WUNRN
http://www.rferl.org/content/islamic-state-womens-manifesto/26832051.html
According to Islamic State's manifesto, the Western idea that women should be "liberated" from the home has been a failure.
A manifesto for women published by the Islamic State (IS)
group has criticized Western attitudes to women, saying that this so-called
"Western model" has failed, that a woman's place is in the home, and
that Western women's fashions, like earrings, are the work of the devil.
The manifesto, titled Women of the Islamic State, was shared
on the Internet on January 23 by the IS group's all-women unit, the Al-Khanssa
Brigade. An English version of the manifesto was shared on February 5 by the
Britain-based anti-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation. It focuses on
women's daily lives and the role of women in an Islamic society and in the
"caliphate" (the name given by the IS group to the areas under its
control).
The overarching message of the manifesto is that women
should be "sedentary" while men are characterized by "movement
and flux."
Women of the Islamic State does not beat around the bush,
but states unequivocally that a woman's "fundamental function" is
"in the house with her husband and children."
According to the manifesto, the Western idea that women
should be "liberated" from the home has been a failure. This model,
which is "preferred by infidels in the West" is a falsehood,
according to the IS group, because the Islamic "Prophetic tradition"
says that women should not leave the home even for prayer.
"Verily God has ordained this sedentary existence
for women, and it cannot be better in any way," the manifesto insists.
The manifesto offers some explanations as to why it is
very difficult for women to work outside the home.
"They have 'monthly complications' and pregnancies
and so on," the manifesto explains, adding that women also have
"responsibilities to their husbands, sons and religion."
Women, Know Your Limits!
Women of the Islamic State also -- unsurprisingly --
criticizes what it says is the Western idea that women should obtain
"worldly knowledge" with the aim of trying to "prove that her
intelligence is greater than a man's."
However, the manifesto does not say that women should be
illiterate, but that God intended them to learn to "read and write about
their religion and fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence]."
Studying for university degrees in such useless
disciplines as science and other "Western" inventions is clearly a
step too far for women, according to the Islamic State treatise, which is
scathing about women who "flit here and there to get degrees and so
on" and who "study the brain cells of crows, grains of sand, and the
arteries of fish!"
Earrings and hair "shaved in some places and not
others" are the Devil's work
The Islamic State's manifesto on women also covers the
important issue of women's fashion which, unsurprisingly, it condemns as the
work of "Iblis" or the devil.
The manifesto conflates jewelry such as earrings with
plastic surgery, claiming that the devil encourages vulnerable women to
"spend huge amounts of money to change God's creation" including via
surgery to alter "the nose, ear, chin and nails."
The devil, according to the manifesto, preys on women in
"fashion shops and beauty salons," encouraging them to have
"things dangling from ears" and "hair shaved in some places and
not others."
Unseen And Unheard
The IS women's manifesto insists that women should not
leave the home except in "exceptional circumstances" but says that
women can wage jihad in cases where an enemy is attacking her country and there
are not enough men to fight.
Women are also allowed to work as doctors or teachers,
but only if they observe strict Shari'a Law.
Although women are permitted to go outside in these
extreme cases, the manifesto reiterates that, under normal circumstances, women
should be unseen and unheard.
"It is always preferable for a woman to remain
hidden and veiled, to maintain society from behind this veil," the
manifesto says.
It is "legitimate" for girls to be married at
the age of nine, the manifesto adds, noting that their husbands should
"not be more than twenty years old."
Even if they fail to attract a husband at nine, the
manifesto points out that "most pure girls will be married by sixteen or
seventeen."
The manifesto ends by detailing some of the horrors that
women are forced to endure in Saudi Arabia, where "women are able to work
alongside men in shops like banks, where they are not separated by even a thin
sheet of paper."
Saudi women are also "allowed to appear in ID
photographs," while in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, "males and females are
able to mingle in the hallways as if they were in an infidel country in
Europe."