It is ironic that while religious leaders wax eloquent on the exalted status granted to women in Islam, it is these very leaders who are trying to cut the ground from under their feet and reduce them to sub-humans.

         If that were not the case, why would the mullahs of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) have so bitterly opposed the passage of the Women Protection Bill, to the extent of threatening to resign from the assemblies and shuttering down cities in protest.

          Without sparing a thought for the hundreds of women who are languishing in jail under the Hudood Ordinances, or even considering the logic behind the proposed amendments, they forwarded the ridiculous argument that these would give unlimited azadi to women and lead to more cases of adultery as if women were only waiting for the removal of the Hudood Ordinances to go on a fornication spree.

          Incidentally, why hasn't the MMA made good on its promise to resign from the assemblies when the bill was passed? What was the point of this senseless exercise was it simply to gain some political mileage?

          In a country besieged by mega problems poverty, illiteracy, ill-health, corruption, terrorism it is outrageous that all the MMA can think of is how to overturn even the small relief measures that are being introduced to rectify the pathetic plight of women. In fact, this particular bill has been watered down to accommodate the mullahs point of view and yet they are opposed to it, and profess to be doing so in the name of Islam.

           Does Islam sanction rape, domestic violence, child marriages, sexual harassment all of which are rampant in the provinces they rule? What remedial measures have they taken to address such anti-Islam practices? Have they ever raised a voice against the burning down of girls schools operating in their fiefdoms? Is education the exclusive privilege of the male? Unfortunately, a lot of unsavoury views are being articulated from the pulpit in the name of Islam.

          The Imam of the Kaaba, in his Haj address this year, as quoted by a section of the Urdu press, maintained that four marriages were jayez (valid) in Islam as they protected Muslims from the crime of adultery; he also said that men were appointed as hakims (rulers) over women and went on further to say that the salvation of women lay in following religious edicts.

          Also emanating from the Holy Land was the fatwa of an influential Sunni cleric forwarded to all Islamic websites that branded Shias as “infidels” and the “worst of all Islamic sects.

          How does one fight this religious bigotry and chauvinism that is being beamed live from the holiest Islamic site? Are these supposed religious scholars any different to the extremists who have already hijacked Islam?