Women at the funeral?

What they couldn’t digest about Asma’s funeral

Keeping up with the brutal traditions of its forerunners – snatching from us the best for good – 2018 too brought us the pain of losing those who gave us more than we deserved.

With renowned lawyer and human rights activist Asma Jahangir – the ‘Iron Lady’ – being laid to rest, our minds, locked up in the dungeons of social constructions and stereotypical approaches that we claim to be rooted in religion, yet again enunciated our desperation to secure a spot in the limelight. And so, it wasn’t later that a majority started pouring in its completely unnecessary opinions on the social media over not only Asma’s death, but also her funeral.

While a few realising it was insensitive of them to celebrate someone’s death, calmed themselves from further arguments, some of the half-mullahs continued with their efforts to bash anyone who expressed solidarity. Among those quasi-mullahs who got triggered after women in large numbers participated in Asma’s funeral – standing shoulder-to-shoulder with men and picturing Asma’s decades-old struggle in a precise way – a majority was of those traditionalists and radicals who earlier too had been quite active in alleging Asma of apostasy.

Among their arguments that spread like a forest fire while stirring a debate on social media, were that neither can women participate in a funeral nor can they offer someone’s funeral prayer. This very strategy of a few to poison the minds of many, gradually made people believe that Islam or religious scholars restrict women from attending funerals.

However, no such restrictions exist in the Islamic laws.

The truth is that a majority of men who restrict women from attending funerals in Pakistan, is of those belonging to the conventionalist division of the society and whose religious approach has been stifled by the social constructions and traditions of their castes, backgrounds and experiences, and this is why they label their male chauvinism as “restrictions imposed by religion”.

As the religion imposes no such restrictions, following are some references from the history of Islam regarding female participation in funeral prayers.

According to Sahih Muslim, Hazrat Aisha, the wife of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) offered the funeral prayers of Saad-bin-Abi Waqas at the prophet’s mosque in Medina. According to various books, neither did any Imam ever express disinclination towards female participation in funeral prayers nor do any Shariah laws restrict women from participating in a funeral.

Furthermore, according to Sahih Muslim reference number 946, it is admissible for both men and women to attend funeral prayers.

Two of the funerals that owing to the number of women attendees are worth mentioning here are that of Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, where the strong Baloch women pushed aside Sipah Sahaba Pakistan’s Mullah Ramzan Mengal and led the funeral prayers, and that of Kabul’s 27-year-old Farkhanda, where when men frightened of the consequences stayed back at home, the brave Afghan women lifted the coffin and marched towards the graveyard.

Among their arguments that spread like a forest fire while stirring a debate on social media, were that neither can women participate in a funeral nor can they offer someone’s funeral prayer. This very strategy of a few to poison the minds of many, gradually made people believe that Islam or religious scholars restrict women from attending funerals

Another thing that needs to be highlighted about this very retrogradation of our society targeting women, is that a majority of men consciously or unconsciously believe that women are not supposed to be a part of the joint social progression and should not participate in unsegregated events. Such men are left terrified whenever the so-called “superiority of man” is threatened by one from the opposite gender. A proof of this is not only what came following Asma’s funeral, but Asma’s life itself was full of examples that when threatened male chauvinism, led to conspiracies of all kinds against her.

The mindset with which female participation in Asma’s funeral was carped about, is nothing but that of fanatics who do not want women to be equal to men, and is the same psychology that imposes restrictions over a woman’s sartorial choices as well as defines her boundaries out of which she deserves to be killed in the name of “honour”. A proof of this very psychology prevailing in our society is that whenever a case of sexual harassment surfaces in an educational institution, the right-wing extremists rather than addressing the issue, try to move the authorities to abolish the existing co-education system in a bid to limit women from social interaction yet again.

Somehow linking Asma Jahangir’s funeral to the co-education system, the fanatics claim that women should not participate in funeral prayers along with men because that could give birth to a number of “social evils”. But interestingly, what they forget while dressing their bigotry as Islamic teachings is that the largest social gathering where women and men participate together is what we believe to be the holiest of all practices, the Hajj.

With a media report recently revealing that women have been subjected to sexual harassment even during Hajj, the great question that arises is that if it is women and men, being together that leads to such social evils, or the social constructs that make men, who objectify women, consider them inferior.

This practice of labelling things we desire as what Islam teaches is one of the major reasons that have led to the negative image of religion currently being perceived by people all across the globe. If the roots of Islamophobia and rising incidents of extremism involving Muslims are dug deep into, those responsible for it are the radicals who are the followers of takfiri jihadism, Muslim fundamentalism and political Islamism. And this very religious fanaticism has given birth to a brand new takfiri trend in even the sects that are considered most peaceful. Khadim Rizvi in Pakistan’s Sufi Sunnis is an excellent example.