, was hanged last week even though she had been given a temporary stay of execution by the chief justice of the country. She phoned her mother on the day of her hanging to beg for help and the phone was snatched by a prison official who told them: "We will easily execute your daughter and there's nothing you can do about it." Her paintings reveal the cruelty to which she was subjected.

Meanwhile Roxana Saberi, a 32- year-old broadcast journalist whose father is Iranian, is incarcerated in Tehran's Evin prison, accused of spying for the US. She denies this and says she has been framed because she was seen buying a bottle of wine. This intelligent, beautiful and defiant woman is on hunger strike. Over in Saudi Arabia, an eight-year-old child has just divorced a 50-year-old man. Her father, no doubt a very devout man, sold his daughter for about £9,000.

I have been reading Disfigured, the story of Rania Al-Baz, a Saudi TV anchor, the first woman to have such a job, who was so badly beaten up by her abusive husband that she had to have 13 operations to re-make her once gorgeous face. Domestic violence destroys females in all countries, but in Muslim states, it is validated by laws and values. As Al-Baz writes, "It is appalling to realise that a woman cannot walk down the street without men staring at her openly. For them she is nothing but a body without a mind, something that moves and does not think. Women are banned from studying law, from civil engineering and from the sacrosanct area of oil." >>> Yasmin Alibhai-Brown | Monday, May 4, 2009

Jemima Khan on Saudi Arabia , on Being a Woman There, and on UK-Saudi Relations
Congratulations, Jemima, on writing this excellent article. Just one thing, though: You share your view of Islam with Pollyanna! Oh, and one more thing: You state: ""...the rules there [Saudi Arabia] have got nothing to do with Islam." Really, Jemima? Go tell that to the Wahhabis!

THE TELEGRAPH: King Abdullah arrived at Heathrow last Wednesday morning for the first State Visit to the UK for 20 years – five planes, 13 family members, an entourage of several hundred. No women.

I've been to Saudi Arabia a few times. It's not much fun being a woman there. I suspect it's worse being a Saudi woman. And worse still being her migrant maid.

It's a mad place and the rules there have got nothing to do with Islam.

I've had my feet beaten, not once but twice – first by a stick-wielding crone at Mecca for not wearing socks, then by a pool attendant when I (swathed entirely in compulsory trick-or-treat black) took my son to the hotel pool for a paddle.

I've heard old ladies complain that they are so harassed at night by the frustrated male youth of Jeddah that they have to take their scarves off and reveal their raddled faces just to scare them off. The irony of having to show your face to protect your modesty was entirely lost on them.

I've also woken up mid-flight on the plane home from Jeddah to London and discovered that the passengers who embarked in full hijab have all been replaced by Bond Street babes.

In Saudi Arabia, a woman can't travel abroad, leave the house or even be examined by a doctor without the express permission of her husband. She cannot be seen with any man except a close family member, the only exception being her chauffeur – and that's a necessity because legally she's not permitted to drive. She cannot marry a non-Muslim (or even a non-Sunni Muslim). And she cannot wear anything other than a long black cloak and headscarf in public. Although women account for 70 per cent of all graduates, they make up just 5 per cent of the workforce. If they contravene the strict laws, they risk public floggings or execution. Britain’s love affair with the Saudi Kingdom (more)

Mark Alexander

The Horrors of Islam: Al-Shari’ah and the Barbaric Treatment of Women
Hat tip to Citizen Warrior for this horrific video. Be warned: This video has scenes which many will find extremely difficult to watch:


YouTube has taken this video down, but you can still view it HERE
Please be aware that this video is suitable neither for the weak of stomach nor children.

Mark Alexander