Thank you for your reply. Yes, it is best if you can find religion in your heart for yourself - and not through the words of other people.
I want to tell you some history that maybe you will enjoy hearing.
I visited Iran in 1971, traveling from Isfahan, Shiraz and Tehran. Of course the Shah was in power then. In my experience, Iran was fairly Westernized then. My young and sexy wife could walk through the bazaars without any problem. I remember sitting in a bar on top of a tall hotel overlooking the city of Tehran - it was very pleasant. We visited the crown jewels and many Westerners were traveling then.
In Saudi Arabia and the other Arabic countries (like Bahrain and UAE), the women were all completely covered. In Iran, the younger women mostly wore Western clothes and the head scarf was optional. The country seemed very modern and progressive in those days.
I couldn't believe what happened after the revolution in 1978? Of course, I was not there, but the sudden change to more fundamental Islam law was shocking to me. I couldn't imagine how the modern women could adapt the traditional dress again.
I live in rural Indonesia now, on a rural Island that is 95% Sunni Muslim. The older people are still primitive and don't follow many Islamic traditions. The young/ middle age people learn about Islam in school and follow the 5 pillars of the faith. They go through all the motions of being Muslim, but really have little understanding of why they are praying 5x per day, or fasting, etc. These are rituals. If I ask "why they do them", they tell me I must talk to a religious leader.
More recently, colorful, modernized Muslim dress have become increasingly popular, almost stylish with the women. The television has programs where the heroine wears a headscarf (jilbab?), but also false eyelashes, and heavy makeup. Of course, they cover themselves for funerals, etc.
Thank you for sharing your memories.
Do you know how did iranian women become unveiled in the first place? It was at the time of Reza shaah in january 1936 that the shaah, being influenced by what he had seen in turkey and of western women, announced the law of forbidding the veil. Any woman seen with
"hijab" on the streets by the guards would have been unveiled by force. Many religious women stayed at home for months in fear of being unveiled. It has been said that after Reza shah's departure from Iran, the law had been somehow forgotten. But still the veiled had been somehow restricted. My mother describes how she was replaced with another girl for being announced as the selected best student at school for not accepting to take her scarf off (that's quite around your visit to Iran). So not everyone was happy with what seemed pleasant to you, beside the fact that many smaller cities had still kept their religous context. But to know how did the women happy with the unveiling accepted the new rules of the
1979 revolution goes back to the many other unsatisfactions of the shah's regime and the great love and respect people felt for imam Khomeini that made them accept the many new rules. However there are women now that aren't so happy with the binding rule of hijab.
My question is: What is the current view of women towards men? In your opinion, do women accept that men are the maintainers of women? Or do women which to have the same independence that are give to men?
Most do on the whole, but there are dissatisfactions...However as we don't have free sexual relationships and due to the importance of the family in our culture, and talking about a "shared life" you can't really talk about independence. It's more about the obligations of this accepted shared life:
There are some islamic rules about the family that obliges the man to pay for his wife and children's living, ie clothing, food, etc. On the otherside, women have to keep their husbands satisfied in their connubial life. Beside the rules, there are the cultural-religious traditions about the way of sharing the duties; earning money outside for men and housekeeping and the most important, taking care and bringing up the children for women.The latter is important due to the signifacance of making the children associated to religion and morality.
Many women are ok with this, because it matches their nature. There is no prohibition stopping women from working or studying as long as they can take care of thir prior duties. Believe me it all depends on the men... how they cope and the help they give to the housework. Many iranian men don't like their wives to work or to go to university or ... . That makes some dissatisfactions. (though women can put some conditions about their desires for work, study, etc as marriage stipulations.)
But there are a lot of families that the man and woman have shared their duties.
But still we see many women working outside that are tired and want to be able to stay at home. I recently read that this return to the family was the wish of many american women too. Is that it?
