Muslim Woman

Enigma ensnares the man all her/his life, and s/he convincingly believes s/he is born free! Although s/he is not! S/He is born chained in customs, traditions, rituals, and the family traits. S/He goes to the place of worship because as a child s/he saw her/his parents go to the place of worship. S/He despises others because s/he as a child saw her/his parents despise others. S/He assumes her/himself to be the most cultured, enlightened, and brave among the men because s/he thought and behaved like that. The Man remains confounded in the given circumstances. S/He evolves her/his own ethics, and code of conduct to judge the world.

The Man nevertheless is born with an inquisitive head and heart. Within her/him resides a self. She/He strives to know what hitherto has remained unknown to her/him. S/He attempts to understand what s/he has not understood before. S/He reads. S/He assimilates. S/He contemplates. S/He unshackles her/himself. S/He treads the oceans, deserts, forests, and the civilizations in search of Truth. S/He stands up, and musters up courage to look at the world independently. S/He listens to the echo of eternal unanswered questions from within. Who am I? Who has created me? What is the relationship between my Creator and me? The Man seeks answer to the most complex questions in her/his life. Where from have I come, and whence shall I return to! Without knowing she enters the folds of so many snares set in the form of Sufism, Monastism, Pantheism, Atheism and the like so many.

It is then that s/he finds her/himself impeded by the society in which s/he has been brought up. The wise, the clergy, the religionists, and the learned that sit in judgement on the deeds and misdeeds of others admonish her/him. They warn her/him not to seek what has already been sought! Not to redefine what has already been defined! And finally, not to deviate from the path followed by her/his forefathers! Fear bears no meaning for her/his mentors. S/He looks around, and to her/his astonishment s/he beholds her/his Beloved, the Eternal love when s/he attains dissolution in the vastness on One Supreme in every direction! And is lost.

And is lost: in the instinctive urges, tendencies and capacities which constitute the biological equipment of her/his fiber, in the harmones secreted by her/his endocrine glands, in the social milieu in which s/he is reared up, in the moral code s/he receives through the emotional part of her/his nature, in the social forces where s/he remains passive when society moulds her/him to enjoy social approval, in the interaction between her/his hereditary constitution and her/his social milieu, and so the like so many others.

What to do through this forum, of course, in the light of the Quran?