Chief Minister V D Satheesan on Wednesday dismissed as medieval A P Samastha general secretary Kanthapuram A P Aboobacker Musliyar's remarks that to allow women in public is to invite damnation and that the Holy Quran prescribes for women submissive confinement in homes.

"We absolutely disagree," the CM said during his customary post-Cabinet press briefing. "Not just that. It is not a thinking that sits well with progressive Kerala. This is something that belongs to the 19th century," Satheesan said.

He said that women were not meant to sit at home. "Our stand is that they should actively participate in all of life's mainstream functions," the CM said. He said that even Islamic history was replete with instances of women's power. The CM even called Kanthapuram's comments a 'misreading of Islam'.

"The Prophet's first wife Khadija was a successful businesswoman. Aisha, another of the Prophet's wives, participated in the Battle of Camel. She was the supreme commander of the forces. And then there is Bilqis in Islamic history. She was a queen (Queen of Sheba). So in Islamic history we have a businesswoman, a supreme commander, and a queen," Satheesan said.

This was not all. The CM said that it was a woman who objected when a proposal to reduce mehr (money promised by the groom to the bride) came up in the court of Kaleefa Umar, the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate and the father-in-law of Prophet Mohammad. "Everyone in the court opposed the woman. But Kaleefa Umar, the man renowned for his unmatched sense of justice, chose the woman's words over those of the men," Satheesan said, and added: "This also means that women were present even in royal durbars."

While Congress leaders have strongly objected to Kanthapuram's remarks, the Muslim League leaders have attempted to play it down. Muslim League state president Sayyid Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal said that Kanthapuram could have meant the safety and security of women. "He might have said this in the context of the increasing violence against women," Thangal had said on September 1.

The Chief Minister, however, refused to be drawn into questions about the League's refusal to reject Kanthapuram's apparently anti-women remarks.