The majority of people in Bangladesh are not merely God-fearing; they are fanatically religious. The rigid tenets of faith, Sharia law, and the harsh dictates of the Quran are so overpowering here that even the religion of Islam—as preached by the Prophet Muhammad—fails to ensure gender equality for women.

Islam in this country has never been modern, liberal, or tolerant; instead, what has been visible under the guise of Islam is a reality—both historical and contemporary—marked by fundamentalism, extremism, radicalism, the subjugation of women, gender discrimination, and sexual abuse.

Since the time of the Prophet Muhammad, women in Islam have consistently been viewed as objects of sexual lust. Muslim women in Bangladesh experience this same reality through the attitudes of local Maulanas (clerics), the culture of fatwas, and the prevailing religious laws.

The history of the Prophet Muhammad’s sexual encounters—including his sexual relations and his practice of having multiple wives—conveys precisely this message.

Islamic clerics may inspect a woman’s virginity by inserting a finger—much like the practice attributed to Hazrat Umar—yet they remain unable to control their own sexually driven urges. This is why Bangladeshi Islamic law forbids women from praying in mosques. The concern is that the sight of women praying with their posteriors raised—a posture assumed during Salah—would trigger ejaculation right on the prayer mat among sexually driven Muslim men accustomed to sodomizing children in madrasas and mosques. Such an act would displease the Allah of these fairy tales.

Furthermore, if—while reciting Quranic verses during prayer—a mental image arises of the Prophet Muhammad raping a child (an act sanctioned by Allah) in the form of a graphic sexual narrative, it becomes difficult to predict the fate that might befall those women.

Religious farce can never ensure equality or security within the state and social order; indeed, it is religion itself that breeds such unrighteousness.