Editorial
Anti-woman sermon
Slights Islam
WITH all respect for any dissenting view, we have to say that what Maulana Shafiq, the 93-year old principal of the Chittagong-based Hathazari Madrasa and the Hefajat chief, has said amounts to degradation of ideals and values that Islam stands for. We wish to alert the citizens to this type of odious misrepresentation of religion and denigration of position of women in our society. Where Islam stands for equality between men and women, where Islam professes respect for women's place in society and their right to work, these kinds of obsolete views can only push us backwards in time.
Contrary to what the Maulana would have us believe, women have for decades contributed their share of work to take this country forward. The facts speak for themselves. Women are involved in 17 out of 23 types of work in agricultural sector. The speech appears targeted at an industry which gives us prosperity, i.e. the garments sector where women work alongside men. The sector where the 80 percent of the 3.5million workforce is constituted by women has changed the socio-economic landscape of the country and helped women to become empowered and have a voice in decision-making in the family. Without women's participation in the economic development, there is little scope for turning Bangladesh into a middle-income country. Maulana Shafi's biddings to keep women indoors is completely out of touch with modernity and is antithetical to all that Islam stands for in terms of a value system.
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