Why WOMEN CONVERT to ISLAM in USA? - Amazing VALUE of WOMEN in ISLAM! @FatimaBarkatulla
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and women's rights are under threat they can't find a man they trust to take care of them I've had this I've had Afghan women weren't just gifted the rights by the West I tell you if I was a woman I don't want toah I'm ready darling let's go the Muslim majority is getting increasingly strong so in the UK uh conversion to Islam amongst women is double that of men in America it's four times as much Islam says that women should wear hijab isn't this an oppression women who convert to Islam and then they adopt the hijab they often report that for the first time you know they were treated with a respect and a and a dignity that they never experienced before 1400 years ago I would argue that the
prophet Muhammad was the first world leader to stand up and make a speech in which he said women have rights I I can't think of any other male world leader who ever did that we are very honored to have you with us I want to start with who is and can you tell us about yourself and your works that you have been doing my name is fa I'm a British um Islamic scholar uh and author uh my parents are originally from India and uh my father is a uh scholar of Islam as well so I completed two Al degrees at first I studied in Egypt studied Arabic and Islamic Studies in Egypt in some centers there as well as in alasar University and then I completed my studies here in the UK at some um Islamic seminaries
I also completed my Master's Degree a few years ago I authored a book called Khadijah uh Islam's first lady when you look at history when you look at history what difference do you see when you compare the value of women in the world with the value given by Islam so many of the rights that we see that women in the west enjoy or women enjoy in general nowadays were only very recently given to women especially in uh Europe and America if you look at what the feminists were fighting for often it was basic things so a woman in Britain for example did not have a legal entity she was not a legal entity her identity her her kind of standing as a um individual was tied to her to her husbands so she
couldn't even petition the court she couldn't go to a court right because she didn't exist in law in in a way right uh women in Britain for example didn't have property rights this is why when you read books like you know Jane Austin's novels you see that women you know the men always wanted to try to marry a woman who's going to have a big inheritance because if he marries her all the wealth that she inherits will actually go straight to her husband right so because women didn't have the right to own property this seems like a shock to us you know Muslims when we hear it because we're so used to being told that we're backward and that women in the west are so ahead but actually even
Cambridge University Oxford University only allowed women through their doors about a hundred or so years ago and even then they wouldn't allow them to have degrees they could only come and sit in the lectures and then slowly you know they started to allow them to even have degrees we as Muslims have the opposite history our history is the opposite 1,400 years ago I would argue that the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam peace be upon him was the first world leader to stand up and make a speech in which he said women have rights I I can't think of any other male world leader who ever did that he said you know your women have rights over you that you're going to be questioned by God
uh about how you treated women you know fear Allah fear God with regards to women these are powerful words and the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and Islam gave women property rights right from the beginning um the right to earn her own if she earns her own money the right to keep that wealth and not to for no one else to be able to take that off her right um the right to be educated I mean that wasn't even a question for Muslims you know because we had a one of the greatest Scholars of Islam the wife of the prophet um she was one of the leading exites or the people who explained the Quran and she had female students many uh we have a huge history of female scholarship and encouraging
women and men to seek knowledge so this was never an issue for us uh access to legal rights was never an issue for Muslims because Muslim women have always had the right to go to court uh they used to come to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam as the as the as the judge asking for their right you know a woman came to him and said that her father had forced her to marry somebody against her will the prophet said to her we can anal this marriage right um women had the right to uh come to the court and ask for their marriages to be dissolved if they're in a difficult situation again in the west divorce wasn't even allowed you know until recently let alone divorce initiated by a woman right
uh we never had that problem so the thing I'm highlighting here is that many of the problems that feminists fought for in the west were problems that they had in the west that we didn't have as Muslims our rights were given to us that doesn't mean that there aren't problems in Muslim communities definitely you know oppression takes place in different communities and we should fight that oppression but I would argue that Islam gives us the framework that we need to demand our rights as women so there's a British uh Explorer and writer historian called Lady Elizabeth Craven and she wrote a book a Journey Through the Crimea to Constantinople so she came to Turkey and this is in the 18th century
and just listen to how she describes what she saw of Muslim women she said as to women and this is of course ottoman women as to women as many if not more than men are to be seen in the streets going about their daily activities I think I never saw a country where women may enjoy so much Liberty and free from all reproach as in Turkey the Turks in their conduct towards our are an example to all other nations and I repeat it sir I think no women have so much Liberty Safe from apprehension as the Turkish and I think them in their manner of living capable of being the happiest creatures breathing so she was saying that women in ottoman turkey she had never seen women who were so empowered you
know as the women in otoman turkey and she's obviously coming from Britain and she was speaking I think three years before Mary Walston craft wrote her book a Vindication of the rights of women which she's seen as one of the main kind of instigators of the feminist movement but you can see that even before that women were admiring the way that Muslim women women in Muslim societies were had their freedom had their rights Islam says that women should wear hijab isn't this an oppression and what would you say to someone who thinks that hijab is giving up your freedom I think um the hijab or the Muslim woman's dress when she's outside of her home is basically a command from Allah it's it's
something that mus women do because we believe that God Allah the Creator who knows us better than we know ourselves who is the all wise and who cares for us and loves us uh commanded us to dress a certain way when we are in public and that just means wearing loose clothing clothing that covers everything but the face and hands um and you know being a dign in our Behavior right and of course the same goes for men but slightly with slightly different rules there's nothing oppressive about this in fact women who convert to Islam and then they adopt the hijab they often report that for the first time you know they were treated with a respect and a and a dignity that they never experienced
before um what it actually does is it forces men who you're interacting with and working with to take what you're saying and the way you're thinking more seriously and it kind of takes away the sexual tension from the public space I know that in the west you know in in some communities people think that they that we are overstating this you know we're overstating this kind of the sexualization of the public space but actually when you look at the statistics you find that because of work because of the free mixing at work and women obviously like you know women don't go to work dressed modestly they're almost expected to wear heels they're expected to wear makeup in fact there there's more
pressure on women in the way they dress than there is on men that kind of uh mixture of Fric saying uh trying to be sexually attractive to one another Etc has caused so many uh Affairs it causes the breakdown of family so in order to prevent that in order to prevent all of those kind of harmful things one of the measures just one of the measures is that we have guidelines for dress in the public space so some uh psychologists when they analyze you know the way women dress at work uh things like makeup things like heels these are all kinds of sexual performance or they can be seen as that now as Muslim women doesn't mean that we don't enjoy some of those things but we enjoy them in the right
place in the right time at the moment girls are going through mental health problems you know because they're on Instagram they're on these social media platforms where women are constantly pressured and expect to look a certain way they constantly have to show themselves and you know use filters use all kinds of manipulation to present themselves in a certain way this is causing mental health problems in girls and women and it's causing harm to men as well because what's happening men because there isn't a culture of lowering the Gaze and because women are encouraged to expose themselves men are be becoming addicted to seeing women expose themselves in this way and so when it comes to
marriage when it comes to settling down they have unrealistic expectations of a woman and vice versa so I think there's a lot of harms that are caused um in the way you know the immodesty that exists in society today and Islam seeks to remove all of that uh there's a non-muslim woman watching you right now she finds Islam logical and wants to become a Muslim but finds it very difficult to wear hijab what would you say to that person as towards eternity we need your support we are a charity organization that aims to spread the mess of Islam to the entire world in 10 languages with your support you can help people convert to Islam give up harams start praying wear hijab learn to read the Quran
and so on and get your share from all these Good Deeds insh donate it towards eternity and don't miss this golden opportunity uh there's a non-muslim woman watching you right now she finds Islam logical and wants to become a Muslim but finds it very difficult to wear hijab what would you say to that person yes I actually met a lady like this I met a lady in Egypt she was an English lady who very interested in Islam she wanted to become a Muslim but and so I asked her you know what what's stopping you what's stopping you from taking your shahada and she said well you know I don't think I'm going to be able to wear the hijab I I'm just not ready for that I'm not ready for C certain practices
so my response to her was look uh taking your shahada entering Islam is like entering the door you have to enter the door of the house right imagine your house is in disarray your house is like in a mess or it needs a lot of renovation it needs a lot of tidying and all of that the first thing you have to do is enter the door when you enter the door now you can start slowly but surely fixing the house right but if you don't enter the door in the first place uh you'll never get that opportunity so the most important thing is if you believe that there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah you believe that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah then enter Islam enter through the door when it
comes to the hijab when it comes to all of the practices of Islam these things will come over time in a way they are secondary in the sense that first of all you've got to declare your faith to God right without that you're in danger you're actually your your your hair after is in danger so we don't want to endanger your hair after uh enter the door say say Muhammad enter through that door and then after that slowly but surely you will be able to fix different areas of your life and God will make it easy for you you're you're working wear wearing any but some U Muslims are maybe some not not practicing Muslims might see and maybe can be intimidated to see that if if this is mandatory or not
can you clarify that for us I think women of God or women Godly women have always dressed in a certain way even if you go back in history uh you look at Jews and Christians Jews and Christians also had a tradition of veiling and uh of you know covering their bodies in a certain way uh when we think of images of Mary for example Mariam uh we know that she she was a woman who would have covered right um in fact there's even a saying of one of the Italian MPS when you know Europe was discussing Banning of the veil Banning of hijab he said how can I ban something that whenever I look at a picture of Mary a mother Mary she's wearing you know so I think women throughout history women of God Godly
women have always uh dressed in a modest way and that has varied based on time and place in the Quran Allah subhana wa tala our creator revealed to us guidance that is going to last until the end of time and that's for our own good and one of the uh guidelines that Allah subhana tala revealed was guidelines for dress not just for women for men and women but they're obviously different guidelines so as a Muslim woman when I'm in private when we are in private when we're with our husbands or with our families we're very free to dress however we want you know or if we're if we have women's only Gatherings parties a typical Muslim woman will wear whatever the clothing of her culture is but this
is not for the public space so what Islam does and I think this is something that the West is starting to appreciate more is that it values women's spaces it values women's and men's spaces that the space that we're in when we're in women's only or within the confines of our families is different different to the public space and so in order not to sexualize the public space in order to take the sexual tension if you like out of the public space instead of telling men that look a woman can dress however she wants she can show her cleavage she can wear a lot of makeup she can do whatever she wants to try to attract you and you have to not respond right instead of being unrealistic okay in
that way what Islam says is look men and women you have certain guidelines for dress and for Behavior so when we uh observe the hijab when we wear our clothes as Muslim women it's outside or it's in the presence of men who are not closely related to us and what it does is two things that the Quran tells us it will do number one the Quran says that you know you should dress in this way in order for to be recognized as believing women you know we want to be recognized as Muslim women women who are not to be treated in a certain way way women who who are not a play thing so our clothing gives that message at the same time it also protects us so that uh men who might have bad intentions you know
we're not saying all men are predators but some men are predators some men do get the wrong message uh from the way women dress and in order to protect us from that uh Allah in His Infinite Wisdom revealed to us guidelines for dress and behavior so what what are the parameters of hijab what what parts should be covered okay so I'm going to first tell you what the guidelines for dress for men are because people often emphasize the guidelines for women and don't realize that actually Muslim men also have uh certain restrictions and you know certain guidelines so for Muslim men for example they should they're not allowed to wear gold for example they're not allowed to wear silk that those rules
are not on women uh Muslim men also um have to cover at least from their Naval uh up to their knees in loose clothing and this is the minimum you know we're talking about the minimum but generally speaking both men women are encouraged to dress modestly uh also to lower the Gaze this is also a very important teaching of Islam it's not just about putting clothes on you it's also about your behavior decorum in terms of Muslim women the guidelines for dress uh as I mentioned indoors we're very free you know we can dress as we as we wish but when we are Outdoors we're in the presence of men who are not closely related to us then the guidelines are that we should wear loose clothing clothing that
covers everything except the face and hands you might see Muslim women you know some Muslim women wear a veil some don't you'll see different cultural practices reflected in the way that Muslim women dress and there's some flexibility in that uh but as long as certain conditions are met for example uh covering everything but the face and hands uh in loose clothing opaque clothing so clothing that is not seethrough and clothing that isn't like a dazzling display in and of itself so it's plain it's modest it's dignified so when we're going out as a Muslim woman it doesn't Define us we're not like this dressed like this all the time but at the same time it uh it commands respect so one of the
biggest prejudices against Islam is the issue of women but on the other hand the data says that women are more likely to convert to Islam what exactly do those who convert to Islam see that they don't think like others so in the UK uh conversion to Islam amongst women is double that of men in America it's four times as much so it's very strange because if you think about it the narrative is always that Muslim women are oppressed Islam oppresses women Muslim men are you know evil oppressive people and yet women from the West are coming to Islam in their DRS much more than men now I actually did uh Research into this topic because um for my Master's Arch and I interviewed or or I researched uh
I conducted surveys with many uh converts to Islam female converts to Islam in the UK and I think there are five things uh that kept coming up as the things that really attracted them to Islam um the first ised which is the Oneness of Allah you know the Oneness of God and worshiping one God alone and the beliefs you know the Islamic beliefs and coupled with that I would say is having a direct relationship with Allah with God especially amongst Catholics so a lot of Catholic converts you know they feel uh quite that they they had this relationship where they couldn't access God directly they can't talk to God directly they had to always have an intermediary a priest you know even confessing
your sins all of that what they find refreshing about Islam is uh first of all that Islam explains the position of Jesus isaam very clearly uh in a completely understandable way you know so it does away with the Trinity um and actually in Christian history there were many people who didn't believe in the Trinity people like Isaac Newton so it's not um it's something that many people came to even those who weren't introduced to Islam you know um but these women they found this very compelling also that the fact that they could talk to God directly they don't need to go to a priest they don't need somebody in the middle that was the first big thing that attracts people attracted women to Islam
the second thing that attracted women to Islam is Believe It or Not uh Muslim masculinity okay so the women said often they had never experienced men the way they experienced Muslim men so the good behavior of the Muslim men that they came across you know being respectful not wanting to have a relationship with them not only trying to you know attract them use them discard them so many of them had had negative experiences with men and they' come to the conclusion that the only thing men want them for is you know one thing basically for exploitation um that when they met Muslim men and saw what a Muslim family was like for example and the role of the Muslim man in that family that was very
attractive to them the third thing that attracted uh female converts to Islam is the prospect of a life without intoxicants and a clean life you know so many people's lives in Britain America and and in Western countries in general are blighted by alcohol like we don't realize it especially those of us who've grown up as Muslim you know it's not something in our lives but what you realize when you interview these women is that so many of them grew up with parents who were alcoholics in fact I don't understand why it's not considered child abuse you know to be an alcoholic and and and and have children who you're supposed to be responsible for and that you're looking after so many of them had
suffered because of that and then also from Partners as well who were addicted to alcohol that they this idea they could have a life without those things without drugs without alcohol and uh for it to be a clean life uh really appealed to them the fourth element that attracted women to Islam was actually the family the Muslim family okay so many of them told me that they were for the first time invited to a Muslim home you know a Muslim family would share their meal with them and they would sit there and they would this was the first time they had been in a family that was a warm caring complete family so I think the fact that unfortunately in countries like Britain you know we have a phrase
broken Britain because you know so many families are broken I think last year was the first year that the majority of children that were born were born outside of marriage and what we find is that and and naten which is a like a an organization that does surveys and uh statistics they say that a million children in the UK have no male figure in their life at all so you can see this is this is what we mean by Broken Britain right it looks good on the outside but unfortunately what's happening on the inside there is societal Decay there decay of the family and so these women when they first entered a Muslim home or when they were welcomed into the Muslim Community and they saw that actually
this is the norm in the Muslim Community right having an intact family or even just having a family that actually cares gets together you know all the things that we take for granted this really attracted them to Islam because they wanted that and the last uh big factor that I found in my research that attracted women to Islam was again believe it or not the hijab and uh Islamic ideals of Womanhood so some of them talked about how they grew up with Muslim girls so I remember growing up in the UK you know sometimes we would be the only one who's wearing the hijab right the only Muslim sometimes and so this really resonated with me they said that they grew up with Muslim girls in their schools
and they would all always secretly admire them which is quite strange because you know when we were growing up we always thought we were treated you know people were racist towards us sometimes and we we've suffered discrimination because of it but actually these women were saying that the hijab was something that attracted them you they idea of having a dignified modest upbringing um and also like I said Sisterhood uh the idea of Sisterhood so many women said things like before they became Muslim they never experienced Sisterhood because they were always in competition with other women they were always first of all in mixed environments and so you know women I think it's been proven
psychologically that when women and men are in mixed environments uh even if there's one man in a group of women the women will VI for the attention of that man even subconsciously you know and so uh having gone from that and come to you know see what Islamic Sisterhood was like this was very attractive to them uh one more thing I mention is that many of them had never been looked after in terms of financially provided for by men okay so sometimes even their fathers when they got to the age of 16 you know unfortunately in Western societies fathers and daughters are almost like divorced at a certain age right the society in the name of Freedom uh separates girls from any kind of male figure
who could actually defend her support her provide for her and this leaves millions of girls very vulnerable right they're vulnerable to being exploited by other men they're vulnerable because they are in need of financial support or you know earning money and they sometimes you know it's doesn't come that easily and some of these women said you know all their lives they've had to fend for themselves so the idea that Islam makes it the man's respons possbility to uh provide and protect this was very attractive to them thank you very much for your answers we benefited a lot was really insightful inshallah we're going to meet in future projects
prophet Muhammad was the first world leader to stand up and make a speech in which he said women have rights I I can't think of any other male world leader who ever did that we are very honored to have you with us I want to start with who is and can you tell us about yourself and your works that you have been doing my name is fa I'm a British um Islamic scholar uh and author uh my parents are originally from India and uh my father is a uh scholar of Islam as well so I completed two Al degrees at first I studied in Egypt studied Arabic and Islamic Studies in Egypt in some centers there as well as in alasar University and then I completed my studies here in the UK at some um Islamic seminaries
I also completed my Master's Degree a few years ago I authored a book called Khadijah uh Islam's first lady when you look at history when you look at history what difference do you see when you compare the value of women in the world with the value given by Islam so many of the rights that we see that women in the west enjoy or women enjoy in general nowadays were only very recently given to women especially in uh Europe and America if you look at what the feminists were fighting for often it was basic things so a woman in Britain for example did not have a legal entity she was not a legal entity her identity her her kind of standing as a um individual was tied to her to her husbands so she
couldn't even petition the court she couldn't go to a court right because she didn't exist in law in in a way right uh women in Britain for example didn't have property rights this is why when you read books like you know Jane Austin's novels you see that women you know the men always wanted to try to marry a woman who's going to have a big inheritance because if he marries her all the wealth that she inherits will actually go straight to her husband right so because women didn't have the right to own property this seems like a shock to us you know Muslims when we hear it because we're so used to being told that we're backward and that women in the west are so ahead but actually even
Cambridge University Oxford University only allowed women through their doors about a hundred or so years ago and even then they wouldn't allow them to have degrees they could only come and sit in the lectures and then slowly you know they started to allow them to even have degrees we as Muslims have the opposite history our history is the opposite 1,400 years ago I would argue that the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam peace be upon him was the first world leader to stand up and make a speech in which he said women have rights I I can't think of any other male world leader who ever did that he said you know your women have rights over you that you're going to be questioned by God
uh about how you treated women you know fear Allah fear God with regards to women these are powerful words and the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and Islam gave women property rights right from the beginning um the right to earn her own if she earns her own money the right to keep that wealth and not to for no one else to be able to take that off her right um the right to be educated I mean that wasn't even a question for Muslims you know because we had a one of the greatest Scholars of Islam the wife of the prophet um she was one of the leading exites or the people who explained the Quran and she had female students many uh we have a huge history of female scholarship and encouraging
women and men to seek knowledge so this was never an issue for us uh access to legal rights was never an issue for Muslims because Muslim women have always had the right to go to court uh they used to come to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam as the as the as the judge asking for their right you know a woman came to him and said that her father had forced her to marry somebody against her will the prophet said to her we can anal this marriage right um women had the right to uh come to the court and ask for their marriages to be dissolved if they're in a difficult situation again in the west divorce wasn't even allowed you know until recently let alone divorce initiated by a woman right
uh we never had that problem so the thing I'm highlighting here is that many of the problems that feminists fought for in the west were problems that they had in the west that we didn't have as Muslims our rights were given to us that doesn't mean that there aren't problems in Muslim communities definitely you know oppression takes place in different communities and we should fight that oppression but I would argue that Islam gives us the framework that we need to demand our rights as women so there's a British uh Explorer and writer historian called Lady Elizabeth Craven and she wrote a book a Journey Through the Crimea to Constantinople so she came to Turkey and this is in the 18th century
and just listen to how she describes what she saw of Muslim women she said as to women and this is of course ottoman women as to women as many if not more than men are to be seen in the streets going about their daily activities I think I never saw a country where women may enjoy so much Liberty and free from all reproach as in Turkey the Turks in their conduct towards our are an example to all other nations and I repeat it sir I think no women have so much Liberty Safe from apprehension as the Turkish and I think them in their manner of living capable of being the happiest creatures breathing so she was saying that women in ottoman turkey she had never seen women who were so empowered you
know as the women in otoman turkey and she's obviously coming from Britain and she was speaking I think three years before Mary Walston craft wrote her book a Vindication of the rights of women which she's seen as one of the main kind of instigators of the feminist movement but you can see that even before that women were admiring the way that Muslim women women in Muslim societies were had their freedom had their rights Islam says that women should wear hijab isn't this an oppression and what would you say to someone who thinks that hijab is giving up your freedom I think um the hijab or the Muslim woman's dress when she's outside of her home is basically a command from Allah it's it's
something that mus women do because we believe that God Allah the Creator who knows us better than we know ourselves who is the all wise and who cares for us and loves us uh commanded us to dress a certain way when we are in public and that just means wearing loose clothing clothing that covers everything but the face and hands um and you know being a dign in our Behavior right and of course the same goes for men but slightly with slightly different rules there's nothing oppressive about this in fact women who convert to Islam and then they adopt the hijab they often report that for the first time you know they were treated with a respect and a and a dignity that they never experienced
before um what it actually does is it forces men who you're interacting with and working with to take what you're saying and the way you're thinking more seriously and it kind of takes away the sexual tension from the public space I know that in the west you know in in some communities people think that they that we are overstating this you know we're overstating this kind of the sexualization of the public space but actually when you look at the statistics you find that because of work because of the free mixing at work and women obviously like you know women don't go to work dressed modestly they're almost expected to wear heels they're expected to wear makeup in fact there there's more
pressure on women in the way they dress than there is on men that kind of uh mixture of Fric saying uh trying to be sexually attractive to one another Etc has caused so many uh Affairs it causes the breakdown of family so in order to prevent that in order to prevent all of those kind of harmful things one of the measures just one of the measures is that we have guidelines for dress in the public space so some uh psychologists when they analyze you know the way women dress at work uh things like makeup things like heels these are all kinds of sexual performance or they can be seen as that now as Muslim women doesn't mean that we don't enjoy some of those things but we enjoy them in the right
place in the right time at the moment girls are going through mental health problems you know because they're on Instagram they're on these social media platforms where women are constantly pressured and expect to look a certain way they constantly have to show themselves and you know use filters use all kinds of manipulation to present themselves in a certain way this is causing mental health problems in girls and women and it's causing harm to men as well because what's happening men because there isn't a culture of lowering the Gaze and because women are encouraged to expose themselves men are be becoming addicted to seeing women expose themselves in this way and so when it comes to
marriage when it comes to settling down they have unrealistic expectations of a woman and vice versa so I think there's a lot of harms that are caused um in the way you know the immodesty that exists in society today and Islam seeks to remove all of that uh there's a non-muslim woman watching you right now she finds Islam logical and wants to become a Muslim but finds it very difficult to wear hijab what would you say to that person as towards eternity we need your support we are a charity organization that aims to spread the mess of Islam to the entire world in 10 languages with your support you can help people convert to Islam give up harams start praying wear hijab learn to read the Quran
and so on and get your share from all these Good Deeds insh donate it towards eternity and don't miss this golden opportunity uh there's a non-muslim woman watching you right now she finds Islam logical and wants to become a Muslim but finds it very difficult to wear hijab what would you say to that person yes I actually met a lady like this I met a lady in Egypt she was an English lady who very interested in Islam she wanted to become a Muslim but and so I asked her you know what what's stopping you what's stopping you from taking your shahada and she said well you know I don't think I'm going to be able to wear the hijab I I'm just not ready for that I'm not ready for C certain practices
so my response to her was look uh taking your shahada entering Islam is like entering the door you have to enter the door of the house right imagine your house is in disarray your house is like in a mess or it needs a lot of renovation it needs a lot of tidying and all of that the first thing you have to do is enter the door when you enter the door now you can start slowly but surely fixing the house right but if you don't enter the door in the first place uh you'll never get that opportunity so the most important thing is if you believe that there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah you believe that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah then enter Islam enter through the door when it
comes to the hijab when it comes to all of the practices of Islam these things will come over time in a way they are secondary in the sense that first of all you've got to declare your faith to God right without that you're in danger you're actually your your your hair after is in danger so we don't want to endanger your hair after uh enter the door say say Muhammad enter through that door and then after that slowly but surely you will be able to fix different areas of your life and God will make it easy for you you're you're working wear wearing any but some U Muslims are maybe some not not practicing Muslims might see and maybe can be intimidated to see that if if this is mandatory or not
can you clarify that for us I think women of God or women Godly women have always dressed in a certain way even if you go back in history uh you look at Jews and Christians Jews and Christians also had a tradition of veiling and uh of you know covering their bodies in a certain way uh when we think of images of Mary for example Mariam uh we know that she she was a woman who would have covered right um in fact there's even a saying of one of the Italian MPS when you know Europe was discussing Banning of the veil Banning of hijab he said how can I ban something that whenever I look at a picture of Mary a mother Mary she's wearing you know so I think women throughout history women of God Godly
women have always uh dressed in a modest way and that has varied based on time and place in the Quran Allah subhana wa tala our creator revealed to us guidance that is going to last until the end of time and that's for our own good and one of the uh guidelines that Allah subhana tala revealed was guidelines for dress not just for women for men and women but they're obviously different guidelines so as a Muslim woman when I'm in private when we are in private when we're with our husbands or with our families we're very free to dress however we want you know or if we're if we have women's only Gatherings parties a typical Muslim woman will wear whatever the clothing of her culture is but this
is not for the public space so what Islam does and I think this is something that the West is starting to appreciate more is that it values women's spaces it values women's and men's spaces that the space that we're in when we're in women's only or within the confines of our families is different different to the public space and so in order not to sexualize the public space in order to take the sexual tension if you like out of the public space instead of telling men that look a woman can dress however she wants she can show her cleavage she can wear a lot of makeup she can do whatever she wants to try to attract you and you have to not respond right instead of being unrealistic okay in
that way what Islam says is look men and women you have certain guidelines for dress and for Behavior so when we uh observe the hijab when we wear our clothes as Muslim women it's outside or it's in the presence of men who are not closely related to us and what it does is two things that the Quran tells us it will do number one the Quran says that you know you should dress in this way in order for to be recognized as believing women you know we want to be recognized as Muslim women women who are not to be treated in a certain way way women who who are not a play thing so our clothing gives that message at the same time it also protects us so that uh men who might have bad intentions you know
we're not saying all men are predators but some men are predators some men do get the wrong message uh from the way women dress and in order to protect us from that uh Allah in His Infinite Wisdom revealed to us guidelines for dress and behavior so what what are the parameters of hijab what what parts should be covered okay so I'm going to first tell you what the guidelines for dress for men are because people often emphasize the guidelines for women and don't realize that actually Muslim men also have uh certain restrictions and you know certain guidelines so for Muslim men for example they should they're not allowed to wear gold for example they're not allowed to wear silk that those rules
are not on women uh Muslim men also um have to cover at least from their Naval uh up to their knees in loose clothing and this is the minimum you know we're talking about the minimum but generally speaking both men women are encouraged to dress modestly uh also to lower the Gaze this is also a very important teaching of Islam it's not just about putting clothes on you it's also about your behavior decorum in terms of Muslim women the guidelines for dress uh as I mentioned indoors we're very free you know we can dress as we as we wish but when we are Outdoors we're in the presence of men who are not closely related to us then the guidelines are that we should wear loose clothing clothing that
covers everything except the face and hands you might see Muslim women you know some Muslim women wear a veil some don't you'll see different cultural practices reflected in the way that Muslim women dress and there's some flexibility in that uh but as long as certain conditions are met for example uh covering everything but the face and hands uh in loose clothing opaque clothing so clothing that is not seethrough and clothing that isn't like a dazzling display in and of itself so it's plain it's modest it's dignified so when we're going out as a Muslim woman it doesn't Define us we're not like this dressed like this all the time but at the same time it uh it commands respect so one of the
biggest prejudices against Islam is the issue of women but on the other hand the data says that women are more likely to convert to Islam what exactly do those who convert to Islam see that they don't think like others so in the UK uh conversion to Islam amongst women is double that of men in America it's four times as much so it's very strange because if you think about it the narrative is always that Muslim women are oppressed Islam oppresses women Muslim men are you know evil oppressive people and yet women from the West are coming to Islam in their DRS much more than men now I actually did uh Research into this topic because um for my Master's Arch and I interviewed or or I researched uh
I conducted surveys with many uh converts to Islam female converts to Islam in the UK and I think there are five things uh that kept coming up as the things that really attracted them to Islam um the first ised which is the Oneness of Allah you know the Oneness of God and worshiping one God alone and the beliefs you know the Islamic beliefs and coupled with that I would say is having a direct relationship with Allah with God especially amongst Catholics so a lot of Catholic converts you know they feel uh quite that they they had this relationship where they couldn't access God directly they can't talk to God directly they had to always have an intermediary a priest you know even confessing
your sins all of that what they find refreshing about Islam is uh first of all that Islam explains the position of Jesus isaam very clearly uh in a completely understandable way you know so it does away with the Trinity um and actually in Christian history there were many people who didn't believe in the Trinity people like Isaac Newton so it's not um it's something that many people came to even those who weren't introduced to Islam you know um but these women they found this very compelling also that the fact that they could talk to God directly they don't need to go to a priest they don't need somebody in the middle that was the first big thing that attracts people attracted women to Islam
the second thing that attracted women to Islam is Believe It or Not uh Muslim masculinity okay so the women said often they had never experienced men the way they experienced Muslim men so the good behavior of the Muslim men that they came across you know being respectful not wanting to have a relationship with them not only trying to you know attract them use them discard them so many of them had had negative experiences with men and they' come to the conclusion that the only thing men want them for is you know one thing basically for exploitation um that when they met Muslim men and saw what a Muslim family was like for example and the role of the Muslim man in that family that was very
attractive to them the third thing that attracted uh female converts to Islam is the prospect of a life without intoxicants and a clean life you know so many people's lives in Britain America and and in Western countries in general are blighted by alcohol like we don't realize it especially those of us who've grown up as Muslim you know it's not something in our lives but what you realize when you interview these women is that so many of them grew up with parents who were alcoholics in fact I don't understand why it's not considered child abuse you know to be an alcoholic and and and and have children who you're supposed to be responsible for and that you're looking after so many of them had
suffered because of that and then also from Partners as well who were addicted to alcohol that they this idea they could have a life without those things without drugs without alcohol and uh for it to be a clean life uh really appealed to them the fourth element that attracted women to Islam was actually the family the Muslim family okay so many of them told me that they were for the first time invited to a Muslim home you know a Muslim family would share their meal with them and they would sit there and they would this was the first time they had been in a family that was a warm caring complete family so I think the fact that unfortunately in countries like Britain you know we have a phrase
broken Britain because you know so many families are broken I think last year was the first year that the majority of children that were born were born outside of marriage and what we find is that and and naten which is a like a an organization that does surveys and uh statistics they say that a million children in the UK have no male figure in their life at all so you can see this is this is what we mean by Broken Britain right it looks good on the outside but unfortunately what's happening on the inside there is societal Decay there decay of the family and so these women when they first entered a Muslim home or when they were welcomed into the Muslim Community and they saw that actually
this is the norm in the Muslim Community right having an intact family or even just having a family that actually cares gets together you know all the things that we take for granted this really attracted them to Islam because they wanted that and the last uh big factor that I found in my research that attracted women to Islam was again believe it or not the hijab and uh Islamic ideals of Womanhood so some of them talked about how they grew up with Muslim girls so I remember growing up in the UK you know sometimes we would be the only one who's wearing the hijab right the only Muslim sometimes and so this really resonated with me they said that they grew up with Muslim girls in their schools
and they would all always secretly admire them which is quite strange because you know when we were growing up we always thought we were treated you know people were racist towards us sometimes and we we've suffered discrimination because of it but actually these women were saying that the hijab was something that attracted them you they idea of having a dignified modest upbringing um and also like I said Sisterhood uh the idea of Sisterhood so many women said things like before they became Muslim they never experienced Sisterhood because they were always in competition with other women they were always first of all in mixed environments and so you know women I think it's been proven
psychologically that when women and men are in mixed environments uh even if there's one man in a group of women the women will VI for the attention of that man even subconsciously you know and so uh having gone from that and come to you know see what Islamic Sisterhood was like this was very attractive to them uh one more thing I mention is that many of them had never been looked after in terms of financially provided for by men okay so sometimes even their fathers when they got to the age of 16 you know unfortunately in Western societies fathers and daughters are almost like divorced at a certain age right the society in the name of Freedom uh separates girls from any kind of male figure
who could actually defend her support her provide for her and this leaves millions of girls very vulnerable right they're vulnerable to being exploited by other men they're vulnerable because they are in need of financial support or you know earning money and they sometimes you know it's doesn't come that easily and some of these women said you know all their lives they've had to fend for themselves so the idea that Islam makes it the man's respons possbility to uh provide and protect this was very attractive to them thank you very much for your answers we benefited a lot was really insightful inshallah we're going to meet in future projects