"I was talking about religious education," says Sahil Adeem on his anti-women remarks

Self-proclaimed scholar Sahil Adeem sparked outrage with his anti-women statement, labelling 95% of Pakistani girls as "illiterate". However, he now claimed he was taken out of context.

The insensitive remarks from Sahil came during a private news channel's show Mukalma, in which writer Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar was also invited as a guest to discuss women rights and human rights.

During the show, Sahil asked the public to research on basic knowledge between men and women by taking a sample of 100 of both genders each.

"You will find 25 men out of 100 illiterate, fifty men would be 50-50 [neither educated nor illiterate] and 25 would be educated. It's a sample you can check from anywhere in Pakistan," he said.

ملک کی 95 فیصد خواتین جاہل ہیں۔ ساحل عدیم pic.twitter.com/qLlWwNXy1e

— Salman Durrani (@DurraniViews) June 29, 2024

"[...] And you will find 95 percent women out of 100 illiterate," the controversial public speaker added.

Clarifying his statement, the controversial speaker said that he was talking about religious education.

"There are many types of knowledge, and I was only referring to religious literacy," Sahil Adeem explained in an interview with GNN.

Adeem claimed that the TV show was not planned and that most of the audience members were employees of the channel.

He further said that he had made other important points during the program that didn't go viral.

"The fact that my words went viral shows the nation's consciousness, but it also highlights that we still have a long way to go," the cleric said.

"I had no idea it would spread like that. I even deleted some clips from the program, but I didn't think my words would be taken out of context like that," he added.

Adeem said that he was not trying to belittle women's education and acknowledged that the girl who argued with him on the show had a right to her opinion. 

"If it were a boy, I wouldn't have been patient either," the controversial public speaker added.