Egypt: New draft law deems women ‘legally incapacitated’

BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/03/egypt-new-draft-law-deems-women-legally-incapacitated;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Women are deemed inferior in Islamic law, and a draft law in Egypt reflects just how “unjust, regressive and demeaning” this can be:

An Egyptian woman is a legally incapacitated person who has no right to travel outside the country or manage her own children’s basic affairs without a man’s prior consent, according to a new personal status draft law that recently caused uproar across Egypt.

A woman is undermined, having no right to get her marriage ratified without a male guardian present regardless of her age or social status, according to the draft law.

Let’s see how long it takes for women’s rights groups everywhere to point this story out and scream foul. Warning: don’t hold your breath. After all, Islamic apologists stick to the lie that Islam recognizes women’s rights.

Note:

At the time when the world celebrates the International Women’s day, the Egyptian cabinet, surprisingly involving eight female ministers, recently approved what was described by women’s rights advocates as a rather regressive law that strips women of the rights they had seized over the past decades.

There is a widespread irony: many Muslim women (including Islamic State brides) perpetuate the inferiority of women and accept their own “place” of inferiority; they defend degrading Islamic tenets against women. They defend them with pride and advocate them with scorn against infidels who stand up for the equality of women. More on the status of women in Islam can be seen in the article HERE.

In addition, women are commanded to be fully covered:

(Quran 24:31) And tell the believing women to reduce of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed.

If a woman does not cover, she is guilty of bringing about her own “abuse”:

(Quran 33:59) O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused.

“‘Unjust, regressive and demeaning’: New draft law deems Egyptian women legally incapacitated,” by Horriya Marzouk, The New Arab, March 8, 2021:

An Egyptian woman is a legally incapacitated person who has no right to travel outside the country or manage her own children’s basic affairs without a man’s prior consent, according to a new personal status draft law that recently caused uproar across Egypt.

At the time when the world celebrates the International Women’s day, the Egyptian cabinet, surprisingly involving eight female ministers, recently approved what was described by women’s rights advocates as a rather regressive law that strips women of the rights they had seized over the past decades.

The 45-page draft law, leaked on February 23 by local independent Youm 7 newspaper, known for being loyal to the government, has been referred to the lower-house of the parliament for approval.

For over a century now, Egyptian women have been subjected to legislative trial and error. In 1915, a committee of high-ranking Islamic scholars attempted to form a personal status law in accordance with the four schools of Islamic thought within ‘fiqh’ (jurisprudence), but failed to achieve a concrete result.

Five years later, the then-Azhar Grand Imam Mohamed Abduh proposed an enlightened law that regulated marriage and divorce among other family-related issues.

It was not until 1929 for an Egyptian personal status law to be enacted based on the four schools, with amendments coming up throughout the years. The current law has not been amended since 2000.

“We practically have no contemporary legislation. We are following an archaic law that has been introduced more than 100 years ago,” lawyer and women’s rights defender Azza Soliman told The New Arab.

The bill in question may appear at first to be pro-women’s rights. But after being analysed by legal experts, it could be interpreted otherwise.

A woman is undermined, having no right to get her marriage ratified without a male guardian present regardless of her age or social status, according to the draft law.

While some Islamic scholars issued a ‘fatwa’ (religious edict) that an adult woman above the age of 21 has the right to get married on her own, many others declined the idea, insisting that there must be a male guardian to approve the marriage.

Not only that, a male guardian has the right to file a lawsuit and has the woman’s marriage legally annulled within one year of its registration or his knowledge of it, either for reason of social inequality or because she got married against his will. The only conditions that prevent the annulment of matrimony are childbirth and pregnancy.

A mother has no authority to decide issues pertaining to the healthcare, education, travel and even the birth registry of her child in the absence the father.

Another article has to do with a divorced woman being unable to travel with her child outside Egypt without the former husband’s approval. Yet if he has custody of the child, he has all the right to travel with him or her without the mother’s consent….