Renowned Islamic scholar Javed Ghamdi has said that Muslims should solely focus on the crime and criminal instead of lecturing women in response to incidents of gender-based violence.
The Islamic scholar was speaking on journalist Sana Bucha’s programme Goonj on 24 News television regarding the Minar-e-Pakistan incident whereby a woman was the subject of a mass assault by around 400 men this Independence Day.
While giving his views on how to deal with such incidents, Ghamdi opined that whenever a crime of such a nature takes place, the sole focus should be on the crime and criminal. He said that in any civilized culture, instead of giving lectures on how women could have circumvented such harassment, we should focus our attention on the crime.
The Islamic scholar further said it was shameful that we gave lectures to women following such incidents. “If we had to advise them on such matters, we had the whole year for that,” he added.
Ghamdi argued that such guidance was already being done by religious figures, family elders, and in education institutes. Hence, he added, that guidance was not suitable at the time of such an incident.
The religious expert also contended that even if a woman or man was naked in public, no one had the right to engage in violence or harassment against them. “This is not permissible from ethical, legal or religious standpoint,” he said.
Ghamdi further said that God’s fear should be in everyone, but when a crime has taken place, conversations about how it could be prevented should not take place. He elaborated on his point by narrating an incident from Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) time, when a woman was sexually assaulted when she was on her way to say the Fajr prayers. Ghamdi said that instead of giving advice to the women, the Prophet (PBUH) punished the criminal. Similarly, he stated, we should pursue the crime and the criminal instead of having conversations about how women could have prevented this.
