picture in my mind

I dropped by a mosque this evening to do my prayers,
before I went on for my Arabic class.

And I was hearing snippets of the sermon that was taking place.


My goodness, my ears started burning with anger.
Just -- the way he spoke about women!

I cannot recall word for word what was said obviously (because that is notoriously not how my memory works). But I do remember the general gist of it being good women defined as nice, domesticated, and taking care of their husbands, as if that was the entirety of a woman's existence. Thank you for alienating women like me.

It did not help that earlier that morning on the way to work, I was listening to clips of talks by a speaker I generally respected -- but then he spoke some about marriage, and started saying things like: Unfortunately, if women waited to complete their university degrees and then think about marriage, they can only hope to get second-rate offers from men (i.e. as second wives, or from men who were childless -- like what is that even). Apparently, he believed that it was one or the other -- you choose your degree or you choose marriage. It's very difficult to have both; if you choose degree then you would have missed the age of marriage. He did provide a caveat in that it was not impossible, but it was difficult.



Ya Rasulullah, these men, I don't care how much knowledge they supposedly have. They claim to follow you, but they know so little of how much you champion women. And truly, if I didn't have you, my heart would be in pieces. They forget that the first woman you married was 15 years your senior, and a business woman at that. They forget that of all the women you married, only one was a young virgin. They forget how much you love women.

And if they had any part of the heart you have,
they wouldn't have made one of their own Muslimah
feel so small and unworthy a woman.