Why did Muslim societies fall behind? Given the diversity of Islamic civilizations, of course, and the complexity of historical change, there are many, many answers. But one that has received too little attention--both in the West and in the Islamic world--is the evolution of Islamic societies' treatment of women. That treatment, needless to say, differs in different parts of the Muslim world. Indeed, to take just one example of Islamic society's openness to female power, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Indonesia have all been ruled in recent years by women. But nonetheless, compared to the West, the lives of women in most of the Muslim world are remarkably circumscribed. While Christian theology has, to a significant degree, reformed its backward views of women, Islamic theology has been much slower to do so. Muslim women are excluded from much of public space and, according to the Hadith, Mohammad said, "I was shown the hellfire and that the majority of its dwellers are women." This fundamental inequality makes Muslim societies substantially less productive--not only by denying opportunity to women, but by inhibiting a meritocratic spirit among men.
An interesting article, examining a possible cause why the Muslim world, which was far more advanced than the West until relatively recently in the course of both areas, suddenly fell so far behind. (And while it is interesting to note that many of those countries have been ruled by women, it's also interesing to note that it would be inconceivable today, only a few short years later, that Pakistan and Indonesia would even consider such a thing, considering their efforts at both resisting and placating their substantial fundamentalist minorities -- I don't seriously believe that Turkey would, either, and I don't know enough about Bangladesh to hazard a guess.)
Falwell and his ilk should take note. Of course, they'd probably say that the inhibition of women is the one thing that society has gotten right; for some reason, fundamentalists of most stripes seem particularly opposed to women having opportunities and advancement.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
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12/19/2001: vive la france
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12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
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