On TV, newspapers and magazines you might sometimes see pictures of women wearing what the Western World would call veil of oppression and what to the Islamic World is simply hijab, dress of dignity. You would hear the word of oppression and you would immediately imagine that Islam is a religion that oppresses women. But what the Western society does not understand that behind this veil there is more to the rights of women in Islam.

Instead of boring you with facts today on the rights of Muslim women which I initially thought of doing I decided two nights ago that I would in fact find two converted Australian Muslim women and interview them and thankfully I found two suitable interviewees. Their names are Fatima and Amina. Sister Fatima is of Scottish and Irish background and on the other hand Sister Amina is of Italian, Irish, English and Scottish background. Both of them are Australians and were Catholic Christians.

 My first question to them was how, why and when did they become interested in Islam? To which Sr Fatima who is twenty-five years of age now replied, "I was interested in Islam when I was sixteen. I was not happy with my Western way of living. To me the Western life was hollow with no meaning to it. I wanted the truth about life. Who was God? Why were we here on earth? Then I met a lady who like me was looking for the truth. > did not know the lady was Muslim but soon found out. I saw that this lady had a very content life as a Muslim. I started thinking why was she so content with her life as a Muslim? I then started reading a lot of books on Islam. I remember that there was this book I read and it had a lot of Qur'anic verses with meaning in it. After reading that book I thought, yes, this is the truth. It took me six months to fully convert. And I embraced Islam fully when I was eighteen years old."

On the other hand Sr Amina became interested in Islam by a man who is now her husband. She and her husband used to work together. She would always hear her husband talk about Islam to other people at work and would become interested in these conversations. Like Sr Fatima she too wanted answers to the question of life and found it in Islam. And four years ago she became a Muslim

 I then asked both of them how do they get treated as Muslim women?

To this Sr Fatima said, most of them think I can not speak English and I think this is because of their ignorance about Muslim women. They think Muslim women are dumb and do not get any education but that is wrong. No one can stop a Muslim woman from getting education that God gave her. It is compulsory in Islam for men and women to gain the knowledge. This also shows that Western people judge others by their looks and the way they dress. She feels that she is not disadvantaged as a Muslim woman but dignified. But the Western women have lost their dignity. She feels that it is the Western women who are being oppressed and says that the only way they get attention is by taking their clothes off.

Sr Amina also replied similarly. She said that she gets treated much well than before. People show her more respect and she has a very important role as a Muslim woman. She feels that no Australian would have shown her the respect that she has been given since she became a Muslim. Not only that she states that there is more respect given to married women and you have higher a place in society when you are married.

My next question was how do the rights of Western women and Islamic women differ?

 Immediately Sr Fatima said our rights are the best rights. God created the greatest rights for us and He knows the best. He created these rights for us e.g right to divorce, for married women to retain their property, etc in 7th AD, and was all created then.

Sr Amina answered quite differently to Sr Fatima. She asserted that Muslim women are treated equally to men but different which led to their special role in society. She also suggested that the problem with Western women is that they want to be equal to men, but they do not realise they can never be that. She feels that they are degrading them selves by thinking they are equal to men. She also tells me that she was a feminist before she became a Muslim. But now she understands that in the West, the rights of women are crucial issues but in Muslim countries it is not? Why? Because of the Muslim women must be very content with their life and with their rights.

Do they feel oppressed by wearing the hijab? Was my next question?

 Both of  them strongly replied no, at all both was dying to wear the hijab. They feel that wearing the hijab liberates them and people respected them for their mind instead of their body. Sr Amina adds that one of the misconceptions that the Western people have regarding hijab is that they think it is the men who force women to wear it. But that is not true. It is a women's own choice. A Muslim woman only dresses according to the Islamic codes of dress. She also adds that Nuns and Sisters in Christian religion wear a variation of veil, so they must be oppressed too if the West think that the Muslim women are.

One of my last questions to both of them was, Why do you think the West have misconceptions about rights of Muslim women?

Both of them strongly agree that one of the major factors was ignorance and lack of broad vision. Most do not know anything about Islam and they do not want to find out what they do not know. By catching a glimpse of a hijab wearing women on TV and newspapers they think they know everything.

Sr Amina said using a metaphor when you see a snake you want to kill it even if you do not know if it is a harmless snake. This is the same feeling the Westerners have about Islam. They do not know much, if anything so they want to abolish it.

Another factor is the media, they agreed. They see Islam as the enemy. All they want to show is the negative views of Islam because it is dramatic. For example, when talking about the situation in Afghanistan they only look at the women but they do not know that it is also the men who have bid by Islamic law too. All men have to cover body according to Islamic codes of dress, grow beard and wear a cap on their heads.

My very last question to them was how do they feel as Muslim women now?

To which both similarly replied very happy and content and thanks to Allah they were shown this very peaceful way of life. Both Sr Fatima and Sr Amina are married Muslim women and leading peaceful family life with their husbands and children.

Thanks Sr Fatima and Sr Amina for their assistance, valuable time and generosity to prepare this article. >Like Sr Fatima and Sr Amina growing number of women in Australia are turning to Islam to find the truth

 My question to all of you is that if  Islam does oppress women why are so many single Western women in Australia, America and many other European countries are embracing Islam? They know about what is happening to Muslim women in Islamic states? They were in a society where they had freedom and equal rights. Is it because they have an insatiable craving for oppression or a craving for liberation and peace?

First of all, Islam has given women the basic right, freedom of speech. When the first Islamic state was established, women were among those consulted to decide which candidate should be appointed as the ruler. In the early days of Islam, the leaders of the Islamic State regarding legal issues also consulted women. These rights were granted to women in Islam in the midst of a pagan era, the 7th century AD, when women across the world were denied all basic rights.

The issue of marriage in a another aspect where the West have misconceptions about. As some of you know that, a Muslim woman has to have an arranged marriage and this has to be done with her consent. In order for an Islamic marriage to be valid, both parties must be consent to the marriage. If a woman declares that she did not consent to the marriage, the marriage becomes void. There is no such a thing as the dowry system in Islam. A woman to be married does not owe the groom or the groom's family any money or valuable of any sort.

 In fact it is the men who have to pay the women a certain amount of money as marriage price (dower). Allah says," And give the women (on marriage) their dower as a free gift; but if they, of their own good pleasure, remit any part of it to you, take it and enjoy it with right good cheer.\" [The Qur\'an, 4:4]  Upon marriage, a Muslim woman does not adopt her husband's surname since she is not an appendage of her husband. This grants a woman an independent identity.

A Muslim woman also has a independent economic status allowing her to earn, posses and dispose of her property or earnings without any mediator, including her husband. A woman\'s financial rights do not change if she is single or married. A married woman for example retains her property obtained before her marriage.

On the other hand, a Muslim man must shoulder >all financial responsibilities. But that does not mean that a woman cannot have a job or a career. This means that the husband must use his earnings to provide for the wife and family, but the husband has no claim to the earnings of his wife.

In Islam the right to initiate divorce and custody of children after divorce were also granted to Muslim women 1400 years ago since the advent of Islam. On the other hand, in the West, when you married you were legally your husband\'s property, along with your children and anything that you owned before marriage and divorcing your husband out of question. Until the recent centuries, this has been altered.

But were not they oppressed for years before this change came about?

 The wearing of the hijab by Muslim women is I believe one of the most  distorted and most crucial issues to the Western society regarding Islam. On the other hand Western media do not make any hue and cry when the Christian Nuns / Sisters are wearing the same veil like Muslim women.

In the West, society does everything it can to drum into a female\'s head the fact that she is only a body newspapers, magazines and advertisements when addressing them selves to women, speak to her as flesh. Many women in the West feel that they are being \'controlled\' by fashion designers, beauty product manufacturers and slimming product industry, which are deliberately making them feel unhappy about themselves. Women in the West are seldom able to feel happy with their natural shape.

On the other hand the modest dress of a Muslim women the full covering of  the body liberates her since she achieves the right to be respected for her  mind instead of her body. Muslim women are therefore not enslaved by  fashions dictated to her by males and her society.

The Islamic dress code  is also a powerful tool that restricts access to males who have grown accustomed to staring at women bodies as their assumed rights. Also you have to understand, all societies have standards. Even in the West, people can not enter certain places without shoes, dress or a shirt. We can list many examples of dress standards required indoors and outdoors.

Islam has its own standard. They may be much more conservative and logical than of other religion, cultures but they must be respected. Upon marriage, to claim that the husband and wife become one and then expect the wife to take on the husband\'s name subordinates woman as the one is the husband.

A hijab-wearing woman is the West is discriminated against. It is impossible for them to get jobs unless they bear themselves. They are laughed at, feared and in the worst cases, harassed. This is an abuse of  human rights. Certain places require dress shoes, and some time shirt and tie that could be found in any other religion and culture.

A Muslim woman only dresses according to the codes of dress of the Creator of all beings (Allah) Who is neither a male nor a female. Allah says, \"O Prophet! tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is >Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.\" [The Qur\'an, 33:59]

 The custom of hijab was introduced after the revelation of the Qur\'anic verses. The Islamic codes of dress apply to both women and men equally [men can not expose certain part to their bodies (Satar), wear gold and silk]. There are many Qur\'anic >verses, Hadiths and Sharia Laws on duties, responsibilities and rights of Muslim women as well as men.

The status of women in Islam is often distorted and misunderstood in Western society. Such misconceptions have resulted in the view that Islam oppresses women. The media has taken a great deal trouble to give the Western World the view  that simply because a Muslim women wear a veil, the Islamic World are robbing them of their rights.

They feel that they have to spend money on keeping up with the quick changes in fashion, or else face looking ugly and unattractive. A Muslim woman does not feel the need to go on a diet to appear skinny to others and attractive to men.

We could compare this same issue with the Western World where women fought  for the right to vote. In 1897, women in Britain formed a society called National Union of Women Suffrage Society. They called them selves\' suffragettes because they were sufferers from the Western culture.

They suffered and fought to have the right to vote. They had violent clashes with the police and went on hunger strikes. Some were even seriously injured in these strikes and a few evens died. You will have to agree that this is a form of oppression if wearing the veil as your religion bids you to do is also one.

I am not implying in this speech that the rules of the Islamic World for the Muslim women are superior to the Western World\'s women or any other culture or religion. But only asking why the Western World / Media overlook the many faults in their cultural and religious history on the way they have treated women and give prejudiced views on the Islamic World when most have very littlie understanding of it.