I was born in 1962 to a Muslim family in a small town called Mymensingh in what then was East Pakistan. Now, after it gained its independence, the country is called Bangladesh.
My childhood was not much different from that of other girls of my generation. Like other girls of a middle-class family, I was sent to a coeducational school until I reached the age of seven. When eight, I had to go to a girls’ school. From 6th to 10th grades, coeducational schools were not open to girls. After 10th grade, I went to a girls’ college. My father disapproved of my going to a coeducational college where boys were, but he had no alternative when he decided that I should study medical science. My father, I should add, was different from other fathers.
Girls frequently dropped out of school when they were fifteen or sixteen, ages at which they often were given into marriage by their parents. Few girls had a chance to continue their studies, for after an arranged marriage they were not allowed to continue studying in school or college or university nor could they take a job. They became totally dependent upon their husbands, in other words.
It was usual for us children, in the early morning, to read the Koran in Arabic, and like all other children in Bangladesh I did this. But I found myself asking questions. I wanted to know what I was reading, what the meaning of the Koranic verses was. Our language is Bengali, not Arabic, and it was impossible to know the meaning of the verses that we read. We just read, that’s all. When I asked Mother to tell me the meaning of what I was reading, she explained that the meaning is not important, that what is important is that Allah will be happy that I am reading the Koran in its original language.
When I was thirteen or fourteen, however, I found a book that translated the Koran into Bengali. To my surprise, I found Allah saying that men are superior, that women are inferior. Men can have four wives.
Men can divorce their wives any time they want. Men are allowed to beat women. Women are not allowed to give testimony in some legal cases. Women are not allowed to inherit the property of their father equally with their brothers. Women are supposed to wear veils.
Islam does not consider woman a separate human being. Man was the original creation and womankind was created secondarily for the pleasure of man. Islam consider a woman as a slave or sexual object, nothing more. Women’s role is to stay at home and to obey her husband, for this is her religious duty. Women are considered weak, so they should be taken care of, their body and mind, their desire and wishes, their rights and freedom must be controlled by men. Islam treats women intellectually, morally and physically inferior. In marriage, Islam protects the rights of men and men only. Once the marriage is consummated, women have no rights whatsoever in this field. The Koran gave total freedom to men saying ‘ Your women are as your field, go unto them as you will ( 2.223)’
Women are told to run to their husbands wherever they are, whatever they do. It is their duty. The hadith says that two prayers that never reach the heavens are 1. those of the escaping slaves and 2. those of the reluctant woman who frustrates her husband at night.
Islam considers women psychologically inferior. Women’s testimony is not allowed in cases of marriage, divorce, and hudud. Hudud are the punishment of Islamic law for adultery, fornication, adultery against a married person, apostasy, theft, robbery, and so forth.
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