Muslim women are judged not by us but by all. Walking on a road and passing by a women wearing burkha, we all get an instinct.
Covering body or wearing Hijab is not something which women do forcefully. We cover our diamonds or I phones as soon as we bring them, don’t we? We cover them and keep them safely thereafter. Ever thought why? Because we feel secure about them. In the same way, women feel secure about themselves. They cover their bodies willingly. Wearing Hijab and Burkha makes them feel happy and proud about their religion. They feel that they are doing something which their God expects them to do. They feel that they are practicing their religion.
Islam belongs to everyone but everyone does not wishes to belong to it, why? To all the people setting out an image for Muslim Personal Law or Sharia Law or Muslim ideology in general, you need to understand that each and every religion has certain rules. They maybe harsh at times but they are still existing simply because people believe in them and you can’t force people to change their beliefs. And following them is something which they do from within and are not forced to comply to them. (Ignoring the fact that there are situations when we are forced to practice something which we do not want to because we are talking about freedom)
Now, people might think that how can wearing hijab or burkha be something that women especially of the current generation do willingly? They are not allowed to have fashion? Answering to that, don’t we cover our heads before entering into a gurudwara or temple. Don’t the women cover their heads in Hinduism in front of their elders. They do it. They don’t do it because it is a tradition or a rule but because they want to do it. They feel like giving respect to their god and elders. Similarly, Muslim women feel that they are respecting their god which is something that they aren’t imposed to do.
Now level of violence and injustice against women in Islam is huge. Let’s be very clear that it’s huge everywhere. We cannot just go around questioning the level of equality in Islam only. Talking about Goa law of polygamy, dowry system, no share of women folk in property, early child marriages and the list of social evils go on, we cannot just say that Triple Talaq is worst of all. It is equally unequal as others. Why do we then say that Islam is unfair to women when we know that every other religion on earth is. We have to realize that every religion has flaws and is equally unfair in terms of some of their practices , norms or beliefs.
Being an Indian and a close observer of the Indian society, why do I feel that we are creating more stereotypes rather than breaking them because we are being judge mental at everything and we do not really think about the roots of these ideologies that are prevailing. We see one news and go on spamming social media about equality, freedoms and rights even though we do not really know the difference among these words. Every religion talks about love. We have to understand this very simple law that everybody is equal which most of us fail to understand even if we try to.