This week, The world celebrated Women's Day. It's horrible to know that there are places in the world that women are still prevented from driving cars! In Saudi Arabia, women are banned from driving cars, they have very few political rights – or they don't have rights at all – and the problem is in justifying all this discrimination in the name of Islam. I believe in Islam as a religion, which savors justice and equality, so I can't understand why those people who consider themselves as spokesmen of Allah deny the real pure spirit of Islam. Mohammed (PBUH) said a very expressive quote about women and men: “Women are the twin halves of men.” This quote is clear evidence of gender equality in Islam. I can say clearly that there are no differences between women and men in Islam and I can argue about women's rights in Islam. Hassan al-Banna, the founder of Muslim Brotherhood, realized the role of women in the Muslim Brotherhood organization in the group's early years. He founded the Muslim Sisterhood as a part of the Muslim Brotherhood and he set Zeinab al-Ghazali as a chief within the Muslim Sisterhood. The Muslim Brotherhood took good care of women's role in their group and you can read a detailed research about Muslim Brotherhood women from the Carnegie Institute. What I want to focus on is the vision of the Muslim Brotherhood towards women and the criticism of their attitudes. It's clear that Islam does give women the same rights as men, but some Islamic ideologies believe that there are main differences between women and men. This ideology is mainly adopted by Salafists and Wahabiis. The Muslim Brotherhood throughout their history supported – ideologically and practically – women's roles within their organization, but women can't have their complete rights within the Brotherhood because of three main points: 1. The oppression of the Egyptian regime: The Muslim Brotherhood is the main target of the regime's oppression and crackdowns. So it's difficult for the Muslim Brotherhood to set (sisters) in a leading position in the group. As “Easterners”, the MB won't accept making their women face jail or military tribunals. 2. Growth of radical thoughts within the MB: The Gulf's Salafist wind came to Egypt in the 1970s and 1980s. The Muslim Brotherhood was one of the first groups influenced by these radical ideologies, the main stream of Muslim Brotherhood community was moderate, but some MB leaders were affected by this ideology. Then the MB took some radical attitudes towards women. These ideas were clear in the party platform of the Muslim Brotherhood, which prevented women and Christians from being president. 3. Egyptian traditions: The Muslim Brotherhood is a vertical slice of the Egyptian community, so the MB has the same problems as the Egyptian people. Most Egyptian men can't accept being led by a woman. There is massive objection in Egypt these days for women to be judges. The refusal didn't come from the Muslim Brotherhood. These obstacles may be the main reasons of women's exclusion within the MB. In the Carnegie paper, Omayma Abdel-Latif considered the “lack of experienced women cadres” as another main reason. Personally, I don't agree with her, because the Muslim Brotherhood succeeded in building a very strong sisterhood, which helped the the group in the last legislative election. The Muslim Brotherhood had their only woman candidate in the 2005 elections. Makarem al-Deery was about to win the elections despite clear forgery. In the last crackdown, state security claims to have uncovered a secret Muslim Sisterhood. In my opinion, this means that the regime is sending a message to the Brotherhood not to think about nominating women in the next elections late this year. Despite this frustrating situation for women in Egypt and in the Muslim Brotherhood, we can't neglect a real part of the women in the Brotherhood; this part appeared with the blogosphere's rise in Egypt, in early 2006 and beyond. Names like Arwa al-Taweel, Asmaa Anwar, Shaza Essam, Asmaa al-Rrian, Shorouk al-Shawwaf, Aya al-Feqy, Zahraa Bassam and Asmaa Yasser come to mind. These are names of some MB women who started blogging and confronting the world with their identity as a Muslim Brotherhood girl. It's clear now that the Muslim Brotherhood's young ladies are ready enough to tell the world who they are, despite the famous statement from the former Executive Bureau member Sheikh Mohammed Abdallah al-Khatib, who said: “we are afraid of, and for, women.” BM **The beliefs and statements of all Bikya Masr blogumnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect our editorial views.
