u/EarlyRooster966

Hi, for context I'm an egyptian 19F and I took islamic lessons since i was young till around the time i hit 14-15 years old with a sheikh i really admired, and throughout our lessons he would mention Zakir Naik, a da'iyah with a youtube channel and he would recommend us to watch him. I followed the recommendation and watched a lot of his debates and admired his way of convincing non-muslims that Islam is the right religion, so I subscribed to his channel and whenever I'd get a notification that he uploaded something I would sometimes go to watch it.

Today, when I was scrolling on Reels I saw a niqabi woman talking about how he said that women who are unmarried at an 'older' age are either 'public property' or will marry a man who already has a wife, I was horrified at the 'public property' comment and was like 'no he'd never say that' so I looked it up and it's actually true, i watched the full clip on his official channel (yes i checked, and here's the full clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTu5tAg14Mg ) and the comments actually horrified me.

As far as I know (my mom took Islamic courses at Al-Azhar University so she has extensive knowledge in Islam), marriage is not obligatory and is only sunnah, it becomes obligatory when you cannot control your urges and are about to commit zinah, and I also know about قصف المحصنات (for non arabic speakers, the shaming of an honorable woman about her honor, or accusing her of being dishonorable) and how grave of a sin it is, so my question is, isn't he, as a knowledgeable Muslim who debates non muslims all the time and has immense popularity (4 million Youtube subscribers btw) supposed to know better than to make that sort of comment? and the men in the audience clapping when they hear him say that? Do they not have sisters or daughter who are unmarried?

Being unmarried isn't a sin (again unless you fear of committing zina then you should get married) and marriage, after all, is rizq (or ibtelaa' we never really know), not every woman will get married and they shouldn't if they don't want to (let me remind yall that marriage without one of the parties' consent is considered to be invalid and a woman's consent is essential in order for a marriage to take place), it doesn't mean that an unmarried woman will actually commit zina. that is such a weird generalization and if i'm being honest, a crazy reach. what also bothers me is that he'd never say that about a man. for some weird reason, some scholars only like to talk about women committing zina as if it's the biggest crime ever (it is a grave sin) but say nothing about men committing zina, even when Allah gave both genders the same punishment and didn't differentiate between them. I know my religion better than this and Islam is innocent from this kind of sexism.

What also concerns me is the comments from non-muslims on this, nowadays people (especially westerners) are starting to discover islam more and more and a lot of them are thinking of reverting (islam is actually the fastest growing religion as far as i know), I'd hate to see a woman who's thinking of reverting but decides not to because of a clip like this. Keep in mind that as I said, this man has a huge platform and is recommended by tons of sheikhs and Muslims. If I were thinking of reverting and saw a well known Islamic da'iyah speaking like this, I'd definitely decide against it, especially with the insane amount of applause this commentary got from the audience.

Thank you, may Allah guide us all.