Muslim opinion leaders working towards the promotion of peace, protection, and prevention of conflict-related Gender-Based Violence (GBV), have called on stakeholders to spearhead efforts towards ending the scourge.

The leaders expressed concern over allegations that the spate of GBV is being encouraged by Islam, insisting that the Holy Quran does not support violence in any form, especially towards women.

Deputy Chief Imam of the National Mosque, Professor Iliyas Usman, pointed out that religious and traditional leaders are strong tools for public reorientation, as they affect GBV.

He stated this at a Two-Day Stakeholders Dialogue on Islamic Perspective on Gender-Based Violence Prevention organized by the Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC), in partnership with Muslim Opinion Leaders for the Prevention of GBV in Northern Nigeria (MOLs), the Centre for Islamic Civilization and Interfaith Dialogue (CICID), supported by the Ford Foundation, yesterday in Abuja.

The Deputy Imam observed that Islam as a religion does not promote or support gender-based violence; rather, it preaches that the man takes responsibility for the care and protection of his wife from all forms of violence.

He said that some contemporary writers and commentators find in some Qur’anic texts an unjustified discrimination between men and women by “claiming that a man has the right to beat his wife whenever he pleases and that a man has the right to dominate his wife; this is a completely false claim.”

Lead paper presenter and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Gamaleldin Ibrahim-Mohd, a former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt, said that one out of three women are subjected to gender-based violence and, unfortunately, in much of the mass media, this scourge is falsely related to Islam.

He argued that Islam as a religion does not promote it because gender-based violence was present even before Islam.

“When you look into the primary sources of Islam—the Holy Quran, the Sunnah, which is the authenticated Hadith and sayings of the Prophet, the Ijma’, which is the unanimous opinion of the Islamic scholars, and the analogy or qiyas—we find that all these primary sources of Sharia have condemned all forms of gender-based violence, not only physical violence but also psychological violence, sexual violence, socio-cultural violence, and political violence.”

Ibrahim-Mohd, who is also the Director of the International Islamic Centre for Population Studies and Research, insisted that “Depriving women of their right to protect themselves and inflicting harm on them through gender-based violence is indeed against religion.”

Speaking on the importance of equipping traditional leaders with the right tools and knowledge on the prevention of conflict-related violence, Member, Board of Trustees of the dRPC, Professor Balarabe Garko, said religious and traditional leaders are powerful drivers of social change.

According to him, “Traditional authorities and faith leadership, when equipped with the right tools, knowledge, and guidance, can bring about desired changes.”

Speaking on the importance of leveraging the influence of Muslim Opinion Leaders in addressing GBV in Northern Nigeria, Minister of Women Affairs Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim said that “Any form of aggression, molestation, or transgression is strictly forbidden in Islam.

“The Noble Prophet (SAW) declared during his Farewell Pilgrimage that your blood and property are sacred; hence, Islam provides clear codes of conduct for treating women with respect, equity, and mutuality. If these are consistently observed, there will be far less GBV and, God willing, a GBV-free society because these provisions, whether direct or indirect, safeguard all humans, with particular protection for women and girls.” (The Guardian)