The invisible silenced women amidst Muslim extremism

In a recent CNN interview, Mosab Hassan Youssef, known as the ‘Green Prince’ or the son of the founders of Hamas, expresses his heartfelt desire to see his mother, whom he has not seen for years. Mosab, the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding leader of Hamas, left his birthplace, culture, and people behind when he realised the jihad machinery of his father’s network. Following the Israel retaliation to Hamas’ murderous rampage on October 7, Mosab is often appearing on interviews describing the Israeli forces’ strategy and defence. In this particular interview, he emphasises the importance of reuniting with his aging mother, who has never left the area and is nearing the end of her life. He seeks a chance to apologise and share a hug with her once again through the clearly befuddled CNN anchor who promises to do what she can. This should focus on the stark reality of the mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, and nieces of radical Islamic extremists, and how they are often invisible, silenced, and usually not referred to. Even in the aftermath of the Kashmiri terrorist Burhan Wani’s elimination, the focus by Indian TV networks and eminent journalists was on his headmaster father. He cashed in on his son’s popularity after his death to do an Indian tour of “peace and reconciliation” with the Art of Living founder, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The mother was never interviewed; she would have parroted the father who has a recorded statement of how he was proud of his son’s martyrdom (shahadat). However, any serious journalist would have followed up the story for years and got the mother on camera away from the prying eyes of the gatekeepers of the ‘oppression narrative’ and heard her story too, how she was without agency and no control over the decisions of the family. What are the real stories of these mothers of sons forced into jihad from childhood; the views of sisters of those recruited as child soldiers of Allah; the tales of the nieces of those whose childhood was stolen from them long before they even picked up a stone or an AK-47. The numerous half-widows and their orphaned children have a lot to say about a jihadi ecosystem that glorified death, hate, terror, lies, propaganda, coercion, manufactured consent for aazadi and an oppressive totalitarian surveillance on dissenters. These stories lay buried in the dominant narrative put out by Pakistani propaganda machinery, amplified by the overground workers of the terror groups employed in the Kashmiri media. Islamic culture has always had this issue — the invisibility of women. A video on YouTube from 2012 shows an atheist convention in Australia. The peaceful gathering of people for an atheist conference is disrupted by Islamists who object to the event, and sloganeering ‘burn in hell’, etc. The attending members from all walks of life and nationalities begin to chant, “where are the women”, towards the Islamists, effectively shutting them up. This is a question we need to ask every social media influencer from Islamic heritage or Muslim politician or activist and human rights advocate who professes liberalism, from spokespersons who claim to speak up for the entire Muslim community — ‘where are your women, why are they not by your side supporting your work?’ The visible Muslim women who speak about the ‘Muslim genocide by Hindus’ in India are either siblings recruited into the Intifada factory or husband-wife duo at war against the Government of India, both types currently being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate for funds embezzlement. As in the case of Mosab, there is a lot of disagreement with the liberal or progressive views of the individual swimming against the current or ‘going against the tribe’. The dissenters are classified as native informants, house niggers, sarkaari Mussalman, or kapo. Occasionally, a Muslim woman displays independent reasoning, and willing to go the distance to cross the ‘green line’, which means delving into the dangerous territory of theology and criticism of scriptures, risking a fatwa, or an outright call for her murder on charges of blasphemy. Almost all the influencers keep themselves secure from separating political Islam from radical Islam, though the former takes inspiration from the latter and there is no separation of the two. These Muslim women influencers receive a lot of praise from the cabal of course, desperate to get approval from the usual apologists of the Left-‘liberal’ leaning variety, which reformers refer to as the ‘wallah bro club’ or male Muslim approval. The Malala Yousufzais and the Mona Eltahawys and the Amina Waduds are no match for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a victim of female genital mutilation (FGM). Masih Alinejad, the Iranian activist against mandatory veiling; Asra Nomani, Wall Street journalist and Muslim reformer, speaking up for her colleague Daniel Pearl, beheaded by jihadis; Yasmine Mohammad, Canadian, who used to be married to an al-Qaeda terrorist, turned author with her book Unveiled are a few other names that come to mind. These women from Muslim heritage having endured the Muslim-on-Muslim atrocities, are independent reasoning women who forged their own path towards the empowerment of the silenced Muslims. Journalism will have to do its job; anchors, reporters, feature writers, photojournalists will have to seek opportunities to obtain the independent opinions of women from Muslim backgrounds who do not resemble the system which created the terror in the first place. A Palestinian woman crying and cursing the terror group Hamas is immediately silenced on video as she mourns the death of yet another Palestinian son. Another video shows a Palestinian woman cursing expletives at the Hamas founders sitting in luxury in Qatar, their children driving SUVs and partying abroad, while the ordinary Palestinians are in poverty, terror, and deprived of basic amenities. The resistance of Iranian women to the despotic IRGC and the Iranian mullah regime proves that the Muslim women are demanding answers for the misogyny and patriarchy within Islamic culture. The defiance of the Afghan women and men in the face of the Taliban is providing proof that it is women of Muslim heritage who are holding the mullahs accountable for the death, destruction, poverty, and regression that their Wahhabi interpretations bring on Muslim societies under the shadow of the gun culture. The Indian women mobilising against the practice of triple talaq, halala, mutah marriages is evidence of how much women empowerment amongst the Muslims is needed to eradicate regressive practices effectively, while the cottage industry of ‘Islamophobia’ deters their moves. Male Muslims who have liberal views and speak about Muslim enlightenment should be asked where their invisible and marginalised mothers, spouses, daughters, sisters, cousins, or nieces are. Then only they can be called true reformers. Mosab said in the interview, “There is a mother too, my mother. I am the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, but I am the son of my mother too. I need to see her; the world must see and hear her before she is just a memory.” The author is a writer and an educationist from Srinagar. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. 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