Women in Islam

One of the biggest misconceptions that surround the religion of Islam is that it is a religion which is deeply rooted in misogyny. As we celebrate the Women’s History Month, we need to recognize that the concept of male superiority has always been a cultural issue and not a religious one. Prior to the advent of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) the status of women was not even of second but third-class citizens. A woman was not considered as owner of her own property but it was of their husband. A woman could not receive share of her father’s wealth nor was she considered an heir to her husband’s wealth. Once a woman was married to a man she was declared his forever and under no circumstances was she to part with him. If her husband ran away, there were no laws in place that safeguarded her rights, rather she was expected to simply resign to her fate and earn a living for herself and her children. The assumed value of women in that time was no more than that of property so much so that a man was fully in his rights to merchandise his wife or to use her as a material asset in a gamble or a wager. It shows how backward the Pre-Islamic culture was in terms of treatment of women that it was considered an embarrassment to have a daughter being born in a family and it subsequently led to fathers burying their infant daughters alive among some tribes.

These inequalities in fact predate Islam and it wasn’t until the advent of Islam that these cruelties were swiftly laid to rest. It was Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) who declared in the name of God Almighty that men and women are equal to one another by virtue of humanity. Just as men have certain rights over women; women too have certain rights over men. It was Islam that declared that daughters are to be considered rightful heirs of their parent’s wealth and similarly wives are to be considered rightful heirs to their husband’s wealth. It was Islam that declared that women too could work and earn a living for themselves and that they too could own property autonomously and that their husbands had absolutely no rights to spend out of their wealth. The Quran is clear on this and states, “For men is a share of what they have earned, and for women is a share of what they have earned.. ” (4:34). However, Islam makes men the head of households and they are solely responsible for taking care of the family. Women who earn are not required to spend anything out of their own earnings.

These are rights that were unheard of and were only granted to women in the western countries within the last 50 to 100 years. It wasn’t until 1920 that women were given the right to vote and it wasn’t until 1960 that women started entering the work force in large numbers. Islam prescribed these equalities 1400 years ago so to say that Islam is a religion that gives women less importance is far from the truth. Rather it was the advent of Islam that recognized that women have intrinsic value as human beings and that a woman does not need to be defined as someone’s wife or someone’s daughter but should be defined as herself in her own right.

Islam acknowledges that though men and women have different attributes, strengths and weaknesses, intellectually there is no difference. A woman can become as educated as a man if not more and that both are equal in terms of mental ability and intelligence. In fact, we have had leading women in the history of Islam who have attained such great heights that men have not attained. If we look at Hazrat Aisha (may God be pleased with her), the wife of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) used to deliver lectures and was known as one of the greatest scholars of Arabia at that time.

In terms of Islam’s teachings about modesty and segregation of men and women, the most common question raised against Islam is about the freedom of women. But if we look in today’s world, freedom for women doesn’t mean that they are defined by their proximity to men. A woman is not more free just because men have access to them. There are movements all over the world that are designed to ensure that women themselves are able to be judged on the basis of who they are and not how they look or where they sit in society and Islam has been doing that for 1400 years.

Equality is a faculty that is even exhibited by children before they develop their reason. Reason is the condition of the exercise of a moral quality. Just as journalist Nicholas Kristof claimed that the struggle for gender equality around the world is the paramount moral challenge of this century, the best way to recognize the rights of the fellow beings and exercise the faculty of equity is by the application of high morals in their proper place and on their proper occasions. This view is also one of the fundamental teachings of the Holy Quran.