- In a study conducted by The Marriage Foundation, Muslim mothers reported 31% more high relationship happiness than non-Muslim mothers.
- Muslim women are most likely among all religious groups to be in long-term and happy relationships. As much as 94% of Muslim mothers are married compared to 79% of Christian mothers and 59% of non-religious mothers.
The depiction of Muslim women being forced into marriages, enduring oppression, and leading lives filled with affliction is a perception frequently propagated by ex-Muslims, Islamophobes, and schools of feminism.
This is largely due to the fallacious portrayal of both Muslim women and men by the West. ‘Muslim women need rescuing and Muslim men need to be tamed—all 1.9 billion of us, apparently.
In their research Media (Mis)Representations: Muslim Women in the Canadian Nation | Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme (yorku.ca) Bullock and Jafri (2000) demonstrate how the media, in this case, The Guardian, repeatedly portray Muslim women as oppressed and victimized by their husbands.
Anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod examines the question Do Muslim Women Need Saving? — Lila Abu-Lughod | Harvard University Press – saving from their oppressive husbands? She argues that the West, through its invasions and wars, “has left thousands of Muslim women displaced, kinless, wounded, traumatised, drowned, and dead.” Abu-Lughod exposes a critical question: why should the West assume the moral responsibility of saving Muslim women when its own history of preventing gender-based violence is sketchy at best? The “Drunken Bum” Theory of Wife Beating on JSTOR study gathered evidence from 6,002 households and concluded that the culture of alcohol consumption on weekends in the west is strongly correlated with domestic violence against women. While some of Lila Abu-Lughod’s argument does not coincide with orthodox Islam, the foundational construct of her argument is thought-provoking, challenging readers to consider what Muslim women require saving from— their lifestyle, faith, or abusive husbands. Ultimately, Abu-Lughod concludes that Muslim women do not require saving at all, and such misrepresentations of Muslim women and their relationships reinforce Orientalist stereotypes.
The Longitudinal study conducted by the Marriage Foundation presents compelling evidence that conflicts with the notion that Muslim women are unhappy in their relationships. The study, which analysed data from a cohort of 14,562 mothers in the UK and their nine-month-old babies from 2000 to 2001, found that Muslim women have winning recipe for relationship success – Marriage Foundation The Mothers were surveyed again when their children were aged 3,5, 7, and 11. Conclusions were drawn that Muslim women are more likely than any other religious group to be in long-term, happy relationships, with 94% of mothers being married, compared to 79% of Christian mothers and 59% of non-religious mothers. It should be noted that this study completely refutes the possibility that Muslim women stay with their husbands because they are somehow repressed. This is because Muslim mothers reported 31% higher relationship happiness than non-Muslim mothers. Microsoft Word – Draft MF paper – Religion and stability.doc (marriagefoundation.org.uk)
The only ‘recipe for relationship success’ that Muslims have, are the guidelines stipulated by Allah and in the Hadiths (sayings of Prophet Mohammed saw). We see in the Qur’an ( Surah Nisa:34) gender roles are clearly defined by Allah:
Interestingly, it has been illustrated through extensive research that harmonious and peaceful marriages are most likely to occur when there are clearly defined gender roles. This is exhibited, for example, in the Blanchflower study Well-being over time in Britain and the USA – ScienceDirect which found that anti-female discrimination policies aimed at increasing women’s well-being have not been successful in either country studied (USA and UK). As a result, the marital relationships of women have suffered greatly, as demonstrated by the fact that 62% of women filed for divorce in 2022, Why women file for divorce more than men – BBC Worklife.
The following study found that Women show sexual preference for tall, dominant men – so is gender inequality inevitable? (theconversation.com). In addition, in the Longitudinal study Joanna Pepin and David Cotter: Trending Towards Traditionalism? Changes in Youths’ Gender Ideology (utexas.edu) conducted over a span of 40 years, high school seniors were asked, “should the husband make all the important decisions in the family”, in 2014, 63% agreed. In the 2023 survey International Women’s Day – Ipsos survey | Ipsos 60% of Millennials and Gen Z’s combined said that a man who stays home to look after his children is less of a man.
Today, the family unit is under siege, even among Muslims, with several woke Muslim feminist women instigating divorce in shariah councils (Allah guide us all). Some Muslim families have their own issues that stem from secular liberalism being the new world order. Secular ideologies as well as cultural practises have evidently infiltrated our community. The claim here is not that Muslim families are perfect. However, the data presented above distinctly demonstrates how Muslim women are much happier in their relationships in comparison to their non-Muslim counterparts, Alhumdulillah! The only reasonable explanation for this is that Allah is al-Hakim (the all-wise), and we understand that the guidelines provided to us by our Creator, if adhered to, will only result in happy, healthy, and loving family homes. We must therefore desperately safeguard and preserve the family unit by adhering to the words of Allah.
