By: Rachel Avraham
Qanta Ahmed is a physician, a Muslim of Pakistani origin, a British citizen and the author of “In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in Saudi Arabia.” Ahmed told United With Israel that she has traveled virtually everywhere in the Middle East, and has found no other country in the region with the same “level of freedom and integration.” Based on her experience, she acknowledges Israel as a special and unique country, a fact she believes no one should take for granted.
Ahmed recounts, “There was a very powerful sense of national identity in Israel, and in a certain way an acceptance of people wanting to be different. I found Israel extraordinarily liberating, for Muslim men and women. I met with Israeli Muslims…
I visited the Beit Issi Shapiro Center in Kalansua, where Israeli Arab women were taking care of children with special needs. These women participated in the society, whether veiled or not. They had a role outside the household.”
Qanta Ahmed with Israeli Arab womenAhmed remarked that during her visit to the Technion, she was amazed by the various programs offered and the strong minority presence on the campus. She noted, “20 percent of the undergraduates at the Technion are Arab Muslims and seeing how they were thriving is very different from even the privileged women in Saudi Arabia. There is a different climate. I don’t feel in Israel that women are under siege or unequal or victims, but that is a strong feeling in the Muslim world. They aren’t fully empowered and they aren’t equal. I found Israel very refreshing. I did not find it in any way oppressive.”
Ahmed was also impressed that Israel provides a safe haven to the Ahmadi Muslim community, which is “persecuted across the Muslim world.” In contrast, the Ahmadi Muslim community in Haifa has “been thriving for the last 100 years.” They have their “own mosques, cemeteries funded by the Israeli government, and a school,” while in Pakistan “Ahmadi cemeteries are frequently desecrated, Ahmadis are barred from giving the Muslim call to prayer, and it is forbidden to call their holy places mosques.” Ahmed relates, “When I was visiting the minorities in Haifa, there were young men who recently converted [to Ahmadi Islam]…[and] some of them were Palestinians from the West Bank. They were excommunicated by their families in the West Bank for adopting their views and sought shelter in Haifa.” She acknowledged, “Israel is a guarantor of religious freedom. Religious freedom is an absolute human right under Israeli law, but not in the Palestinian Authority.”
Ahmed concluded, “The Muslim world needs Israel as an inspiration more than Israel needs the Muslim world’s acceptance. It is very bleak times, but Israel is extraordinarily hopeful…a hope I really experienced through the Israeli Muslims I met.”
Reference:
Categories: Arab World, Asia, Israel, Middle East
An earlier report by Haaretz:
The many faces of Dr. Qanta Ahmed, an unlikely defender of Israel
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/the-many-faces-of-dr-qanta-ahmed-an-unlikely-defender-of-israel.premium-1.527067
Yea Haifa and big thanks.
Right, we have to note what is right.
I fully agree with her give credit where credit is due , but she forgot to thank the biggest contributer the United States of America and our democratic values of absolute freedom of religion for all religions and ideas and lets not forget the generosity of the American people and there tax dollars , muslim americans tax dollars included who make it possible. God bless America
Its good that Dr. Ahmad was serving humanity – but its strange, why she is writing all this? Does it really incorporate with her duties while she was there? “Women in Arab World”, and “The Situation of Ahmadies”, why these two things have to be of interest more than needed. What are the prime examples of women with best treatment on the earth? And the “Kafirs or Blasphemers” (as thy are viewed) being treated nicely? Legends of mistreatment of the weak are universal. Its just a matter of time, people learn gradually. “Hawa ke dosh pe rakhe huve chiragh hain hum – jo bujh gaey to hawa se shikaytain kaisi”.