A few years ago, several young girls lost their lives in a fire that broke out in a school in Makkah. The tragedy was the result of several factors combined — poor safety measures, lack of training on emergency plans, old and cramped school buildings.
That tragedy was further compounded by the fact that the victims were girls. Because they were girls and since our presumed “special status” that makes us a people different from other nations calls for extreme caution to be applied when dealing with a situation involving women, rescue teams could not arrive quickly at the scene, and by the time they went in lives had already been lost.
I recall the incident that is part of history now because a similar incident involving a woman happened just a few weeks ago. A local newspaper reported the case of an old woman who tried to commit suicide by jumping from the window of her apartment in a high-rise building. It took the civil defense teams several hours and many attempts to rescue the woman. They did this only after using an inflated air cushion to force the woman to jump and then take her to hospital.
Again, why it took so long and risky maneuvers to rescue the woman? Because rescue teams could not enter the house in the absence of a mahram (male guardian). Our tradition prevents males from entering a building where there is no guardian even if it is an emergency.
This case shows the sensitivity with which we continue to treat the mahram and how illogical our reaction can be even in critical moments.
Yet, we continue to behave the same way in matters of life or death. Who can guarantee that every woman will have a male guardian around her 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Why then do we act like this when Islam has come to protect people’s inviolabilities, foremost among them is protecting and saving human life?
The question that we need to answer here is which should have precedence over the other; saving the life of a woman even if this calls for breaking into the house in the absence of a mahram or waiting until the mahram, who may not even exist or could be away for some reason, comes and opens the door for rescue teams?
I still remember a case of a woman patient who bled to death because doctors could not perform an urgent surgery to save her in the absence of her husband who could not make it to sign the papers. Suppose the husband was of the wicked kind of men who refuse to come to the rescue of their wives, who would bear the responsibility for the loss of life?
Some men are so obsessed with this specialty of ours, they would rather see their wives die in front of them than allow male rescuers or doctors to help them.
Now, I know why our girls’ schools carry numbers instead of names unlike the boys’ schools, which are named after the early Muslim conquerors, caliphs and rulers.
If this is the view held by the body responsible for the education of women, who cares if a woman lives or dies?
