The Koran and politics of purdah

R ecently, Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musliar of the Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama issued a circular directing public halls and madrasas not to permit women to share public spaces with unrelated men during religious events.

He subsequently sought to justify the restriction with the startling claim that bringing women onto public platforms would cause “great destruction.” He attributed this danger to the mixing of men and women and said that the Koran itself requires women to remain confined to their homes and prohibits them from appearing in public.

But the Koran does not instruct women to remain confined to their homes. It is conservative clerics who have historically sought to impose such restrictions by taking out of context the instruction in verse 33:33 to “stay in your houses” ( qarna fi buyootikunna ) and “do not display yourselves as was the display of the former times of ignorance.”