Can Women have it all Career and family life ?

A Shaykh's view on the Issue: Abu Eesa Niamatullah


I also want to briefly mention something about women in the workplace: I am an
absolute extremist in this issue in that I don’t have any time for the opposing
arguments. Women should not be in the workplace whatsoever. Full stop. Yes we need
women doctors and dentists and all the rest of it but there’ll always be Muslim women
who’ll go ahead and do that anyway, whatever the scholars tell them so let
them go ahead. As for the rest of the practising Muslimat: after 17 years of
experience in the workplace, I simply cannot imagine how we will safeguard our
Islamic identity in the future and build strong Muslim communities in the West with
women wanting to go out and becoming employed in the hell that it is out there. I don’t feel the need to offer any explanation. That’s just the way it is. I’ve seen far too many families split up, childrens’ lives ruined and ones Islamic development curtailed for myself to ever support women being outside the family home more than they already are.

The irony of my statement is not lost upon me, especially if I tell you that from an
interaction point of view, it is much better to be a Muslim woman in the workplace
than a Muslim man. The male cannot look at the woman other than her face and hands
for some given need. The female on the other hand is allowed with the same given need
to look at everything below the knees and above the navel of the man as per the most
correct opinion of the scholars. So you tell me: how do you avoid looking at the hair of your female colleague compared to your Muslim sister working with men in their normal state? There is no comparison.

Yet despite this fact, the warnings of our scholars have been actualised and the
new generation of Muslims in the West are throwing away their future at a time
ironically when the UK’s leading family judges are looking desperately to cultures like ours to save the family breakdown which is all too common to the native citizens whohave been obsessed in getting women into the workplace.

Whether you agree with me or not my dear sisters, the success of building a Qur’anic
generation from our children is almost completely dependent on the mothers
educating themselves as much as humanly possible on the Qur’an and Sunnah before
marriage, and then utter devotion to them after marriage. Call me old-fashioned,
bigotted, extremist, backward and whatever else you want for now, as long as you also
call me “honest” in 20 years time when you realise the truth.
There is so much that I could talk about here but then it’d just turn into a very long andlegal discussion. I’ll be very honest and say that the Fuqaha’ have gone into enough detail with respect to the interaction between the non-related sexes that a fatwa can be found for most of the things you mention. But as the Salihin have always asserted, it should be taqwah instead of fatwah that governs our day-to-day lives. We ask Allāh jalla wa ‘ala to protect us all in these testing times, and give us the taqwah and tawfiq to practise this great favour of Islam in the very best way possible, Ameen