Subjugation of Women

TJ claims to have a high view of women and that it is through women at home that pure Islam is passed on to the next generation. ‘A mother’s lap is the first madrasa of her child’ (Khan). But in effect women are chattels who are confined and controlled by their husbands (or fathers) as their masters.

Thanawi’s Bihishti Zewar (‘Heavenly Ornaments’), which is prescribed reading for TJ women, instructs in Book 4 that a wife is to follow her husband’s will and whims in all things, to seek his permission on all issues, and to call day night if he does. A woman should stay at home as ‘the moment she steps out of the house the devil himself begins to accompany her,’ teaches TJ ideologue Bulandshahri in his Muslim Khawateen ke Liyay Bees Sabaq (‘Twenty Lessons for Muslim Women’, p 78). She should only emerge when accompanied by a male relative and hidden in strict purdah within a veiled black burkha.

Impact of Tablighi Jamaat on one woman as found on Muslim website http://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_151_200/miseries_of_a_tableeghi.htm