By TwoCircles.net staff reporter
Bhopal: The U.S.-led war on terror has backfired in more than one way. Keep aside rise in Muslim extremism and militancy, the war has caused spread of Islam in Europe and America and in India it has awakened Muslim women too.
Seen as fallout of the war on terror and Iraq invasion, Muslim women in India particularly in Delhi, Lucknow, Hyderabad and Bhopal have started to learn and teach Islamic subjects. They are holding weekly religious classes where they learn and discuss variant issues from divorce to jihad.
In Bhopal, women in groups gather every week and ask questions and listen to debates on Islamic issues. These tutorials are said to have support of neighbourhood mosques from where time and venue of the program is announced. Residents are requested to send their female members of the family to the program.
What is special about these classes is their management. Both teachers and pupils are women. The tutorials usually start with an orator addressing the class. The class is not bound with many norms: the speaker can be interrupted during his speech and explanation on some points could be sought.
The issues raised and discussed in the program cater to the basic pillars of Islam and the life of Prophet Muhammad on one hand and haram (prohibited) and halal (permissible) food on the other. The audience comprise generally graduates and postgraduates, lawyers, doctors, engineers and businesswomen. The venue of the program keeps rotating among participants’ homes.
Observers say these for-women and by-women sessions have helped the otherwise silent and oppressed gender gain a sense of initiative, organisation and independence.