Pakista,
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the most conservative countries in terms of women
participation
Main
points:
1. Pakistan has sent only 10 sportspersons to the Olympics
2. Some Muslim countries have increased
women participation without proper preparation.
3. Non-Muslim countries have almost 50%
women participation
4. Participation of women ensures higher
medal tally
-------------
By New
Age Islam Staff Writer
5
August 2021
Olympic
games in Tokyo are going on. 10, 500 athletes and sportspersons are competing
across hundreds of disciplines. China, UK, Japan and US have topped the medal
chart as usual because of a very developed sports culture in those countries.
Other European countries like France, Germany, Italy and Korea have also fared
well. But when we look at the performance of Islamic or Muslim majority
countries in the Olympics, we are disappointed. The performance of 57 OIC
countries has been dismal in not only Tokyo Olympics but in all the previous
Olympics as well. Till now, barring a few small Muslim majority countries like
Morocco, Uzbekistan and Qatar which have won a couple of bronze, no major
Islamic country has been able to win gold or silver. In the last Olympics, only
8 OIC countries-- Iran, Tunisia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan,
Uganda and Algeria had won only 19 gold medals. The low participation of women
from the Islamic countries is also one of the main causes behind the dismal
medal tally of these countries. Chinese or American teams comprise a large
number of women athletes and gymnasts. Sometimes the women comprise as high as
50% of the participants. For example, in the 2016 Olympics, the US fielded 550
participants out of which 229 were women. Some Muslim countries do not send
women in Olympics because of the influence of extremist religious section over
the government. In the Beijing Omympics 2008, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei
did not send any woman sportsperson because of the pressure of the conservative
clergy. This invited large scale criticism from within and wothout. Therefore,
these countries relented and allowed their female sportspersons to participate
in Olympics. Still tge number of female participation has been very low because
of sports culture and state patronage of sports in these countries.
In the
past, women sportspersons from Islamic countries like Turkey and Indonesia have
won medals in Olympics but that was posdible because of the individual and
personal ambitions of such women.
This
year, a female judako ( judo player) of Saudi Arabia, Tahani al Qahtani
participated in the Olympics. Though thanks to the opening up of the Saudi
society under Prince Mohammad bin Salman's Vision 2030, intellectuals,
journalists and politicians of the Kingdom supported her participation, a
section of hardline clerics condemned her participation. For example Qatari
sociologist Abdal Aziz al Khazraj criticised Saudi sports officials for
allowing her to compete against the Israeli judoka Raz Hershko. He demanded
Tahani should withdraw from the match against Israel as a mark of protest.
Algerian athlete Fethi Nourine even withdrew from the men's judo competition
against Israel. But Saudi officials and intellectuals advised Tahani al Qahtani
not to drag politics into sports and compete against her Israeli counterpart.
The Board member of the King Abdal Aziz Centre for National Dialogue said
withdrawing was a fake victory and tgat she should fight irrespective of the
result. She will be the hero of the nation for her endeavour.
However,
women like Tahani rise to prominence in sports arena in Islamic countries
thanks to their sheer will and personal efforts. The state does not have sports
infrastructure or games and sports are not lart of schooling activity. The
conservative Islamic society does not allow women in to participate in local
sports activities. Even for men, there is not much emphasis on sports in school
level. Though the Quran and Hadiths do not forbid sports activities. On the
contrary, some hadiths put emphasis on maintaining good health and jogging.
Women
participation in sports is occasionally discouraged by fatwas from clerics with
half-baked knowledge of Islam. Some years ago a fatwa against cycling by women
was issued in India though Arab Muslim women rode horses and camels as these
were the main means of transportation and travel in the Arab countries in the
olden days.
Mahfoud Amara, Lecturer in Sport and Leisure
Policy and Management
Loughborough
University in her article The Muslim World in the Global Sporting Arena
“The
Muslim world is torn between its fascination with Western modernity ---
represented by the nation state system, industrial advance, and information
technology --- and its struggle against Western colonial and neocolonial dominance.
The world of sport has this same conflict. The Muslim world has, on the
one hand, accepted modern sport as a
symbol of modernization in Muslim societies and as a privileged tool for
nation-state building. But on the other hand, many Muslims particularly
representatives of Islamist movements --- are wary of modern sport as a symbol
of secularism and a deviation from
authentic societal concerns of the ummah.”
In recent years, the Islamic countries have
shed the inhibition and have allowed more and more women to participate in the
Olympic games but still their number is low as compared with the Western countries
or even some Asian countries with non-Muslim majority. Given below is the
statistics of women participation of some Islamic countries.
Saudi
Arabi: 31 men
2 women
Qatar 13 “
3 “ “
Indonesia 16 “
12 “ “
Iran 55 “
10 “ “
Turkey 58 “
50 “ “
Malaysia 12
“ “ 18 “
Pakistan 7
“ “ 3
”
Egypt 85 “
47 “
Uzbekistan 36
“ 28 “
Azerbaijan 28
“ 16 “
In
comparison, the statistics of participation of non-Muslim countries
US 284 329
UK 176 200
Japan 293 259
From
the statistics of some Muslim countries, It becomes clear that sports
activities are of little or no importance for them. See for example, Pakistan,
a country of 22 crore Muslims sends only 10
participants to the Olympics – 7 men and 3 women. Saudi Arabi sends 33
participants out of whom only 2 women. Turkey, Uzbekistan and Egypt have
increased women participation but because of lack of sport culture and lack of
world level infrastructure, the increased participation does not translate into
medals. Until, a sports culture is promoted right from the primary school level
and a clear sports policy is adopted by the Islamic countries, only increased
participation will have no real effect. Apart from that, the misinterpretations
and irrational fatwas by the extremist and conservative clerics have to be
prohibited and refuted.
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