Family life is central to Islam and women's place is at the heart of the family.
Paradise, said the Holy Prophet, lies at the feet of the mother.
The Holy Quran recognizes the different roles of men and women, of old and young, but all are dressed as equals.
In Islam, women were given rights to own property, rights of inheritance, rights of divorce, rights to financial support from their husbands.
Fourteen hundred years before such rights were finally gained by women in the West.
The very first verse says that we created you from a single soul and from that soul created its mate.
And from those two spread throughout the face of the earth countless men and women, so that you are then incited to revere God who created you and to revere the womb that bore you.
The Holy Quran recognizes the different roles of women in Islam and women in the West.
The Holy Quran does not command women to cover their faces, but it does insist upon modesty of dress for men and women alike.
Traditional women's dress, hijab, chador, jilbab, the term varies slightly from country to country, is usually the first thing to arouse Western prejudice.
It's very odd for a Westerner to see a woman with full hijab, especially if it's black or something like it's in Iran or in Saudi Arabia or so.
So it brings to his mind all the negative ideas about Islam and Islamic countries and say, oh you see that woman, she's oppressed.
She must be an oppressed woman at home. She must have married her husband without her own will.
Of course she can't work with the things she's wearing, so she doesn't have financial independence and so on.
And then he makes conclusions and I don't think that is right.
In fact, many modern Muslim women who might once have gone bareheaded now wear the hijab with pride as a mark of their faith.
You cannot miss a Muslim woman in the crowd. And for whatever reason, it does become a provocative statement.
It says this person is connected with this system of thought, with this worldview.
It's easier for the men to hide than it is for a woman who makes that identification. For that reason, women gravitate towards making that.
I want to be identified as a Muslim. I want it to be recognized that I want the respect that was intended for a woman,
that I want to be considered on the basis of my thought and of my spirit and not on the basis of my body or my looks.
So there are multiple levels of satisfaction, personal, psychological, purposes of identification.
And then it is a political statement that says, I take this stand opposite Western modernity or Western prejudices.
So it has become a multifaceted aspect of the woman's identity and symbolism in the modern world.
In Northern Nigeria, for instance, traditional Muslims of both sexes usually wear modest but colorful clothes, especially for festivals.
But recently, some devout women have chosen to wear full hijab as a sign of their commitment.
In their view, it is Western women who are oppressed and exploited, while Muslim women are held in high regard.
If you have a diamond, do you think you will just take this diamond and place it somewhere like this courtyard?
No, you will take the diamond, maybe wrap it somewhere and then put it in another cover and then put it in a very nice place in the house, isn't it?
So this is an honor. It shows that the woman, her body is so precious that it's not supposed to be looked on by anybody, just anyone.
Just watching, I mean, just looking at her and getting some pleasure. But she hides it and only presents it to those who are supposed to see it.
It is not liberation when you say women should go naked. It is just oppression because men want to see them naked.
So they try to tell them that they should be liberated. They shouldn't put on this cover we are putting because they want to cheat them.
They want to oppress them. They want to see their nakedness. That is why they are preaching that Islam is oppressing women.
So they have to be liberated. They have to go naked. They want to see them naked. That is the reason behind it. That's what I feel.
Another thing is that they say that it is liberation for women to go out, to do some work and then contribute to the family.
You understand? To contribute, maybe to get their salary and then help in the running of the family.
All this is oppression. It is just a way of getting women to do the job of training their children and the extra job of earning the livelihood for the family.
Instead of the man to be the one to go and do that. That doesn't mean that Islam has not allowed a woman to work.
But it shouldn't be whatever she earns belongs to her. She doesn't have to contribute to the family, just like it is happening in the West.
Yet I myself know of some cases in which Muslim women are denied some of their most basic rights.
But such oppression is un-Islamic. It's against both the letter and the spirit of the Holy Quran.
And men who treat women as inferiors have absolutely no religious authority for doing so.
You will find parts in the Muslim world, in villages and in the rural areas, where women are abused.
When they don't enjoy equal rights, when they are backward, when they are denied some of their most basic rights, yes, this does exist.
It's not a product of Islam. It is there in spite of Islam.
And if people are educated properly in Islam, then women would immediately retain their status of equality with men.
In the Nile Delta, where Egyptians have farmed the land for 6,000 years, the pattern of family life has always served the needs of an agricultural community.
So relationships between husband and wife are determined by long-established custom, as well as by religion.
Faiza and her four children live in the house belonging to her parents-in-law.
She cooks and cleans for the whole family while her husband is away earning money in Saudi Arabia.
Faiza has firm ideas about her husband's and her own rights and duties in married life.
Faiza was married at 13.
Her horizons are bounded by her duties as a wife and mother.
She herself had little education and few expectations.
Her life is very much involved with her husband's family.
She shares the workload of jobs like baking bread with one of her sisters-in-law.
Women here accept that it is their responsibility to be guardians of the family honour, as well as cooks and cleaners.
Faiza accepts that her husband has the right to punish her if she does bring dishonour on his name.
Faiza sometimes works in the fields with another of her sisters-in-law.
Faiza puts up with a great deal, but there are some things which she won't stand for.
Faiza is adamant that all four of her children should go through school, her daughters as well as her sons.
She is determined her daughters will not be pushed into an early marriage as she was herself.
Marvat, the older girl, is already 12.
How would Faiza react if her husband wanted Marvat to be married at 13 or 14?
How do Faiza's ideas about the rights and duties of husbands and wives match up to the interpretation of a distinguished expert in Islamic law, Sheikh Al-Ghazali?
Again and again the Holy Quran instructs men to be compassionate and kind to their wives.
If there is disagreement, the husband must make every effort to reach a solution by persuasion and argument.
If he is ever driven to strike his wife, it must be in a purely token form.
The husband strikes his wife in two ways. The first is that she enters a strange man into the house.
The woman must not enter a strange man into her house. Why did he enter? Why did he disagree with her?
The second is that he asked her to wear a dress, but she refused.
In this case, the strike must be done with a stick, like a wooden stick. It is a kind of symbol, not a strike.
The strike must not be done with a woman wearing a slave's skin.
The Holy Quran's pronouncements on polygamy are widely misunderstood, even by Muslims.
A man may marry up to four wives, but only in exceptional circumstances, and only if he treats them all equally and impartially.
In many Muslim countries, a man can marry a second woman only with the express permission of his first wife.
Today, a very small proportion of Muslims have more than one wife.
In fact, many Egyptian women are professional people, doctors, teachers, lawyers, just as they might be in the West.
Sana Haroun is a wife and mother, but she is also a university lecturer in agricultural science.
Women have been teaching in Egyptian schools and universities for the past 40 years, and Sana is very much in control of a mixed class.
Sana is interested in her students' views about the roles of young men and women in contemporary Egyptian society.
How would the men feel about their sisters going out for the evening?
Do you feel that your sister is not trustworthy enough?
I know my sister, but I feel that she is not trustworthy enough.
These things make you feel like you are in the middle of something.
I would say that my mother would allow her to go out for a trip, but I was still afraid.
You might be afraid at first, but you might be convinced today.
How can a woman not go to university? I want to hear your opinion.
I think that women should be able to do what they want, but in the fields where they can do it.
Women have no limits, no different abilities from men.
Egyptian women are now in police, and this field is considered to be the best in the world.
Egyptian women are now in police, and they are being shot and chased by criminals.
In Egypt, there are women who are in police and are being arrested by criminals.
This is the hardest field to overcome.
The police are not as tough as the police officers.
This is a modern cops and robbers drama on Egyptian television.
In this scene, the cop is the woman in a very un-Islamic disguise.
Sana keeps a close eye on her son's viewing habits.
If I am very, very restricted in my house,
and if I didn't talk enough with my children
and teach them what is right and what is wrong,
if they feel that they are not very open with me,
I am absolutely right.
They will learn a lot of wrong things from outside.
And if I ask my son, don't watch this kind of movie,
he can say, for example, maybe he can tell me why, Mommy,
and if he didn't feel that my answer is satisfying him,
he will go just the same like what Sameer said.
He will go outside.
It's very easy to go outside and do whatever he like to do.
He can watch this kind of movie outside.
And that's why, even if I have a daughter,
it's very, very important to be very open with her,
because I think if you are very restricted,
right now in the 20th century,
there is no way to control all her movement.
There is no way.
The only way to guide her.
Sanaa's husband Sameer is also a university lecturer.
He helps with the boys' homework,
but she doesn't like him to help with the housework.
Okay, this number here, and this number here.
So although she gets the boys to do odd jobs,
Sanaa does all the housework herself,
and she sometimes finds it hard to reconcile her working life
with her domestic duties.
It is very difficult,
but I love both of them.
I love my work very much,
and I love my house and my children,
my husband very much.
But if I feel any time that I have to do any kind of sacrifice
between my work and my house,
absolutely I will leave my work.
I will stay home.
But until this point, I have a good health,
and I feel that I can manage my time.
And there is one thing that is very, very important,
my husband,
because I think since we got married,
he always pushed me to be a successful woman in my career.
Sanaa's relationship with Sameer is very even-handed,
though she does accept that he should take ultimate responsibility
in making decisions affecting the family.
But she would not stand for staking another wife.
Well, I am not going to Burma.
I am not going to give him a permission for that.
And I just have a feeling if he did that,
I can't stay with him.
I just can't.
Because even the religion gives us,
gives the man permission to do that under some conditions.
But if he just like to marry another woman
and just to enjoy being a husband for another wife,
I don't think I can stand that.
Sanaa's relationship with her mother,
Hajja Sosan, is also very close.
They meet every day,
and Sanaa still takes careful note of her mother's views.
I don't want to be a husband.
In fact, relationships with the entire family are still very strong.
Sanaa's two sisters, their husbands and children,
share the same apartment block with Hajja Sosan,
and the whole family often gets together.
Even in a big city like Cairo,
family ties usually seem to be stronger than in the West.
But of course, there are social casualties in Muslim countries,
and Islam has its own system for helping them.
It's called Zakat, a form of charity
which is one of the central tenets of the faith.
In this mosque in Cairo,
Zakat extends to teaching small girls from poor families to read,
a skill which they might not otherwise learn.
But in the West,
Zakat is a form of charity which is one of the central tenets of the faith.
A skill which they might not otherwise learn.
Teaching at the mosque is built around the Holy Quran.
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed.
The King of mankind, the God of mankind,
from the evil of the evil-doers.
Hajja Sosan is deeply involved with this Zakat committee,
and she herself teaches some of the older women to read and write.
It's the duty of all Muslims who can afford it
to give a proportion of their income to Zakat,
and this is distributed usually on a weekly basis to the poor.
But in a modern city like Cairo,
there are family problems to which new solutions are being applied.
Nowadays, there are a small number of old people's homes,
an institution imported from the West, which many Muslims deplore.
This is the Dar al-Hana, one of half a dozen such homes in Cairo.
It provides sheltered accommodation for old people
who can afford the cost of living here,
or whose families can afford to send them.
The Holy Quran tells us that old people are to be respected and cared for,
not as a favour, but as a duty.
The concept of an old people's home is a brick
with one of the most sacred traditions of the Muslim family.
It is a response to some of the difficult conditions of modern city life.
As the children grow up, they need more room to sleep and to study and to play.
So an old person won't be comfortable.
And the family themselves, the younger family,
would feel that the person who could live somewhere else would be the old person.
And then there are economic matters.
Nowadays, many people work abroad.
In the past, we didn't do that.
So they have to leave their parents.
I cannot make a man leave a very good job abroad
just to sit beside his father or mother.
Somebody else can look after the father and the mother,
and he can come from time to time to see them.
Or if they are healthy enough, he can take them from time to time to his home.
So all conditions are changing in life nowadays.
Cairo is an ancient city struggling to cope with the demands of modern life.
The family here is still in better shape than in most comparable cities in the West.
But ideas about the family and the status of women vary from one Muslim country to another,
not because of differences in religion, but because of differences in culture.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world,
with an even larger percentage of Muslims than Egypt.
But the cultural inheritance is very different.
Islam was brought here by 16th century traders and scholars
and spread relatively quickly.
Here on the island of Java, the prevailing religion was Hinduism for over a thousand years.
Indonesian Muslims still enjoy the old Hindu myths.
These Javanese dancers reenact the story of the Hindu Lord Rama and his love for Sita.
Every evening, but especially on Fridays,
Muslims come to the island to pray for the Lord Rama.
And especially on Fridays, Muslims flock to pray at the tomb of Gunung Jati,
one of the nine Muslim saints who first brought Islam to Indonesia.
Some orthodox Muslims complain that ceremonies like this are not Islamic,
that they have overtones of Hinduism.
Muslims see nothing wrong in giving thanks to God with incense and flowers.
In Java, they even tolerate old Dutch pictorial tiles.
One of these features a church as an adornment to a Muslim shrine.
Superficial differences in local dress and customs should not blind us to the oneness of Islam.
Marriage is the essential bond which holds all Muslim societies together.
The union of man and wife is a union of equals.
The families of the bride and groom are here to witness the fairness of the wedding contract.
In Islam, celibacy is frowned on and sexual pleasure is a blessing to be enjoyed by both husband and wife.
In the countryside, it's easy to see how marriage holds the social fabric together.
Omar Ghojali and his wife Aisha perform a harvest ceremony together.
It's an old Javanese custom which they've been told is un-Islamic and this is the last time they'll perform it.
The folk customs, the harvest festival draws together members of the family, daughters, daughters-in-law and daughters-in-law.
Daughters, daughters-in-law, nieces, all of whom share the task of cutting the first bundles of seed rice for the coming year.
Omar is the headman of his village and the family are relatively well off.
By local standards, their home is quite luxurious but prosperity doesn't prevent Aisha from sharing the heavy kitchen chores with other members of the family.
Aisha is mother of seven children and now a grandmother.
Two of her daughters live nearby.
They all visit frequently and they and their children spend a lot of time in the family home.
From an early age, boys are given religious instruction by their fathers or uncles.
Little girls will learn from their mothers and their aunts.
So although affection is lavished on children of both sexes, there are marked differences in their upbringing.
They are more observant in their home and in their school hours.
They are more strict in their way of interacting.
Even though many of their friends come, we choose which one to choose.
So the way to choose a husband for a girl is clear.
The parents have to agree with their children.
Pregnancy before marriage would bring great dishonor to the family.
I am very angry. I am ashamed because I am the head of the community.
I am ashamed to be watched by people.
My children are always angry.
I am a family member. I am not afraid of anything.
What if your husband is killed?
Maybe I will be kicked out.
The problem is that it is an incidental event.
People say it is a bad thing for the children.
It is a mistake of the parents.
But I have not had a child.
So it is clear that we will accept it.
But in a certain way.
The Indonesian government sponsors mother and baby clinics.
And family planning is official government policy.
There are no Islamic objections to contraception.
So modern Indonesian women are less burdened with unwanted children than women in many non-Muslim countries.
As long as the social fabric of marriage and the family endures, village life is relatively stable and harmonious.
We are four months old.
We are in the middle of the road.
Cities like Jakarta are beset with all the problems caused by a massive drift of population to the towns.
Rapid growth and sudden technological and social change.
Everything is on the move and social casualties are much more in evidence.
Divorce is on the increase.
The Holy Prophet himself deplored it.
But there is an Islamic method of coping with it.
This is a family court following Islamic law, the Sharia.
The senior judge in this court is a woman.
Women judges are rare in the Muslim world.
But there are no religious objections to such an appointment.
Firdus Alamudi is a divorcee.
She is in court with her lawyer to apply for the maintenance which her ex-husband has never paid.
Firdus says she was tricked into a polygamous marriage when her husband lied about divorcing his first wife.
I didn't intend to become a second wife or to be one of the wives.
When he married me, it was on a one-to-one basis.
I didn't know he had another wife.
I knew he had a wife before.
But he came to my parents with the divorce papers and showed it to my mother and to my brothers and to my sister.
And we believed him.
And so the marriage went on.
We didn't know that he came back again.
He returned again to his first wife and then he married again to another.
I didn't know about that.
Afterwards, yes, but not when I got married to him.
You can say I was being a fool or being made a fool of.
He said, you would crawl and beg for a reunion because you are very poor.
You don't have anything.
And you are asking for this divorce and you are going to ask.
You are going to ask me back.
You are going to crawl to ask for forgiveness and ask for my return to our house, he said.
And unless you do that, you get no single cent from me.
Not a single cent.
Despite changes in the law in some Muslim countries, divorce still tends to be easier for men than women.
But every effort must be made at a reconciliation and a man has no right to leave his wife penniless.
The first years were terrible.
It was a hard time, but eventually the children learned about the situation, learned about my war.
And in the end they were very helpful, very understanding, very helpful.
And they have become my greatest assets now.
Devi Motech is not a woman to be pushed around by anyone.
Devi runs the most successful management consultancy in Indonesia.
She motivates her clients, many of whom are women, with sharp advice about how to succeed in modern business.
Devi Motech knows what she's talking about.
She owns and directs two large clothing factories, employing thousands of women, here making winter anoraks for the export market.
Devi sees no difficulty in reconciling her international business career with her Muslim faith.
But she believes that some people confuse the Muslim religion with cultural attitudes.
I beg your pardon sir, if you say Muslim country, don't mix between Muslim country, Muslim religions and the Gulf Arabic country.
What I'm talking about here, you know, we are Indonesia, we have another custom, we have our own custom.
But we really put women in the high position, same ranking as men and women, we hand in hand to develop this country.
Same in Muslim religion. In Muslim religion they always say, you know, they put women very high.
They say, you know, paradise is in the woman's feet.
You can see, you can imagine how put in the women religions, they really put the women in the high position.
And I believe, you know, in Indonesian custom same, you know.
So what I did now, I believe, the wife of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is the interpreter.
She is by herself is a woman interpreter and she's a big business woman in that time.
Can you imagine that? So I believe, you know, we follow what the religion teach us to be interpreters.
And you open the manpower's job, you know, you create a lot of things for other people.
Because I believe what you've done is not only for you, for yourself, but you have to other people too.
You think what other people do.
The success of some Muslim women like Devi Motiq points up a paradox facing countries like Indonesia.
The more successful they are in promoting international trade, the more they are exposed to the influence of western standards of ethics and social behavior.
As elsewhere in the Muslim world, the feeling that model standards are declining has provoked a Muslim reaction.
Nutella was once a successful model.
Six years ago, she gave up the prospect of a glittering career and rediscovered her Muslim faith.
She was a Muslim woman.
She gave up the prospect of a glittering career and rediscovered her Muslim faith.
She believes that models are often sexually exploited by men.
Some people think that B-modeling is a woman can you ask to go out, you can ask her to date, and you can, you know, like sex object, you know, that's modeling.
So I'm not like that woman. I'm not that kind of woman.
So I think, oh, that's bad to be a model.
So I left it.
Instead, Nutella went back to school, then university.
To her, there's no contradiction in operating a computer and wearing the jilbab.
On the contrary, she enjoys the freedom she now has from male harassment.
Since I'm wearing jilbab, I feel that's more safe, more protected than men.
When I walk, if I walk, the woman make a joke of me, say, hey, hello, because she say nothing.
But since I wear jilbab, they don't say anything or their eyes want to eat me.
But they just say, assalamu alaikum.
He just give me regard, you know, assalamu alaikum.
And I answer, wa alaikum salam. I'm very happy.
That's the difference.
If the Muslim want to be a modern, they can study.
They don't have to wearing Western clothes or Western culture, like dance or kissing in front of people to be a modern.
So I want to be a modern career woman.
Not wearing my jilbab or I go to dance, to discotheque or make free sex.
No, no, that's not modern.
I think that's old fashioned.
Before the prophet come to the world, there is free sex already.
So I think right now, if they do that again, they are old fashioned.
Despite a resurgence of Islam, the Western way of life has taken a strong hold on Indonesia.
But does this kind of emancipation really make things better or worse for women?
Muslims are appalled by many aspects of modern consumer culture because they believe that Western family life is close to collapse.
Increasing divorce rates, teenage promiscuity, single parent families all seem to go together with Western pop culture.
This is why Muslim parents are so anxious to prevent young people from being seduced by the instant fix of Western hedonism.
And this is why Muslim women themselves look to the future not by mimicking the West, but by looking instead to the high status which Islam itself properly understood has always accorded to their sex.
If women had a better status and then they give away that status generation after generation and accept certain circumstances, this is to some extent their fault.
And if they have now circumstances that they don't accept, they have a responsibility to change it.
I mean not just asking for freedom and asking for equality and asking for more participation, but going for it, to be ready to sacrifice for it.
You are willing to deal with the inequities. You are also not just willing to deal with it, you are willing to fight the inequities because you know that there is a potential that rests within this system
to experience for every human being, whether Muslim or not, such a great sense of harmony, such a transcendent potential that you dedicate your life to it.
It becomes a private, a public, a well-known, a hidden, it permeates every aspect of your being.
That is why it is that no matter what I have to do from now until the day I die to try to get others to experience or at least understand that this experience rests in Islam, that I will always be able to feel at one with it.
I will deal with the injustices. I will practice the practices. I will sometimes experience things because I am a woman that I know that are unfair.
But in the end, the faith that I have that there exists a form of guidance that actually allows me to be at one with the rest of the creation and with the Creator that rests in the Quran, there is not a chance that I would go anyplace else.
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