By Hamid Zanaz

26/10/2019

Islamists, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, are working to isolate Maghrebi communities in the West by all means. Since most of the Islamists originated from Maghreb countries, they are aware of the special sensitivity of Maghrebi migrants towards the subject of women.

Our Islamist friends have focused their brainwashing efforts on women because the latter are the main agents in raising children. Not only that, they worked to Islamise those born in the West to present them as models for the newcomers to emulate.

The Muslim Brothers have invested in that patriarchal mindset that is deeply rooted in Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan men, who see women as weak beings who need to be guided, maintained and controlled so as not to sully the family’s honour.

Even though those values and attitudes towards women were long discarded as being part of a feudal and backward system, the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to coat them with an Islamic religious character and turn them into a soft Islamic law that finds its place in the consciousness and unconsciousness of the coming Muslims.

They insidiously focus on a woman’s right and freedom to wear the Hijab, the Jilbab and their derivatives. What they are doing is defending her right to choose submission and slavery only because they are seeking to deprive her of her freedom and to delude her father, husband or brother that it is part of his religious-cultural identity.

The Islamists take an indirect approach to convince girls of their inferiority so their submission comes voluntarily, supposedly not imposed on them by others, and they boast about the freedom of Muslim women. What they mean by “freedom” is that women “choose” what the males want.

Despite the apparent and formal integration of most North Africans in Western societies, they consider every woman — be she single, divorced or widowed — who wishes to break free from social, cultural and masculine oppression a corrupt, rogue woman and that it is up to the brother, father, male relative or Muslim in general to intervene to bring her back to the Islamic cultural fold.

Unfortunately, the reality is that very few women defy family and neighbourhood pressure and liberate themselves. Those who do pay dearly for their emancipation. Their reputation is tarnished in the mosque and the neighbourhood and some are verbally and physically abused. We’ve heard of honour killings in France.

Radicalisation does not always surface and may not always be seen. Many radicalised females, for example, do not wear the veil. However, despite their modern appearance, deep down they have submitted to the teachings of that soft Sharia behind which lurk the Salafists and the Muslim Brothers.

This accumulation of cultural, traditional and religious heritage remains deeply rooted in the souls of most Muslims living in France and perhaps to a greater extent than what can be seen with Muslims of the countries of origin, maybe because of their overwhelming fear of gradually melting into French society and of losing their cultural identity.

The strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood is to invest in that fear and exploit it. Brotherhood members sneak through the family and community spheres to delude Muslims of the West that what guarantees the preservation of their identity is women — if they abide by sharia.

Thus, Muslim women find themselves forced into duty and committed to wearing a veil or a niqab or a burqa or a jilbab — or all of them at the same time. Other females may just cover their hair or always wear a hat. If they have the freedom to go out on their own, they’ll make sure to return home before sundown.

When made without conviction, this type of commitment results in a turbulent psychological state and this forced adherence to calcified traditions in a modern society inevitably leads to becoming isolated from other components of French society.

In all cases, the radicalised Muslim women’s relationship with their contrasting environment becomes complicated, as illustrated by their strained relationships with their children’s schools because teachers in French public schools do not accept veiled parents when they accompany their children during class outings, for example.

The soft sharia dictates that Muslim women in France, regardless of their social, financial, professional and academic status, remain under the guardianship of the family environment, governed by customs from ancient times. These women end up imprisoned in their original culture and deny themselves any romantic relationship, for example, with male French compatriots, especially if the latter are non-Muslim or from a different ethnic background. This is just a sample of the repressive moral guardianship imposed on women by this soft Sharia under the banner of moderate Islam.

Ultimately, the claim of following a moderate version of Islam and the soft Sharia approach used by the Muslim Brothers are but transitional tactics that are part of the Brotherhood’s so-called “Tamkeen” (“empowerment”) strategy, which paves the way for the literal application of “hardcore” Sharia.

The only hope for Muslim women in the West to free themselves from the grip of the Muslim Brothers is to become aware of the achievements of the feminist movements and other women’s liberation movements that resist religious and social obscurantism in their countries of origin, such as in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

Original Headline: Soft sharia smothers Muslim women in France

Source: The Arab Weekly

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islam,-women-and-feminism/hamid-zanaz/soft-sharia--what-french-islamist-mean-by-‘freedom’-is-that-women-‘choose’-what-the-males-want/d/120144