“Treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers.” From the last sermon of Prophet Mohammed.

“None but a noble man treats women in an honorable manner. And none but an ignoble treats women disgracefully“. Prophet Mohammed (At-Tirmithy.

According to Abdullah ibn Mas’ud, the Prophet is reported to have said:"If a daughter is born to a person and he brings her up, gives her a good education and trains her in the arts of life, I shall myself stand between him and hell-fire.”

It is so depressing when reading on any of the many humanitarian sites on the internet, the kind of violations that occur to women in Islamic countries. We are inundated with headlines such as “Yemen: Women Are Being Repeatedly Assaulted by Their Husbands or Fathers” or “Iraqi Women Turn Prostitutes in Syria” or “Women and Girls Are Pulverized into the Dicer of Sex Trade in Israel ” or “Girls in Afghanistan an Item of Barter” or, or, or, or and the list goes on and on.

All the countries listed have claimed at one point or another to be modern, cosmopolitan societies and so surely such headlines contradict such claims? Who are we to believe?
Generally, I find that such claims are laughable when we’re faced with facts and harsh realities.

I wish to focus on Egypt, a country that has claimed to lead the Arab world in modernization, portrays itself as a moderate voice in the region and generally can be seen to look down her nose at the lack of development amongst her African neighbors.
However when considering the facts, Egypt seems to be lacking with regards to her women just as pitifully as any of her African counterparts:

-Violence against women in Egypt continues to be a major issue with 35 percent of women in Egypt reported as being beaten by their husbands.
-Honour killings, whereby women who are suspected of tarnishing the family’s reputation through their sexual indiscretions are murdered by male family members, are also carried out periodically but the Egyptian government isn’t interested in researching or providing any statistics.
-Most rural women take gender-related disadvantages for granted, as they have been told from birth that their only role in life is to marry and have children. Girls’ education is seen as a luxury.

Some areas of Egypt still suffer greatly from traditional notions that are not in step with the modernizing rhetoric that the government likes to feed the Western world.

-The prevalence of certain traditional notions in some communities, sometimes prevents women from going out or from mixing with men. The endurance or tolerance of violence or even its perception as such is also socially determined.
-The foul habit of female circumcision is a practice which is greatly tolerated by women who perceive it as the right thing to do and greatly rejected by women who recognize a violation in it. According to a Demographic and Health Survey carried out by USAID in 2000, 98 percent of baby girls are subjected to this procedure.

Another grave problem that afflicts Egyptian women is a lack of education, especially amongst the lower classes, where it is seen as an unnecessary luxury. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights has revealed that nearly half of the population in the region is illiterate, with women occupying the major ratios.

The Egyptian government’s obstruction of a woman’s right to divorce demonstrates unequivocally its unwillingness to grant women legal equality. Discriminatory family, penal, and civil laws reinforce the unequal status of women in the family and in Egyptian society. Despite attempts by the government to change these laws in 1979, the decision was soon reversed after the death of Sadat under pressure of Egypt’s prevailing Islamists.

So why such cruelty, such indifference and such neglect? When God and his messenger quite clearly instruct us to treat one another with respect? Could it be returning to a primeval instinct to persecute the weaker members of the species? Just as a child will tease and torment another who is less able physically? Is society still on the level of animals, channelling its frustrations on those who cannot fight back?