Q. In my own religion, there’s been a number of changes over the years, a short number of years, which I think are examples of… Mass used to be said in Latin, it’s now said in English. Women hold a much more active role in terms of community and liberty. In what way has your community evolved over the years, perhaps in a more liberal sense? Has it been able to maintain the old traditions?
In fact, the moment the community came into being, the problem began not of suppressing the ladies, but of emancipating them from the social, traditional… restrictions imposed on ladies in those countries. The Ahmadis believe, as against other orthodox Muslims, that the ladies must not be confined to the four walls of their homes, although this is their first responsibility, to look after the family and raise the family. This is why they are made different from men. They carry the children, their bondage with their children is much more stronger, the child remains attached to them during the period of milking and so on.
So, all these things convey a message that the Creator created ladies with a set design and a set purpose. So, Islam does not oblige ladies to earn their living. Islam does not throw this responsibility on the shoulder of ladies. It absolves them of all responsibility of earning their livelihood. It is the responsibility of the husbands to provide for them, and if a lady, which she can of course, earns her own living as well, does some work, the husband wouldn’t stop her, but will not have any share in whatever earning the lady makes. She is not obliged to spend it on the family. So, this is the correct Islamic attitude.
This was not found in the time when Ahmadiyyat came into being, when it was first revealed to the founder that you are the reformer of the age. So, he gave all the liberties to Ahmadi ladies, which Islam gave, and this was considered as un-Islamic by the orthodox Muslim society. So, they were emancipated not through a process of evolution, but through a process of revolution. And in revolution, you do not evolve. You just make open a brand new scheme of things, and then you belong to that emancipated life.
And from then on, you live according to the restrictions, which have to be there in principle, and according to the freedom, which has to be there in principle. So, the Ahmadi ladies have adapted themselves to this situation, and they are very happy. They are not suppressed in any way. They are encouraged to get more education. They are encouraged to participate in every healthy activity of life. For instance, among the Muslims, there are two groups now. One lying to this extreme and the other to that. When they call ladies are emancipated, that society is a westernized society. And emancipation in their concept means not the good points of the western society, but only the evil points.
When a lady is permitted to intermix freely and to enjoy life and chuck to the four winds the principles of morality and so on, this is what they think is liberation of women, emancipation of women. And there are those who live in the other extreme, where the ladies are not permitted to, most often, not permitted to walk out of the four walls of their small houses and to observe purdah, the veil, in such a manner as it’s most burdensome, most shocking, most, you know, discomforting to them.
And they are not permitted to speak to any other man. They are only imprisoned for life, almost for life, within the four walls of their house, and they go through the drudgery of just looking after the children and caring for the husbands. And the husbands, on the other hand, enjoy all evils outside. So this is a shocking paradoxical society which creates a hatred for this so-called Islam in the younger generations. So they just walk out of this to the other extreme. In our community, we try to maintain this balance right from the start.
The ladies are told that you have as many rights as men have, according to the Holy Quran, but with the restriction that you should look after your chastity. Nobody should be permitted to play with you and turn you into a play friend. This is not the society which is encouraged by Islam, which we think guarantees the ultimate happiness of both the sexes. So they are given their due rights. For instance, Islam gives the right of inheritance to ladies, which is not given in any other religion, to my knowledge, or other societies as well. And in the other Muslim societies, they simply forego that right because nobody is going to give that right to them.
Or they have to go to the courts to sue their brothers and so on for their rights. But in the Ahmadi community, this right is given. Technically, they come into their own wealth when their parents die or some of the relatives whom they should normally inherit. That wealth belongs to them. They are free to use it. They are educated. They participate in professions, doctors, nurses, other things, teachers, and so on. No problems. As long as they strictly maintain the moral standards. If they begin to deviate there, then we remind them and persuade them and try to bring them back to our traditions. This is the way of Ahmadiyya life, and the Ahmadi ladies are very happy.
So much so that once an Ahmadi lady read an article by some English lady creating a very sorry picture of Muslim ladies’ life, those who really practice Islam, not only believe in that. And the way they are treated and the way they are deprived of the best of life and so on. So one of the ladies wrote to her to come and visit Ahmadiyya Ladies’ Society here and meet them and find out how they feel and what sort of life they lead. Now, only a few, I think a week or ten days ago, after a year of that invitation, suddenly that journalist appeared. She’s a journalist. And said, all right, now I’ve come, show me the way of life and let me cross-examine other things.
So she spent the best part of the day with various Ahmadi ladies, girls growing up, girls belonging to the teens, and the old ladies as well. And she wrote a very interesting article after that, rectifying her previous impressions and making it very clear that among Ahmadiyya’s community, I found a completely different picture. The British ladies who had become Ahmadis, they also started the same tradition. They were also invited. And they told her, look here, we find ourselves much better off, we are happier and more contented with life because we have guaranteed the fidelity of our husbands. We are guaranteed a better attitude on the part of our own children. They just don’t expect things from us.
They have their duties to us as well, and they realize it. And they respect us, they love us, and we find a closer bondage of a family, mutual love and so on. And also the communal love, and we participate in so many things as ladies. So she went back very satisfied. This is my answer. In reality, it is just to see things. In practice, that would convince you that the Ahmadi ladies are satisfied with this way of life. Those who have seen the other way of life, they stand in a better position to compare. So this question should be asked of the British Ahmadi ladies. They can answer it better. Because they have known the previous way of life and this new way of life, and they adopt it not with any compulsion whatsoever. So that shows that what I am talking really carries sense.
