Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume I — Page 396
! ! 396 N ow however, a section of women are demanding rights which run contrary to the Holy Qur’ān. For example, [they say that] women should become Parliament arians or should become horse riders. It is obvious that such women cannot morally train children. It is for this reason that in Europe, the mother’s lap is not a place of learning and training. Instead , the y are sent to nursing homes set up specifically for them. Nannies give the babies milk and feed them and when the children are older, they are sent to boarding schools because their mothers are busy dancing and singing. However, the reality is that God Almighty has divided human life into two spheres. Just as doctors and lawyers both do good works in their own professions, women are working in their own sphere and men in their own. T hus , the spheres for men and women are separate. However, if it was dictated that everyone must either become a lawyer or a doctor or everyone should become either a blacksmith or a carpenter, then the world ’s industry w ould be destroyed. Equality does not necessitate that both men and women should perform the same job , but that on a national level , both are awarded the same portion of responsibility. Therefore , consider the gr eat responsibility God Almighty has accorded to women , that they do the tarbiyat of boys a s well as girls. In a way, they have become masters of a whole generation. This truth was affirmed by the Holy Prophet sa in the Hadith in which he stated that paradise lies under the feet of women. In this way , men have been informed what they can ask a woman to do and w hat they cannot ask her to do. For example, she is completely independent regarding her wealth. It is strange that Europe, which now proclaims that they gave women respect and freedom, only granted women the se rights twenty years ago, whereas Islam accorded women these rights 1350 years ago. What is required of women is that they should neither adopt the European freedoms nor should they remain submerged in ignorance. For example, some women claim that re ligion is simply the name given to God’s desires and once they realize what God desires , then the husband’s wishes should be in concurrence with those desires. In fact, this is completely incorrect, for a husband or a brother or a father