Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume II — Page 51
51 women are not married to life devotee men , they will face many trials. The husbands w ill be working in one place and the women will be preaching elsewhere. The only solution to this is that women who join this scheme should marry only life devotee men. When t hey marry life devotee men, w hile giv ing priority to the wom a n , we will appoint her husband to the same location where the woman’s work h old s more importance. Then what form will t abligh t ake ? I have given it a g reat deal of thought to my satisfaction. We can manage it to a great extent , but the real question is the issue of marriage. The solution is to marry such a woman to a life devotee man or in the beginning accept only such wom e n who are widows or who are older ; whose children hav e grown up and they have no pressing obligation in their households and their husbands give them permission to work for the propagation of Islam. I will ask such women to go and serve their religion. The Islam ic law has exempted you from the limitations imposed on a younger Muslim woman. Initially , train these women and let the m begin their work right away. Afterwards, those women, whose parents permit, should be taught arts and crafts and other related skills necessary for t abligh among women, and then give n religious education and sen t outside the home. This is something new to our time , however it was practiced during the time of the first Messiah [ Ha z rat Jesus as ]. We face the same kinds of challenges as the first Messiah as faced. Therefore, to overcome these challenges we will have to utilize the same method used by the companions of the first Messiah as. They were compelled to utilize wom e n to do t abligh and it appear s unavoidable that we are also compelled to use women to help us with t abligh. The Muslims of the early age did not face the challenges that we are facing because their circumstances were similar to the people of Ha z rat Moses as. Where on the one hand the Promised Messiah as was given the title of Mahdi and Ahmad , he was also given the titles of Jesus and Messiah. By virtue of being the Messiah and Jesus as , he was to encounter the same challenges as faced by the first M essiah a nd was to overcome them by using the same method. We claim that we will follow the example of the believers. Among tho se things which the righteous and the believers did was to train their women in t abligh. In fact, in Palestine, women were given this task in the presence of H az rat Jesus as.