AS a Muslim I was ashamed to watch a video clip showing a foreign woman who had put on an iron shield and walked in a street in Kabul to demonstrate how insecure women are in the Muslim world. The woman was harassed by onlookers.

In early Islam, women had made a gigantic leap forward in their status because their religion had abolished the discrimination between men and women. Unfortunately, today we are not conscious of this. We indiscriminately follow the mullahs. If anyone raises his voice against them, they declare him an infidel.

We consider women no more than sexual objects and compel them to cover themselves from head to foot against their desire. It is not Islam where women are forced to live in isolation and humiliation, and foreign women feel insecure. I am not comparing Islam with other religions. I am comparing Islam with what it was before and what it is now.

Rehan Rind

Khuzdar

Published in Dawn March 5th , 2015

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