New Delhi: Addressing a public meeting on “Islamic Family System and Its Relevance in Modern Times” at Jamaat-e-Islami Hind headquarters on Saturday, renowned Islamic scholar Dr. Javed Jameel offered a sweeping critique of what he described as “economic fundamentalism”, arguing that modern global corporate power has reshaped societies by exploiting human weaknesses, dismantling family structures, and normalising sexual permissiveness in the name of freedom.
Dr. Jameel said that religious texts, including the Qur’an, have long warned against humanity’s dangerous attachment to wealth. That individual weakness has now been magnified into a global system run by powerful corporations. “In the last two to three centuries,” he said, “corporate power has grown so dominant that it influences governments, controls the media and shapes the very consciousness of people. The state itself has been turned into an estate owned by corporations.”
This concentration of economic and ideological power has eroded religion, broken moral codes, and created an economic order designed primarily for the elite. But the most dangerous consequence, he emphasised, has been the commercialisation of sex, which is “the biggest and most destructive project of corporate civilisation.”
Dr. Jameel argued that corporations deliberately weakened the family because a stable family blocks the expansion of the trillion-dollar global sex industry. By promoting scientific theories that deny divine creation, suppressing religion, and controlling global media narratives, corporate forces have gradually normalised sexual permissiveness, while concealing its harmful repercussions.
“The result,” he warned, “is an explosion of prostitution, rape, sexually transmitted diseases, abortions, broken homes, and psychological trauma.”
Citing global data, which he noted were often reported by Western sources themselves, he highlighted the disproportionate suffering borne by women and children. AIDS alone has killed around six crore people in the last 30 years, with women more affected due to biological and social vulnerability. Around five million new HIV infections still occur annually. Beyond AIDS, Dr. Jameel claimed that 86 million women worldwide have experienced rape, with sexual violence affecting anywhere from one in four to one in ten women in the West. In many Western societies, he said, 30 to 60 percent of children now grow up in single-parent families. Abortion rates have crossed 7.5 million annually, frequently linked to pregnancies outside marriage.
Contrasting this with the Islamic model, Dr. Jameel described the Islamic family system as balanced, holistic, and inherently protective of women, children and social well-being. Islam regulates human desires not to restrict freedom, but to safeguard health and social harmony. The Islamic social structure rests on three interlinked layers, individual, family and community and on three moral pillars, fundamental rights, fundamental duties, and fundamental prohibitions, with all three receiving equal emphasis.
Dr. Jameel outlined several key Islamic principles that contribute to strong families: prohibition of alcohol and harmful substances; the centrality of marriage; the duty of men to support women financially; the Qur’anic emphasis on two full years of breastfeeding for better health outcomes; and the health-based rationale for iddat in identifying sexually transmitted diseases during their incubation period.
Marriage in Islam, he said, is more than a contract; it is a social institution that preserves lineage, protects women, ensures the well-being of children, and anchors them in the supportive networks of parents, grandparents and extended family. Islam prohibits sexual relations outside marriage and rejects homosexuality, which he argued has historically contributed to the spread of AIDS. He criticised modern legal systems, including in India, for “validating” homosexual relationships under what he termed corporate influence.
On the sensitive issue of polygamy, Dr. Jameel contended that it is far less harmful than widespread promiscuity. Polygamy is limited, structured and socially linked to gender ratios, whereas promiscuity creates vast, unregulated networks of sexual relations that fuel the spread of disease. “Polygamy provides security to women and children, while promiscuity destroys families and endangers public health.”
Dr. Jameel urged Muslim communities to actively revive Islamic family values, promoting early and responsible marriages, ensuring two full years of breastfeeding, supporting widows and divorcees, and developing policies to help women balance family and professional life. If Muslims aspire to present Islam as a global alternative, they must begin by strengthening the family system and confidently advocating its moral and social principles.
