Al-Watan newspaper

ONCE during the elections to the Saudi Club in Reading University in the UK, a Saudi girl was making a point. A Saudi man, who was by the way a PhD student, stood up suddenly and shouted: "Silence the woman."

All Saudi female students turned to look at him but all of kept quiet conforming to our custom. We were brought up in our society in a manner where we will never contest or challenge men.

We continued our discussions but did not dare to take any legal action against the man though it was our right.

Later, when I talked about the incident to a woman law teacher, she told me that I should have documented the incident because his rash outburst would have cost him his education in Reading, which places empowerment of women on top of its priorities.

She said the university would not tolerate any kind of verbal abuse or a racist remark to take place on its campus.

In fact, this Saudi student was not aware of the fact that what he had said in the election hall constituted verbal abuse.

The abusive fathers and brothers whom we read about in the newspapers everyday would be surprised to know that we treat this man's interjection when the female student spoke as a kind of verbal violence against women.

They would come with thousands of excuses to prove that what the male student had said was nothing more than a call for disciplining the woman student. They would cite volumes of religious texts that they have studied in school or thousands of sermons they have heard in mosques not only to approve of and bless what the man had said but also to consider him an honorable man who was only jealous of his female colleagues.

This is downright male chauvinism which has been the dominant culture in our society for centuries.

This culture has remained very strong and is still continuing to be so though the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had never raised a finger against any of his wives though they did make mistakes.

Some of the Prophet's wives raised their voices against him while others conspired to tease him but he remained a real man who would never hurt a woman either physically or verbally.

The Prophet said on many occasions that "the best of you are the best to their women.”

The meanness of our men in their behavior toward women emanates from their failure to make the Prophet for a role model and follow in his footprints.

We have never taken any steps to teach our children that violence against women is not religiously or socially acceptable behavior.

There is no Shariah justification for accepting violence against women because the Prophet had strictly prohibited it.

We should codify laws to punish any man who is violent toward women and should also encourage women to resort to the law in case any man dares to abuse them.

We should not blame, frighten or threaten girls with imprisonment or confinement in a social protection home if they decided to take male abusers to courts.