India

My Delhi adventures have come to a temporary halt with the coming of a minor sickness. It is nothing bad just a little cold that has left me with little patience for the things that are normal life here in India, things such as traffic, pollution, language barriers, and loads of people. I did have an opportunity though to attend a lecture from Dr. Y.S. Jafa on Islam and politics.

As many people know this sort of thing is right down my alley so I was very excited to hear an incite on the situation in India. See, India is made up of hundreds of religions, the most popular being Hindu. Hindu is what many people think off when they think of India, but in fact India plays huge roles in many religions. Buddhism started here, Disciples came to India, I mean India’s Christianity dates back before European Christianity. Another huge religious fact about India is it is the second most populated Muslim country in the world. As you can imagine that really puts India on the map for Islam and Islamic politics.

For those of you who don’t know the history of India and Pakistan here is a very quick recap. British rule of India included what is now Pakistan and what is now Bangladesh. The three countries were all part of India until India’s liberation in 1947. The liberation was of course led by Mahatma Gandhi threw peaceful protest. When the kinks of the soon to be India were being worked on, problems arose. Fights between Muslims and Hindus erupted over things such as politics, land, etc. Gandhi couldn’t see the country split and couldn’t stand the fighting so he began to fast. Gandhi fasting had worked before as people saw that Gandhi surviving relied on them, but it was not working this time. Gandhi being the father of India finally decided to agree to the terms that gave Pakistan to the Muslims as their own country. Pakistan was simply a part of India in the Northwest corner. Because there were Hindus living in what would be Pakistan and Muslims living in what would be free India everyone started to move. To this day the creation of free India and Pakistan is the biggest boarder crossing ever. Casmir, which we all know as rough water, is in between the two states. The reason this is such dangerous territory is because to this day the two countries are fighting over the land. Even though Pakistan was created as a Muslim nation India still have more Muslims in it.

That is a quick history on the two countries and now to fully understand the rest of this post you must be aware of the fact that Islam is not bad. It is meant to be a peaceful religion, but people have obviously taken the religion out of context. I think people need to realize this and also need to appreciate our brothers and sisters. The religion, although it is the youngest of the three Abrahamic religions, is based on modesty and remaining as it was started. This is why girls cover their heads, why they are rather simple people, and why they have strong family and community values. They usually live with other fellow Muslims and will do anything to help anyone who they consider a brother or sister. There are some very obvious issues with women’s right though. And this is what I would really like to talk about.

The issue of women’s education in Muslim communities is an issue that is number one on my list. This movement is what I fight for and a big part of my work here. The reason is a lot deeper then the obvious reason of equal education between sexes. The sad truth is that in remote Muslim communities guys often fear an educated woman.  Guys enjoy their dominating role and they want to be smarter then their wife in every field. This simply makes women rely on men and gives men a sense of power. So, not only does education decrease the embarrassingly low rate of illiteracy in many parts of this half of the world, but it also empowers women. In Pakistan and well as India the infant mortality rate is way to high. In many remote parts of Pakistan the death rate is one of every three children. Most of the time this is only caused because of lack of women’s education. So educating woman often means saving a life. An educated woman also acts much different then an educated man. A man in a village often tries to leave the village in search for a better job, whereas an educated woman most of the time stays in the village and educates other villagers.  This helps build the community up as a whole rather then getting people out of it for themselves. Educating women also just makes the Muslim communities move past their old ideas. Giving women power and knowledge makes them a larger role in society. A last very important reason to educate women is concerning terrorism.

Terrorist most of the time is illiterate people who will do anything to help their family survive, just like anyone would do. These families are extremely poor and often on the verge of starvation. When men hear a holy way out and well as survival for their family for a confident person of course they are drawn. This is way often heads of terrorist groups are filmed in front of full books shelves. It makes the poor think, “oh, he must know what he’s talking about, look at all those books.” For someone who wants to do right by God at all cost, but cannot find out how for themselves it is often very easy to fall into this trap. So again the answer to me is education. But if terrorist are mostly boys, then why educate women? The reason is this; men know they cannot join any radical Muslim groups without the permission of his mother. Many times mothers say yes, because they too do not know any better. Education would teach women the negativities of these groups, so that they will not be tricked into approving their son’s choice. These are my reasons for why I believe a Muslim women’s education in remote areas is one of the most important things we can do. This is why I love working in a Muslim community and why Vidya is there in the first place.

The bottom line is, whether you like it our not Islam is the second biggest religion in the world. One out of every four people call themselves a Muslim. So instead of trying to end terrorist, I feel it is important to simply educate. Giving education to the poor could help end terrorism, instead of just terrorist.

Two young Afghan Muslim boys I live next to.

The future of the world.