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Women should produce, groom children: Kalbe Jawwad

The comments have triggered off a searing controversy, with several clerics, social activists and political parties flaying the Maulana for such 'retrograde' remarks.

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While a heated debate rages in Parliament over demand for quota within quota for Dalit, backward and Muslim women, renowned Shia cleric Kalbe Jawwad has stirred the proverbial hornets’ nest by saying that women should stay at home and should have no role to play in politics.

“Allah has sent women on earth to produce children… they should stay away from politics,” the Maulana declared at a meeting of clerics at Allahabad on Friday. “Women should produce good leaders, they should not become leaders themselves,” he said. “If women sit in Parliament, who will take care of their children,” he asked.

The comments have triggered off a searing controversy, with several clerics, social activists and political parties flaying the Maulana for such “retrograde” remarks.

“Islam defines men and women as two parts of one unit… there is no room for gender discrimination in Islamic thought,” says Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, an authority on Islam and its interpretation. “Whoever says women should stay away from politics should remember Prophet Mohammed’s wife Hazrat Ayesha played a crucial role in politics over 1400 years ago,” he reasoned.

All India Personal Law Board member and Sunni cleric Khalid Rasheed says: “Islam does not prohibit women from entering politics… if these are Maulana’s personal views, he should not have stated them publicly.”

Shaista Amber, president of the All India Shia Women’s Personal Law Board, says: “It’s unfortunate that such a learned cleric has made such a statement… I respect Maulana Jawwad but his advice to women of 21st century is ridiculous… even women in Islamic countries like Iran, Iraq and Egypt are contesting elections.”

“Clerics should confine themselves to matters of religion otherwise they make a laughing stock of themselves by making such ludicrous statements,” BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters in Delhi. “At a time when women are going ahead in all walks of life, such retrogade comments deserve utmost contempt,” he added.

In the same vein, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said: “To advise women to stay away from politics, stay at home, produce and groom children is not only retrogressive but even perverted… such a thought process has no space in modern society.”

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