You make some poignant observations of some very real problems that exist in today’s world of conflicting religious and cultural affiliations and responsibilities. Indeed, most true conservatives would share your identification of the symptoms, but not the underlying causes: the acquisition of wealth is undoutedly a strong motivational factor in many societies, but it is by no means the only incentive. Various self-actualisation goals and intrinsic needs are satisfied to the detriment of wealth creation and retention in the developed industrialised world. In fact, it is the so-called developing world that exhibits an affection for wealth creation to the exclusion of everything else.

Having lived for a significant proportion of my life in several Middle Eastern Muslim majority states, I find myself recognising many of the pathologically destructive hallmarks of decaying cultures and civilisations that you identify with ‘capitalistic’ nations.

Ah, but these states are governed by deluded faasiqoon who have ingratiated themselves at the altar of Western capitalism I hear you say…These states are not Islamic, and so they can’t be expected to function like the perfect, fairy tale idyll of Madinah.

Well, I hate to disrupt your reverie, but there never has been and there never will be a utopian Islamic state, where the women are allocated their divine roles, meekly subservient to a dominant male warrior class.

If history and contemporary reality serve to tell us anything, it is that women in Islamic societies have been treated little better than chattel.

On my travels I have encountered some of the most sexually depraved human beings imaginable: soldiers who masturbate behind their barricades en masse as women coyly slink past; taxi drivers who egregiously hiss and spit at perceived Jezebels only to rub their crotches furiously as the victims walk away; fathers who garotte their daughters for daring to sully the family ‘honour’…

Probably the most pertinent example is Egypt, whose male population, despite deriding the overtly deviant hordes of sex-obsessed Gulf inhabitants who darken the streets of Cairo in the quest for little boys and girls to quench their voracious sexually perverted appetites, continue to rank as the most boorish, ill-mannered, uncouth degenerates in the world today.

As higlighted in two recent studies by the Egytian Centre for Women’s Rights, sexual harassment suffered at the expense of depraved Egyptian males, of all ages, is astronomical. Indeed, even women sporting the niqab are not spared physical and verbal intimidation.

Unsurprisingly, like a small but significant group of their coreligionists in the UK, Muslim women in the Middle East are choosing to marry European men in increasing numbers. It’s such a meaningful cultural phenomenon in Morocco and Egypt that European men are appearing in soap operas and Imams are issuing fatwas urging the young to ‘stick to their roots’; oddly, fatwas denouncing opportunistic Egyptian gigolos for seducing middle-aged Italians in Sharm ush-Shaykh have been conspicuous by their absence.

Needless to say, a return to the textual obligations of Islam are not the panacea their advocates claim them to be. Yes, European societies treated women as a gender intolerably in the past, and the current slavish desire to enforce rigid ‘equality’ on society is not the solution. But the fact is, despite the obvious flaws evident in countries like the UK today from a gender standpoint, a heavy dose of reality suggests that the societies and communities that feature the most intolerance, sexual violence, discrimination and lack of freedom for women are those with an Islamic pedigree.

I have a horrible feeling that the comment I spent 2 hours or so typing wasn’t saved…did you log it?

As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,

Listing a few well-known ugly aspects of the modern culture which affect women doesn’t really reflect the reality of gender relations in the west. Women know they are well-off here, and most women do not get raped and they (especially adults) have the choice to partake in those activities or not.

Why do I say they know they are well-off? Well, the ease with which young women can get themselves into jobs, for example, which is not just down to anti-discrimination law but to redefinition of job roles and person specs which make it easier for chatty young women to get themselves into a lot of office jobs, which is one reason I’ve been banging on brick walls for the past ten years while trying to make ends meet as a van and small truck driver. Virtually every clerical job nowadays demands that an applicant somehow demonstrate his (or her) capability for team playing and interpersonal skills and so on. If you want to see how well they’ve got their foot in the door of some parts of industry, look at their dress (whatever they want, in a lot of places) and then look at the men (shirts and ties all round, particularly in companies, not so much in the public sector). In the first 18 months after leaving university I was signed on with various office temp agencies, and after one six-week stint in a mail room, all I got was a few days of data entry here and there, despite having been told at the outset that my skills were excellent, as in a typing speed of 70wpm or more, (some of them never got back to me after saying these things). People I knew told me I’d have to grow a pair of breasts to get the jobs I was looking for.

I have occasionally come across Muslim men who think that the freedom women seem to enjoy in the west is illusory, and I think some of them were using it to justify their resentment against wives and other female relatives who want some of it for themselves. The fact is that it isn’t, although perhaps it may have as much to do with access to money as with social liberties. Muslim men shouldn’t delude themselves that women in the west are are all at sea because of what they see outside nightclubs at 11pm or hear on the news from time to time. Women are having a ball here.

Originally Posted By Imam Badr ud-Deen al-Huthi
I have a horrible feeling that the comment I spent 2 hours or so typing wasn’t saved…did you log it?

I’ve just checked as well, unfortunately there is no record.

@Akhi Yusuf

I’m not sure, but were you only looking for clerical jobs? It is true what you are saying. Though interestingly enough, my PA at work is a guy, a pretty tough guy in fact.

@GC

I’ve interviewed about a dozen people now for jobs. But never alone, always two interviewers. I believe the attractiveness of the candidate makes up to nearly 50% of the decision making process. The worst I’ve seen, is the accepting of an air hostess for an interview for the position of a commodity analyst (the manager just wanted to see what she looked like).

Finance, payroll and HR are commonly now offshored. Within the next 3-5 years you are going to start seeing Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) also offshored.

It is very sad to see that even when there are blatant realities pointing towards the failure of a secular system people still find it hard to accept that there must be somewhere that something has gone wrong. They find it impossible to think that there could be an alternative way of life that goes far beyond the petty limitations of a human mind and shows a way that is not only practical and achievable but a way that did exist which history stands testimony to. If our Creator has given us every minute cell that we are made of then what keeps man from accepting also the way that He (SWT) has shown us to follow. If Allah (SWT) says men and women have been created different with different roles to adopt and all are equal in His (SWT)’s eyes and are judged by their Taqwa, I would personally be very glad that that is how the world of human beings is categorised rather than who gets the most stares or who’s the most popular celeb or having an absurd method of gaining brownie points for how open a society is to perverse behaviour under the guise of freedoms.

Human beings when left on their own can be quite self destructive and this can lead to not only exploitation of women but also an entire generation!