What would you say about a woman who went to the West and adopted unIslamic shameful behaviors?
Question: My friend and his wife, after spending two years in the West, came to their country to visit their families and friends. The shameful clothes of this wife, the exciting colors on her face, and the perfumes she sprinkled on herself inside and outside the house attracted the attentions of all. When she sat with the women, she showed off and became proud to such a degree that she made them laugh at her shape.
Unfortunately, she is from a religious family. She had not been so before she emigrated to the West. All her family disputed with her, but she faced them with pride and haughtiness and spoke to them impudently and with no Islamic morals. The least of her words to them was “you are still reactionary”.
It is said that her husband fears to resist her; therefore, he lets her alone lest she fall into sin as has happened to many women in those countries, which support the independence of women from the economical side and that paves the way for them to go wherever they like.
What is the obligatory way to deal with such a wife, especially when her husband is weak before her?
The answer: This phenomenon results from previous causes. The most important cause is a weak religious education in beliefs and morals. It was obligatory on her family to plant the facts of religion inside her and to teach her the realities of this world and its deceiving faces.
If this woman is submitted to psychologists, they, unanimously, will say that she suffers from an inferiority complex and she, with her behavior, wants to repair her defect and solve her complex according to her illusory imagination.
Since this wife is insolent and throws her silly words impudently, I think it would be better for her husband to treat her with wisdom and good exhortation, but whenever it is possible, he should dispute with her in a wise manner to achieve a good result. But, if it is possible that this may lead her to be stubborn or to fall into sin, it would be better then to be patient with her until Allah will bring forth the fruit of the wise efforts and good exhortation.
It is important in dealing with women like her, that have been dazzled with the West and have collapsed in fancies, to pay careful attention to politeness and to the Islamic morals when repelling evil with good in order to limit their stubbornness and to prevent their fall.
The husband of this wife must not neglect her case, especially not her emotional satisfaction. Let him permit her to wear any kind of clothes she likes as long as it is inside his house. He should prove his love for her in every possible manner. At the same time, he should speak to her frankly that her behavior, which displeases Allah, disgusts him and shakes his love for her. Does any lover like to disgust her beloved and shake his love for her? This husband should realize that the shameless behavior of his wife makes other men covet her and visualize her in their laps. Does this please a husband with jealousy and a wife with abstinence and conscience?
This is besides other problems that she may face from men who she may excite and who may unexpectedly rape her. As for the problems of the grave, the afterlife, and the torment of Fire, the matter is very difficult and the talk is very long!
I hope that this Muslim woman and those like her are criticized with attention to the previous points and with emphasis also on another important point and that is to explain the disadvantages of displaying a woman’s charms before foreign men. Some examples from Western societies can be shown besides showing stories of western girls who have been guided and have believed in Islam and kept to the veil and abstinence.
Here, as an example and to encourage our girls, I would like to mention the story of a Danish woman who was the wife of a young Shiite man from Lebanon. He told me that his wife had become a Shiite Muslim and resigned from her job, from which she gained a lot of money. She made spreading the teachings of Islam her honorable job. She said that she did not want to see Muslim girls and women fall into what the Western girls and women had fallen into.
She always read Islamic books and after reading them, she would give them to other girls for the sake of Allah and to guide those girls to Islam and to its high humane teachings.
He said about his active wife that she offered prayers a lot and she was very devoted to her religion and veil. Whenever she met a Muslim woman who was a deviate or inclined to the Western way of life, she would enjoin her to do good deeds and forbid her from doing bad deeds saying, ‘we have known the emptiness of our material civilization and given it up and become proud of Islam. Why are you so dazzled by what we have tried and desisted from?’
Indeed, this Danish woman is a source of pride. There are millions like her in the Western countries. Allah has made them as a proof for our women and girls who are emigrants in those countries and for those in our Muslim countries who imitate the western fashions and way of life. Thus, Allah gives them His full proof lest they will have an excuse against Him on the Day of Resurrection, the day of painful torment.
I ask this young woman, who is captured by her fancy and who calls her family reactionary, to ponder over the words of Imam Ali (a.s.) when he said, ‘Shyness and abstinence are from the qualities of faith, the natures of the free, and the aspects of the pious.’
Is the bondage to lusts and desires considered freedom or the belief in Allah the Almighty and obeisance to Him?