Book

Women's Series: A Number in the Western Stock Exchange

Prof. Dr. Muhammad Ahmad Basnawi

Publication Date: July 20, 2026 22:31 KSA

When we look today at the turbulent international scene with its cultural and political manifestations, we find ourselves facing a severe structural crisis that transcends geographical boundaries and regional conflicts, reaching the core of humanity and its strategic values. Western capitalism, in its contemporary expansion and its grip on globalization, is no longer satisfied with traditional military control or monopolizing certain goods and raw materials; rather, its hidden hand has extended to re-engineer human consciousness and strip humans of their spiritual privacy. Among the most prominent victims of this materialistic expansion, governed by the language of numbers and the pure profit motive, is 'woman,' who in the modern Western system has been transformed from a human entity carrying thought and a civilizational message into merely a production tool and a commercial commodity whose value is measured by the financial returns she achieves in the market of promotion and consumption.

Let us here read the documents of this transformation carefully. Documents and numbers do not lie; rather, they reveal the true face of exploitation that shocks the living human conscience. Contemporary human rights reports issued in the United States and Europe indicate that the pornography industry, in which women and underage girls are systematically and organizedly exploited, has become a parallel economy where multinational companies generate astronomical profits exceeding $97 billion annually worldwide, according to The Guardian. In this crude consumption model, woman's human and innate cover is stripped away, treating her as a tool for fleeting pleasure and quick money-making, as woman's essence is vulgarized and framed in a narrow physical mold serving insatiable capital machines. This moral tragedy does not stop at screens and digital industries; it extends to become a cross-border crime, clearly manifesting in the phenomenon of human trafficking. According to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, more than 70% of the victims of this dark trade worldwide are women and girls, the vast majority of whom fall into the snares of forced sexual slavery within Western countries that boast of freedoms. This painful reality represents a major civilizational setback, a clear return to the old slave markets, but in a modern form wrapped in slogans of false modernity and personal freedom, while in essence it is a complete dispossession of woman's will, dignity, and future.

In contrast, and with a completely different strategic equation, the legislative philosophy in Islam emerges to provide a unique model that rescues woman from this material swamp and redefines her human dignity. Islam legislated the values of modesty and hijab, not as a restriction on woman's movement or an elimination of her active role in building society, but as a protective shield against the 'commodity perspective' that reduces her to her external appearance. Islam categorically affirmed that woman's real and essential value stems from her sound mind, intellectual contribution, and safeguarded humanity, not from the degree of her nudity or her conformity to the market's annual standards and changing whims. From this standpoint based on honoring and elevation, Islam absolutely prohibited all means of earning and professions based on vulgarizing woman's body or exploiting her femininity for commercial promotion, making her honor a red line that cannot be crossed in the social and legislative security system. Indeed, the Islamic faith reached the peak of sublimity when it elevated the defense of this honor and its preservation, making the man killed in protecting his honor a martyr occupying the highest station. Last but not least, woman's real battle today is not a battle of unveiling or hijab in the superficial sense, but a battle of awareness and will against an international machine seeking to strip you of your moral and intellectual sovereignty. You must realize that your true liberation is made by your awareness of your civilizational mission, not by submitting to the demands of a materialistic system that has washed its hands of human dignity to fill its coffers with the vulgarization of the body.

GlobalizationHuman Trafficking