Women in Islam

Women in the Qur'an

Women and jobs

Marriage and divorce

Islam does require that a husband make a gift, or settle money upon the bride. This is called mehr or meher. The gift can be intangible or negligible, or it can be a valuable gift of real property or investments. The mehr may also be divided into portions, one to be given the bride at marriage, the other to be given the wife if she is widowed or divorced. The mehr can be a woman's protection against arbitrary divorce and poverty.

The details of the mehr should be specified in the marriage contract. The marriage contract can also specify where the couple will live, whether or not the first wife will allow the husband to take a second wife without her consent, whether or not the wife has the right to initiate divorce, and other such matters. The marriage contract somewhat resembles the marriage settlements negotiated for upper-class Western brides, but can extend to non-financial matters usually ignored by marriage settlements or pre-nuptial agreements.

In practice, many Islamic marriages are contracted without a written contract, or using a "fill in the blanks" form supplied by the officiant. In such cases, custom governs the treatment of a divorcee or widow, and is often, in the opinion of Islamic feminists, unfair or unkind. Islamic feminists have been active in informing Muslim women of their rights under Islamic law (sharia) and encouraging them to negotiate favorable contracts before marriage.

In theory, Islamic law allows men to divorce at will, by saying "I divorce you" (talaq) three times in public. Unless otherwise specified in the marriage contract, women must seek divorce through court proceedings, and convince male Islamic representatives to give her a divorce. In practice divorce is quite involved; there may be separate state proceedings to follow as well; this is the case in most of the Muslim world today. Usually, the divorced wife keeps her mehr, both the original gift and any supplementary property specified in the marriage contract. She is also given child support until the age of weaning, at which point the child may be returned to its father if so agreed by the couple or ordered by the court.

Women were guaranteed certain rights of divorce and inheritance in Islam at an early stage, although the extent to which these rights have been exercisable in practice has differed significantly from nation to nation, and from time period to time period.

A Muslim may not marry or remain married to an unbeliever of either sex (2:221, 60:10). A Muslim man may marry a woman of the People of the Book (5:5); traditionally, however, Islamic law forbids a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim man. If the man chooses to convert to Islam marriage then would be allowed.

Women as clergy and religious scholars

Women are allowed to be religious scholars; however, in practice this practice has fallen into disuse in most places, although in medieval times there were colleges devoted exclusively to women. Some interpretations of Islamic law hold that women should not lead men, and thus are forbidden from working in the government. This has been a widespread view in many Muslim nations in the last century, despite the example of Muhammad's wife Aisha, who both took part in politics and was a major authority on hadith.

As national leaders

Today, in more moderate Muslim nations, women have led governments as often or more often than in Western countries. For example, Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkey, and Bangladesh, all predominantly Muslim nations, have had female heads of government or state (e.g. Benazir Bhutto, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Tansu Ciller and Khaleda Zia respectively). Muslim women also hold important positions in governments or in corporations.

Ability to vote

Until recently most Muslim nations (and indeed most nations) were non-democratic. Today some Islamists view democracy as against Islam, while other Islamists and most non-Islamists disagree.

Many Muslim nations today allow their citizens to have some level of voting and control over their local government; with a few exceptions in Arabia, all such nations allow women to vote. As part of the changes wrought by Ataturk (founder of modern Turkey) in the late 1920s and early 1930s, women were given the right to vote in Turkey significantly earlier than most other European countries and the United States.

Dress codes

All those in whose presence a woman is not obliged to practice the dress code are known to be her mahrams. Men have a dress code which is more relaxed: the loins must be covered from knee to waist. The rationale given for these rules is that men and women are not to be viewed as sexual objects.

Turkey and Tunisia, though predominantly Muslim, have laws against these dress codes in schools and work places. After Ataturk's declaration of the Republic in 1923, a European dress code was encouraged. It is against the law to attend class or parliament with a head scarf in Turkey.

In practice, society dictates what women are allowed to wear in many culturally Islamic countries. Infringement of these rules in some Muslim nations may result in beatings. Some view Islamic women as being oppressed by the men in their communities because of the required dress codes. However, in more moderate nations, where these dress codes are not obligatory, there are still many Muslim women who practice it, where most of them choose to follow it because they believe it is the will of Allah. One of the garments women are required to wear is the hijab (of which the headscarf is one component). The word hijab is derived from the Arabic word hijaba which means 'to hide from sight or view', 'to conceal'. Hijab means to cover the head as well as the body.

Domestic violence

The medieval jurist ash-Shafi'i, founder of one of the main schools of fiqh, commented on this verse that "hitting is permitted, but not hitting is preferable."

The Arabic verse uses idribûhunna (from the root daraba ضرب), whose commonest meaning in Arabic has been rendered as "beat", "hit", "scourge", or "strike". Besides this verse, other meanings for daraba used in the Qur'an (though not with a human direct object) include 'to travel', 'to make a simile', 'to cover', 'to separate', and 'to go abroad', among others. For this reason — particularly in recent years (e.g. Ahmed Ali, Edip Yuksel) &mdash some consider "hit" to be a misinterpretation, and believe it should be translated as "admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and separate from them." Certain modern translations of the Qur'an in the English language accept the commoner translation of "beat", but tone down the wording with bracketed additions.

Several Hadith urge strongly against beating one's wife, such as: "How does anyone of you beat his wife as he beats the stallion camel and then embrace (sleep with) her? (Al-Bukhari, English Translation, vol. 8, Hadith 68, pp. 42-43), "I went to the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) and asked him: What do you say (command) about our wives? He replied: Give them food what you have for yourself, and clothe them by which you clothe yourself, and do not beat them, and do not revile them. (Sunan Abu-Dawud, Book 11, Marriage (Kitab Al-Nikah), Number 2139)". However, some suggest that these Hadith were later abrogated, noting that in the Farewell Pilgrimage, he said:

Fear Allah concerning women! Verily you have taken them on the security of Allah, and intercourse with them has been made lawful unto you by words of Allah. You too have right over them, and that they should not allow anyone to sit on your bed whom you do not like. But if they do that, you can chastise them but not severely. Their rights upon you are that you should provide them with food and clothing in a fitting manner. (Narrated in Sahih Muslim, on the authority of Jabir.) [1]

"If the husband senses that feelings of disobedience and rebelliousness are rising against him in his wife, he should try his best to rectify her attitude by kind words, gentle persuasion, and reasoning with her. If this is not helpful, he should sleep apart from her, trying to awaken her agreeable feminine nature so that serenity may be restored, and she may respond to him in a harmonious fashion. If this approach fails, it is permissible for him to beat her lightly with his hands, avoiding her face and other sensitive parts. In no case should he resort to using a stick or any other instrument that might cause pain and injury. Rather, this 'beating' should be of the kind the Prophet (peace be on him) once mentioned to a disobedient maid-servant, when he said 'If it were not for the fear of retaliation on the Day of Resurrection, I would have beaten you with this miswak (tooth-cleaning twig)' [as reported by Ibn Majah, by Ibn Hibban in his Sahih, and by Ibn Sa`d in his Tabaqat].class="external">[1

Honor killings

"Honor killings" are often erroneously identified as part of Islamic teaching, though they are in fact a cultural practice which is neither exclusive to, nor universal within, the Islamic world. Such killings take place within the Muslim communities around the Mediterranean as well as in Brazil, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Punjab in India[1], and non-Muslim parts of West Africa; while in Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic country, the status of the practice is unknown.

Women as prisoners of war or as slaves

See the main article on Ma malakat aymanukum.

The effect of Islamism

The nebulous revivalist movement termed Islamism is one of the most dynamic movements within Islam in the 20th and 21st centuries. Islamists tend to minimize the role of women in some aspects of civil life, although in the longest-standing Islamist state - Iran - women legislators are included in the Majlis, and women comprise 60% of university students.[1]

Taliban

Taliban religion minister, Al-Haj Maulwi Qalamuddin, told the New York Times that "To a country on fire, the world wants to give a match. Why is there such concern about women? Bread costs too much. There is no work. Even boys are not going to school. And yet all I hear about are women. Where was the world when men here were violating any woman they wanted?"

Although the Taliban claimed that the education of girls in rural Afghanistan was increasing, a UNESCO report stated that there was "a whopping 65 per cent drop in their enrollment. In schools run by the Directorate of Education, only 1 per cent of the pupils are girls. The percentage of female teachers, too, has slid from 59.2 per cent in 1990 to 13.5 per cent in 1999."

The effect of Feminism on Islam

All the mainstream denominations of Islam allow Muslim women to be recognized as religious scholars (at least in theory), but not to lead mixed prayers, ie be imamss, or deliver Friday khutbas. In practice, despite Aisha's example, few if any female religious scholars exist. This state of affairs is considered unsatisfactory by liberal movements within Islam (among others), which have attempted to bring about feminist reforms.

See also