LAHORE: Wrong interpretations of religious edicts have led to the oppression of women in the Muslim world, says Dr Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel peace Prize Laureate from Iran.

She was speaking at an online session of the Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest on Sunday, in conversation with senior lawyer and chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Hina Jilani.

“There are laws which relate to God, which cannot change, but laws relating to humans are to be interpreted according to the times,” she said in a talk on women’s rights in the modern Muslim world.

Dr Ebadi stressed that women must take control and called on them to do so.

“Men have always been making interpretations of religion throughout the world,” she said. “The time has come that women should take charge in order to counter that. Religion has been used as a tool to perpetuate patriarchal culture, simply because women have been absent from the table,” she underscored. “Therefore, women must be equipped with knowledge to make their own way in Islamic countries.”

Meanwhile, Hina Jilani said perhaps it would be preferable that a government should not be based on any religion at all, but on human rights and responsibilities. She said that such a government could ensure equality and justice.

“Pakistan has one of the best equality clauses in the constitution, and yet it is not implemented in practice,” she regretted.

“Only when religion is divorced from the state can we achieve full equality in a free, democratic and equal society.”

Agreeing with Ms Jilani, Dr Ebadi noted that in Iran, a majority of women supported a secular country, especially with reference to the Irani-feminist movement.

Dr Ebadi pointed out that over 200 women were behind bars in Iran on frivolous charges, showing how much the present regime there was threatened by them.

“Pakistan is lucky that it did not become a theocracy, or else women’s rights would have been even more curtailed,” she said.

“I was a judge when the Iranian revolution came, and they threw me out saying that women cannot sit over men. Tell me, where in Islam is written that women cannot be judges?” she questioned.

Lamenting the state of juvenile justice in Iran, she said last year, three underage children were executed in the country.

Ms Jilani said in various countries religion was being used as a garb for authoritarianism.

“Look at India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, for example, in each of these countries the majority religion is oppressing minorities, and so this is a bigger issue now,” she said.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2021