In the past two years the debates on religious conversions, caste and communalism have gripped India in a serious imbroglio which is fallout of the present nature of state politics in the country. The years 2007-08 have been the most volatile ever since the anti-Godhra riots in the state of Gujarat in 2002, which exposed the role that the governments in India have played in arousing communal passions through state machinery. These are difficult times, and the time that would follow poses more complex challenges for state-politics in India. We can trace the beginnings of these events in the year 2007, though hypothetically, to a controversy in Punjab: the chief of Dera Sacha Sauda (a religious sect founded 1948, which … Read the rest

In general, where religious values are dominant, gender discriminations remain influential at all levels in society. The monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – not differently from the primitive or undeveloped cultures, adamantly conserve their gender biases. In this article, I argue that gender inequalities in Islam go beyond the gender biases of other monotheistic religions.

The main reason for gender inequalities in Islam has roots in a traditional division of society into the two groups of “mahrams” and “non-mahrams.”: the mahram group contains the non-marriageable adult people who are close members of family, whereas the non-mahram group refers to the rest of people.

Asserting of non-mahram dogma in Islam is not initially unrelated to the Prophet’s concerns about … Read the rest