Many people have seen the word, “Ms.”,a title used by some women but do not know the history other than being a title.
Mr. is used to address Men whether married or unmarried, teen or adult, divorced or not. As for women, Miss is used to address young and unmarried females while Mrs. for either married, divorced or widowed.
The tradition is that a woman becomes a Mrs. when she marries a man (Mr.) and takes his name. Thus, a woman is identified by her martial status. This is same for Mandarin, Spanish and French.
Women like Geraldine Ferraro preferred to be called Ms. which is quite neutral like Mr. She was married but kept her maiden name. The title, Ms. was popularized by the Women’s movement in the 1970s. Today, Ms. is the default prefix for women, married or not.
In France, the government removed “Mademoiselle” on all its official forms in 2012. All men are Monsieur and all women are Madame.
Now, Muslim women want to be Feminists but over a Millennium ago, Islam addressed this problem and gave women the right to retain their maiden names. Imagine a situation in 1900 where a non-Muslim woke woman convinces a Muslim woman that retaining her maiden name as a Muslim is archaic and backwardness only for it to be their campaign less than a decade later.
We cannot say more than that the LOGICAL and RATIONAL campaigns of Feminists and Meninists have been protected in the Qur’an. Therefore, a Muslim Feminist or Meninist is a paradox. If we indeed studied the Qur’an, it would be our basis for any -inism because everyone’s right is protected in a way of equity than hypocritical equality.
Bashir Lucas Samson Lukman
English 
