Questions related to women's issues are an important and significant topic in the Fatwa Section of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliate Al-Dawah (The Call) magazine, as they exceed in number all other Fatwas related to Copts, politics and art. It is possible to distinguish between two main types of these Fatwas: The first is related to issues of female nature that do not affect and are not affected by public affairs, such as the ruling on sharing in breastfeeding and its impact on marriage, Zihar oath[1], inheritance provisions, and divorce and so on. The Muslim Brotherhood agrees on these issues with a large number of Islamic movements or recognized Fiqh (Jurisprudence) Academies in the Arab and Islamic worlds alike. The second type, which we are interested in here, is the social status of contemporary women, and the consequent rights and duties necessitated by the variables of life and the development of the age, as well as a range of new concerns emerging under the new family system, in addition to the demand for women to work, up to her political participation and engagement in public affairs and her right to hold senior positions in the state. There is no doubt that the formation of a vision on these issues is governed not only by religious or juristic views, but many factors interfere with it, including the political, intellectual and social status of women, which we are trying to observe in this chapter. By reader the Brotherhood's Fatwas – particularly on women's issues, one is led to draw an important number of intellectual foundations that govern their attitude towards women and their understanding of her roles in family and society at large. The first of these pillars is that the woman for the Muslim Brotherhood is responsible for the corruption and moral breakdown of the society. The Brotherhood see in her "decadence, wanton unveiling and mingling with men" a sole cause for this moral collapse, which controls the general behavior, as if their limited understanding does not consider man as her partner and equally responsible with her. Man is considered by the Muslim Brotherhood as a victim of Satan's seductive temptation exercised by the fairer sex, and he has no active role as such. In this context, Muslim Brotherhood are clear in their obstinate attitude towards women; she is a subordinate element in the society, devoid of rights and will, barred from serious positive participation, deprived of senior positions in the state. Her house is a permanent settling place, she is responsible for corruption, the temptation of Muslim youth is blamed on her, the torment in the afterlife is her fate, and the positions of the state are denied for her. Muslim Brotherhood subjugates the woman out of her social and human rights; her position in the marital home, her sexual enjoyment, her physical and psychological health, the clothes she wears ,and the work that she may need and cannot do without. They do not really see any right for her and impose unlimited duties on her. The rigid monotonous conception of the Muslim Brotherhood of women in the modern age is inseparable from their general views; as they suppress religious minorities, believe in the monopoly of political power, and they delve too deeply in their rejection of the fine human arts that refine the soul and conscience. Therefore, It is logically expected that women do not survive what everyone is exposed to and suffering from. [1]. Zihar (Muslim Law): means a husband telling his wife: "You are to me like the back of my mother." ---------------------------- Dr. Abdel Rehim Ali, an Egyptian Journalist and Member of Parliament, is an expert on Islamist Movements and political Islam. This essay is adapted from his book "Muslim Brotherhood & Misogyny," which will be published later this month.
