Written by: Muhammad Ziauddin
Malaysia is an important country among Muslim countries because its development rate is much higher than that of other Muslim countries. Malaysia became independent in 1957 and within a short period of independence, this country achieved immense development, passed many stages of development in economic, financial and political terms. Muslims are inhabited in large numbers here. Twenty-one years ago, in 2004, a government delegation of ours, which included many officers, administrators, etc., left for a training trip to the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which included my name. Our delegation stayed in Malaysia for fifteen days and in those fifteen days, we saw many scenes of Malaysia’s development. The most important scene that I often remember was the development of Malaysian women, which we saw with our own eyes. Their women participated in every field and practically played their full role by becoming a part of development. Today in this column, I will share with the readers some of my observations and memories of the fifteen days we spent in Malaysia.
The institution in Kuala Lumpur where our delegation was trained was called Intan and the majority of the officers in this institution were women with whom we discussed the development of Malaysia since they spoke Malay and we spoke other languages, but all the discussions regarding the development of Malaysia were in English. I asked them whether the participation of your women in every field has surprised us, to which they replied that the literacy rate of women in our country is much higher than that of men. 97 percent of the women in our country are educated, this answer of theirs was very surprising to me and you must have been very surprised to know it. If I give you the example of Pakistan, the literacy rate of men here is higher than that of women. Malaysia has an important position in terms of female literacy rate, in whatever field they work, they reach high positions. In every store or department store we went to, we saw female workers working in the majority, not only that, but also in their local government offices, the number of female workers was high.
One day, our delegation had to go to a local government office and our delegation arrived only half an hour late from the scheduled time. When we reached there, we introduced ourselves to the lady at the reception that we had come from Pakistan and we had a meeting here today. After listening to us, the lady first looked at the clock and then looked at us and said that you have come half an hour late. Punctuality is very important here. We ourselves are punctual and expect others to be punctual as well. The lady apologized to us and asked us to wait a little because our second (session) had started. Similarly, our delegation went to a local government office in Kuala Lumpur where a woman gave a multimedia presentation to our delegation on how women participate in every work. She told us that even if a woman is at home, she can collect utility bills from home, which she demonstrated to us practically. After that, we entered a department store where Muslim women workers were also performing their duties. Their distinguishing feature was that they wore headscarves while working in the store, while women belonging to other religions did not wear headscarves, and we were able to recognize Muslim women workers socially.
In our country, Pakistan, almost all women pray at home. The practice of women going to the mosque is very rare here. There is hardly any mosque in Pakistan where women pray in congregation. But in Malaysia, we saw that women regularly pray in congregation in the mosque. A separate place has been made for them to perform ablution. Not only this, but a separate path has also been made for them to come and go to the mosque, and in this way, after praying in congregation, they go to their respective work or go home. Apart from this, Malaysian women participate actively in the field of sports. Separate grounds have been made for them. For example, whether it is wrestling or swimming, they have their own setups. During the training at the institute, we saw that girls of twenty or twenty-two years were performing their duties in different departments. Humayun Sahib asked the girls, have you completed your education? In response, they said, “No, sir, we have two months of vacation and during these vacations we are doing an internship, so we get some compensation and also get training by being part of the training.”
I will share with you a fun incident that we went to an institution where a woman was telling us some details about the training. I asked her what her role is in the trainings that women undergo. She replied that women who work in offices come to our institution and become part of the training with men. Not only this, but when our country’s ministers or secretaries are performing responsibilities in various positions, their wives also receive a month’s training from our institution. In this, we tell them that if your husband is a minister or holds a big position in the country, due to which his responsibilities for the country are a bit more, due to which he cannot give time to his home, and in such a situation, how will they accommodate themselves in the absence of their husbands? In this way, the complaints that wives have about their husbands due to lack of time are removed and in this way we are driving the wheel of development of our country and we remove all the obstacles that come in this development. After that, we asked him about women’s games, and he said that women participate fully in games, in which women’s competitions are also held, and some competitions are also held against women’s men. He also told us about one aspect of women’s development that women are also given such training that they can do gardening on the roofs of their houses and can grow and use their basic vegetables at home, which will also save them and will also create a greenhouse at home.
Malaysia is an Islamic country consisting of thirteen provinces. Our delegation was able to visit three or four provinces and saw the full participation of women in each province. Not only that, but women’s participation was also seen in every work in the villages there, as Iqbal has said, “From the presence of women comes the color of the picture in the universe.” During the fifteen days spent in Malaysia, our delegation saw the colorfulness of Malaysia, where women are playing their full role in the development of the country and society with their actions.
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