Press Release
On October 3rd, the Women’s Section in the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir launched an important global campaign entitled, “The Family: Challenges & Islamic Solutions” which will culminate in an international women’s conference at the end of October to be attended by speakers from across the world.
Strong, unified family structures are at the heart of strong, stable, and successful societies. They are vital in providing physical, emotional, and material support and wellbeing to all their members and to ensure the effective care and righteous upbringing of children. However, today there is a crisis affecting the harmony and unity of marriage and family life in communities across the world, including within the Muslim lands. The import of western culture into the Muslim world, with its destructive liberal sexual freedoms, hedonistic individualistic lifestyles, materialistic capitalist ideals and divisive feminist concepts such as gender equality, through mediums such as the entertainment industry, education systems, social media, and feminist organisations have undermined and eroded the institution of marriage and caused an epidemic of family breakdown. This has been exacerbated by the presence of non-Islamic Arab, Asian, or African traditions within our Muslim communities which carry harmful views and practices that have caused discord in marital and family life. All this, alongside a loss of clarity in the understanding of the Islamic social laws, has led to detrimental expectations of marriage, generated confusion regarding the roles and rights of men and women in marital and family life, and resulted in a significant rise in extramarital relationships, domestic violence and divorce in Muslim communities across the world. This is alongside causing a delay in the age of marriage, the devaluing of motherhood and a fertility crisis due to couples choosing to have fewer children. This disintegration of family life in the Muslim lands has been facilitated by the corrupt rule of secular and other non-Islamic regimes in the region through their promotion and implementation of liberal, secular and capitalist values, policies, laws and systems which spread immoral ideas and lifestyles within their societies. Furthermore, these regimes, along with Western governments, international organisations such as the UN and feminist movements are engaged in a major struggle to further reform the Islamic family and social laws along secular and liberal lines as well as to strengthen liberal and gender equality ideals within Muslim communities which have already sown social devastation within states. The state of the family unit within the Muslim Ummah is therefore worryingly following the same path towards destruction seen in the West where the family structure is in meltdown. This is despite the fact that the strength, unity and harmony of family life was once a characteristic feature of the Islamic Ummah.
Unhappy, fragmented and dysfunctional marriages and family lives cause huge emotional turmoil for all involved and can have a devastating impact on children, individuals and societies. It is therefore vital that serious attention be given to addressing this crisis in the family unit and saving it from destruction. In this important campaign and conference, we will highlight the dangers of the changing face of the family structure in today’s world. We will identify the key factors harming the institution of marriage and harmony of family life, including the role of the media and governments in fueling this crisis. We will expose national and international agendas to secularise the Islamic family and social laws to distance Muslims further from their Deen. And crucially, we will showcase the Islamic social system and demonstrate how its unique view towards regulating gender relations, alongside its sound principles, values and laws, including its clear definition of the roles and rights of men and women within family life, can protect marriage, nurture tranquility and harmony within marital life, elevate motherhood to the great status it deserves and establish and preserve strong unified family units. The campaign and conference will also explain the vital role of Islamic governance under the Khilafah state (Caliphate) based upon the Prophethood in cultivating, promoting and protecting strong marriages and family units to illustrate how Islam is indeed the fortress of the family!
The campaign can be followed at:
http://www.hizb-ut tahrir.info/en/index.php/dawah/cmo/16024.html
Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/WomenandShariah
Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Director of the Women’s Section
in The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir