As this is the Muslim board and I seem to be the only Muslim posting, I thought I would post an example of some of the views amongst members of the Muslim community to balance some of the media stereotypes
. This sermon in a mosque in the US by a "scholar" called Dr Yasir Qadhi is about gender equality.
Not that I agree with everything he says - I don't follow scholars and have no idea about his views on other issues but the sermon illuminates an issue I am interested in as Muslim women activists in UK try to reform or dismantle Sharia courts and Muslim women in Sri Lanka (SL) are fighting to reform the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act, which will also seek to reform or possibly dismantle Sharia courts.
The intransigence of Muslim male-led organisations against much-needed reform to protect Muslim girls from both child marriage and injustice during the divorce process, has led to the Sri Lanka Government looking to dismantle the Sharia court system as not being fit for purpose in relation to securing justice and women's rights. Obviously the SL government has its own political Buddhist Nationalist agenda as to why it wants to dismantle Muslim institutions, which has nothing to do with protecting women, but Muslim women activists have not got very far over the decades appealing for the Muslim community to reform its own institutions so many of them have taken the risky option of pinning their hopes on a government that panders to Buddhist nationalism and racism to gain votes. There are no easy solutions within this matrix of inequalities and competing issues as some people think racism is a bigger issue than gender inequality. Even in the UK Muslim reformists have been accused of pandering to racism and Islamophobia.
Dr Qadgi's thoughts are expressed in terms of Qu'ran and Allah, which may be jarring for theist non-Muslims or atheists, but he has some general thoughts on gender roles and equality from his Islamic perspective that I think is relevant to the issues in Sri Lanka and also the movement to dismantle Sharia courts in the UK. He tells his congregation, addressing the men, that they cannot really blame women for going outside of Islam to try to get the rights due to them if Muslim men in societies deny women the rights they have been given by Allah.
He seems to be using the term "gender" for "biological sex" as he incorporates the reality of biological sex when referencing gender, and he rejects the idea of gender fluidity and doing away with 2 genders.
He addresses the unhealthy patriarchal nature of many/ all Muslim societies and in non-Muslim societies as being one of the reasons why some people have tried to eliminate gender in order to try to prevent the very real injustices that women suffer under Patriarchy. But he rejects gender fluidity on the basis it creates more problems than it solves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZJYU3nSoWISpecifically see 12.45 mins from the end where he says that one of the reasons why gender roles have been challenged is because of the very real harm caused to women, whereby society treats women as 2nd class citizens against the teachings of Islam.
Of course there are other Muslim "scholars" and groups who think Dr Qadhi's ideas are "un-Islamic" so there is no uniform interpretation of what constitute Islamic moral values - no surprise there given humans vary so much on their moral values and stance on different issues, depending on amongst other things, whether they take a conservative or liberal approach to the issue.
