Islam has turned Pakistan into an absolute craphole for women. It could have walked a far different path when it became independent from the United Kingdon in 1947. Pakistan could have been a dynamic and mostly secular state, which is what Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress Party saw as the future for India, which became independent at the same time. Unfortunately for Pakistan, its people and the world, Pakistan chose the path, the retarded and backward path, of Islam and it became an Islamic Republic in 1956.
The result of Pakistan’s choice to become a nation ruled by Islam and Islamic principles has been that the country has descended into Islamic madness with women, children and religious minorities being subjected to oppression and brutal violence. Pakistan is a nation where misogyny rules and nothing sums up this misogyny than the story below which comes from an Indian news outlet via the Religion of Peace website.
According to a report on the Indian News18 website, a man who was enraged at the idea that his wife would have a job as a journalist, walked to her office building in Lahore armed with a handgun and shot his wife dead as she entered her workplace. It appears from the story that the husband, ironically a crime reporter on another newspaper, had been badgering his wife for a considerable amount of time to quit her job.
The News18 website said:
A 27-year-old female Pakistani journalist was killed here on Monday allegedly by her husband, also a scribe, for not quitting her job. The couple got married seven months ago but then the relations turned sour soon, according to an FIR.
Urooj Iqbal was associated with a Urdu daily and was entering her office situated in Qila Gujjar Singh in central Lahore when her husband Dilawar Ali shot her in the head, leaving her dead, Dost Mohammad, a senior police officer said.
Though Urooj was taken to hospital, it was too late. “We have registered an FIR against the victim’s husband working in another Urdu daily, on the complaint of Urooj’s brother Yasir Iqbal, Muhammad said.
In the FIR, Iqbal said her sister had a love marriage with Ali seven months ago but soon after their relation turned sour over various domestic issues, including Ali’s repeated demand of quitting her job.
He said that Ali used to torture Urooj over the issue and recently had got a complaint lodged against Ali. However, no action was taken by the police, he said. Urooj, a crime reporter, was living in a room adjacent to the newspaper office in the same building after her relation with her husband deteriorated.
It should be noted that this murder did not take place in some backward tribal village where Islam red in tooth and claw rules with a rod of iron, but in the centre of a large city where one might expect attitudes to things like women working would be a bit more liberal. Sadly this is not the case. This horrifying situation shows that the pernicious misogyny of Islam permeates every part of Pakistan and is not just confined to areas populated by illiterate and uneducated peasants.
Whilst many other countries suffer from some form of misogyny it is notable that in places ruled by Islam like Pakistan this misogyny is not an abberration but something all too socially acceptable. On this occasion this misogyny turned into murder and the culture created by Islam in Pakistan has snuffed out the life of a young journalist who just wanted to work and be an independent woman.
