Alsiraj Official Website
Womens' Rights in Islam
Before you read
Before you read this research on women rights in Islam let us first set some rules which are:
1. Never judge a religion or even any principle by the behaviour of those who embrace this religion or those who support this principle. For example you can not judge Christianity as a religion based on how Christians now behave.
Christianity refuses adultery however we now see how it spreads in modern societies especially in America and Europe that it is now acceptable there when an unmarried woman gets pregnant and she does not even feel ashamed. Of course if Jesus, peace be upon him, was here he would have been shocked at how Christian men and women perform adultery. Consequently, when you judge Islam you have to judge it by its principles and how early Islamic societies practically applied Islamic rules. You can not judge Islam by how Muslims today behave.
2. Try to read this research after setting aside whatever previous judgments you had about Islam and how women are treated in Islam. This is because many Islamic societies helped in drawing a false picture of Islam. Many Muslim societies treated women unjustly based on their own traditions and tried to justify this unfairness by claiming that it is an Islamic principle to cover it with holiness and thus prevent any one from refusing it.
For example some Islamic societies forbid women to learn or even leave her houses claiming that this is an Islamic principle. Of course it is not because in Islam women fought in battles, became scholars, poets…etc. The idea of these societies was : keep women ignorant, they will not ask for their rights and convince them that the more they do not think the more pious they get.
Also lots of Islamic societies misused rights given to them in Islam like polygamy. Lots of Muslim men in Islamic societies care for nothing but more and more marriages thinking that as long as they can financially support their wives they have the right to marry and divorce as much as they please. Of course this is a fatal misuse of the right given to men in Islam. Polygamy has rules and boundaries that Islam strongly empathized (Polygamy is discussed later in this research) however many societies denied women these rights and regarded only mens’ rights.
This crocked behavior affects the image of Islam in the eyes of non-Muslims and because these societies need to justify their behavior they claim that it is in Islam to the extent that some societies claimed that the pious man must perform polygamy and the really pious wife is the one who helps her husband choose his second wife…??!!
3. We shall discuss in this research lots of critical cases concerning Islam like female circumcision, the veil and so on. You can read books about each of these cases. Here we will discuss only a general idea about these cases, we shall not go deep into the details of every case. For further readings please refer to books issued by famous Islamic scholars or known Islamic institutions.
4. This research’s main aim is neither to attack other religions (that is why we did not discuss women rights in religions other that Islam) nor to defend Islam because we Muslims believe that God is more than capable of defending his religion and that the glory and justice of Islam is sufficient to make people if not embrace it at least respect it once they knew the real teachings and rulings of Islam.
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