Women in Islam: Difference between revisions
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During his life, Muhammad married [[Muhammad's wives|eleven or thirteen women]] depending upon the differing accounts of who were his wives. In Arabian culture, marriage was generally contracted in accordance with the larger needs of the tribe and was based on the need to form alliances within the tribe and with other tribes. Virginity at the time of marriage was emphasized as a tribal honor.<ref>Amira Sonbol, ''Rise of Islam: 6th to 9th century'', Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures</ref> [[William Montgomery Watt]] states that all of Muhammad's marriages had the political aspect of strengthening friendly relationships and were based on the Arabian custom.<ref>Watt (1956), {{p.|287}}.</ref> The tradition set by Muhammad, as recorded in various [[hadith]]s are another primary source of influence for Muslims, both men and women. |
During his life, Muhammad married [[Muhammad's wives|eleven or thirteen women]] depending upon the differing accounts of who were his wives. In Arabian culture, marriage was generally contracted in accordance with the larger needs of the tribe and was based on the need to form alliances within the tribe and with other tribes. Virginity at the time of marriage was emphasized as a tribal honor.<ref>Amira Sonbol, ''Rise of Islam: 6th to 9th century'', Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures</ref> [[William Montgomery Watt]] states that all of Muhammad's marriages had the political aspect of strengthening friendly relationships and were based on the Arabian custom.<ref>Watt (1956), {{p.|287}}.</ref> The tradition set by Muhammad, as recorded in various [[hadith]]s are another primary source of influence for Muslims, both men and women. |
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For some reason, woman are inferior in Islamic culture. |
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===Secondary=== |
===Secondary=== |
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Women in Islam are guided by primary Islamic sources of personal law, namely the Quran and hadiths, as well as secondary sources such as the ijma, qiyas, ijtihad in form such as fatwas; the secondary sources vary with various sects of Islam and schools of jurisprudence (madhhab).[1][2] In certain regions, in addition to religious guidelines, pre-Islamic cultural traditions play a role.[3] Islamic laws and cultural customs impact various stages of a Muslim women's life, including her education, employment opportunities, rights to inheritance, female circumcision, dress, age of marriage, freedom to consent to marriage, marriage contract, mahr, permissibility of birth control, divorce, sex outside or before marriage, her ability to receive justice in case of sex crimes, property rights independent of her husband, and when salat (prayers) are mandatory for her.[4][5][6] Polygyny is allowed to men under Islam, but not widespread; in some Islamic countries, such as Iran, a woman's husband may enter into temporary marriages in addition to permanent marriage.[7][8] Islam forbids Muslim women from marrying a non-Muslim.[9] There is debate and controversy on gender roles according to Islam.[3][10]
Sharia provides for complementarianism,[11] differences between women's and men's roles, rights, and obligations. Being a Muslim is more than a religious identity; Islam outlines and structures ways in which Muslim women should live their lives on a day-to-day basis.[12] Islam mandates that a woman must have her husband’s permission to leave the house and take up employment.[13][14][15] In majority Muslim countries women exercise varying degrees of their religious rights with regards to marriage, divorce, legal status, dress code, and education based on different interpretations. Scholars and other commentators vary as to whether they are just and whether they are a correct interpretation of religious imperatives.
Sources of influence
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Quran-Mus%27haf_Al_Tajweed.jpg/220px-Quran-Mus%27haf_Al_Tajweed.jpg)
There are four sources of influence under Islam for Muslim women. The first two, the Quran and Hadiths, are considered primary sources, while the other two are secondary and derived sources that differ between various Muslim sects and schools of Islamic jurisprudence. The secondary sources of influence include ijma, qiyas and, in forms such as fatwa, ijtihad.[1][2][16]
Primary
Women in Islam are provided a number of guidelines under Quran and hadiths, as understood by fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) as well as of the interpretations derived from the hadith that were agreed upon by majority of Sunni scholars as authentic beyond doubt based on hadith studies.[3][17] Sunni Muslims are the largest Islamic sect, comprising approximately 80% of the world's Muslims. The Sunni sect includes many theological schools and doctrines interpreting the Quran. To Sunnis, the ahadith constitute an important source of legislation. Fiqh is the basis of jurisprudence, or legal practise, developed by Muslim jurists during the centuries following the creation of Islam, and largely influenced by the ahadith.[18] These interpretations and their application were shaped by the historical context of the Muslim world at the time they were written.[3] Many of the earliest writings were from a time of tribal warfare which could have been inappropriate for the 21st century, but most remain appropriate to how a Muslim following the sunnah should behave.
During his life, Muhammad married eleven or thirteen women depending upon the differing accounts of who were his wives. In Arabian culture, marriage was generally contracted in accordance with the larger needs of the tribe and was based on the need to form alliances within the tribe and with other tribes. Virginity at the time of marriage was emphasized as a tribal honor.[19] William Montgomery Watt states that all of Muhammad's marriages had the political aspect of strengthening friendly relationships and were based on the Arabian custom.[20] The tradition set by Muhammad, as recorded in various hadiths are another primary source of influence for Muslims, both men and women.
For some reason, woman are inferior in Islamic culture.
Secondary
The above primary sources of influence on women of Islam do not deal with every conceivable situation over time. This led to the development of jurisprudence and religious schools with Islamic scholars that referred to resources such as identifying authentic documents, internal discussions and establishing a consensus to find the correct religiously approved course of action for Muslims.[1][2] These formed the secondary sources of influence for women. Among them are ijma, qiya, ijtihad and others depending on sect and the school of Islamic law. Included in secondary sources are fatwas, which are often widely distributed, orally or in writing by Muslim clerics, to the masses, in local language and describe behavior, roles and rights of women that conforms with religious requirements. Fatwas are theoretically non-binding, but seriously considered and has often been practiced by most Muslim believers. The secondary sources typically fall into five types of influence: the declared role or behavior for Muslims, both women and men, is considered obligatory, commendable, permissible, despised or prohibited. There is considerable controversy, change over time, and conflict between the secondary sources.[21][22][23]
Gender roles
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/Muhammad%27s_widow%2C_Aisha%2C_battling_the_fourth_caliph_Ali_in_the_Battle_of_the_Camel.jpg/220px-Muhammad%27s_widow%2C_Aisha%2C_battling_the_fourth_caliph_Ali_in_the_Battle_of_the_Camel.jpg)
The Quran dedicates numerous verses to Muslim women, their role, duties and rights, in addition to Sura 4 with 176 verses named "An-Nisa" ("Women").[25] Some verses are considered as key in defining gender roles in Islam, one being verse 4.34:[26][27]
Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion [committing a religious sin], admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.
The above verse 34 uses the word qawwamun to depict the gender role of men. This is the plural form often equated as lord, master, ruler, governor, manager. Some scholars[10][28] claim this verse establishes a hierarchical gender role, with man as ruler and woman as ruled. However, other scholars[10][28] suggest that this Arabic word may not mean ruler in its context. Rather, it means ‘bread-winner’ as an economic term. Such an interpretation of Quran then implies a division of functions, with men as bread winners, and women as child-bearers.
Islam differentiates the gender role of women who believe in Islam and those who do not. The Muslim male's right to own slave women, seized during military campaigns and jihad against non-believing pagans and infidels from Southern Europe to Africa to India to Central Asia, was considered natural.[29][30][page needed] Slave women could be sold without their consent, expected to provide concubinage, required permission from their owner to marry; and children born to them were automatically considered Muslim under Islamic law if the father was a Muslim.[31][32][33]
Female education
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Al-Qarawiyyin_University%2C_Fes%2C_Morocco_-_Var_132.jpg/220px-Al-Qarawiyyin_University%2C_Fes%2C_Morocco_-_Var_132.jpg)
Historical religious education
Islam encouraged religious education of Muslim women.[citation needed] According to a hadith attributed to Muhammad, he praised the women of Medina because of their desire for religious knowledge:[35]
How splendid were the women of the ansar; shame did not prevent them from becoming learned in the faith.
While it was not common for women to enroll as students in formal religious schools, it was common for women to attend informal lectures and study sessions at mosques, madrasat and other public places. For example, the attendance of women at the Fatimid Caliphate's "sessions of wisdom" (majālis al-ḥikma) was noted by various historians, including Ibn al-Tuwayr, al-Muṣabbiḥī and Imam.[36][36] Historically, some Muslim women played an important role in the foundation of many religious educational institutions, such as Fatima al-Fihri's founding of the University of al-Karaouine in 859 CE.[37] According to the 12th-century Sunni scholar Ibn 'Asakir, there were various opportunities for female education in what is known as the Islamic Golden Age. He writes that women could study, earn ijazahs (religious degrees) and qualify as ulama and Islamic teachers.[38] Similarly, al-Sakhawi devotes one of the twelve volumes of his biographical dictionary Daw al-Lami to female religious scholars between 700 and 1800 CE, giving information on 1,075 of them.[39]
During the colonial era, until early 20th century, there was a gender struggle among Muslims in the British empire; women were viewed as a prelude to social chaos, a threat to the moral order, and man's world was viewed as a source of Muslim identity.[40] Muslim women in British India, nevertheless, pressed for their rights independent of men; by the 1930s, 2.5 million girls had entered schools of which 0.5 million were Muslims.[40]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Girls_in_school_in_Khyber_Pakhtunkhwa%2C_Pakistan_%287295675962%29.jpg/220px-Girls_in_school_in_Khyber_Pakhtunkhwa%2C_Pakistan_%287295675962%29.jpg)
Modern secular education
In a 2013 statement, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation noted that many Islamic member nations restrict education opportunities for girls.[41] UNICEF notes that out of 24 nations with less than 60% female primary enrollment rates, 17 were Islamic nations; more than half the adult population is illiterate in several Islamic countries, and the proportion reaches 70% among Muslim women.[42] Other scholars[43][44] claim Islamic nations have the world's highest gender gap in education. The 2012 World Economic Forum annual gender gap study finds the 17 out of 18 worst performing nations, out of a total of 135 nations, are the following members of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation: Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, (Nepal[45]), Turkey, Oman, Egypt, Iran, Mali, Morocco, Côte d'Ivoire, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Chad, Pakistan and Yemen.[46]
The gender gap at universities is not universal among Muslim-majority nations. In Turkey, the proportion of female university researchers is slightly higher (36%) than the average for the 27-member European Union as of 2012 (33%).[47] At the University of Jordan, which is Jordan's largest and oldest university, 65% of students were female in 2013.[48] Similarly, in Malaysia,[49] Algeria,[50] and in Saudi Arabia,[51] majority of university students have been female in recent years. Other estimates suggest this rising presence of women in education may be limited to universities. For example, a 2005 study[52] reports that even while literacy has been improving since 1970s, the overall female literacy rate in Saudi Arabia is 50% compared to male literacy of 72%. UNESCO estimates many Muslim-majority nations had about 50% or less literacy rate in its adult women population in 2010; examples include Morocco, Yemen, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Niger, Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Chad.[53] Egypt had a women literacy rate of 64% in 2010, Iraq of 71% and Indonesia of 90%.[53]
Female employment
Some scholars[54][55] refer to verse 28:23 in the Quran and to Khadijah, Muhammad's first wife, a merchant before and after converting to Islam, as indications that Muslim women may undertake employment outside their homes.
And when he came to the water of Madyan, he found on it a group of men watering, and he found besides them two women keeping back (their flocks). He said: What is the matter with you? They said: We cannot water until the shepherds take away (their sheep) from the water, and our father is a very old man.
History
During medieval times, the labor force in Spanish Caliphate included women in diverse occupations and economic activities such as farming, construction workers, textile workers, managing slave girls, collecting taxes from prostitutes, as well as presidents of guilds, creditors, religious scholars.[56]
In the 12th century, Ibn Rushd, claimed that women were equal to men in all respects and possessed equal capacities to shine, citing examples of female warriors among the Arabs, Greeks and Africans to support his case.[57] In the early history of Islam, examples of notable female Muslims who fought during the Muslim conquests and Fitna (civil wars) as soldiers or generals included Nusaybah bint Ka'ab[58] a.k.a. Umm Amarah, Aisha,[59] Kahula and Wafeira.[60]
Medieval bimarestan or hospitals included female staff as female nurses. Muslim hospitals were also the first to employ female physicians, such as Banu Zuhr family who served the Almohad caliph ruler Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in the 12th century.[61] This was necessary due to the segregation of male and female patients in Islamic hospitals. Later in the 15th century, female surgeons were employed at Şerafeddin Sabuncuoğlu's Cerrahiyyetu'l-Haniyye (Imperial Surgery).[62]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Germents_worker_Bangladesh.jpg/220px-Germents_worker_Bangladesh.jpg)
Modern era
Patterns of women's employment vary throughout the Muslim world: as of 2005, 16% of Pakistani women were "economically active" (either employed, or unemployed but available to furnish labor), whereas 52% of Indonesian women were.[66] According to a 2012 World Economic Forum report[67] and other recent reports,[68] Islamic nations in the Middle East and North Africa region are increasing their creation of economic and employment opportunities for women; compared, however, to every other region in the world, the Middle East and North African region ranks lowest on economic participation, employment opportunity and the political empowerment of women. Ten countries with the lowest women labour force participation in the world – Jordan, Oman, Morocco, Iran, Turkey, Algeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Syria – are Islamic countries, as are the four countries that have no female parliamentarians.[67]
Women are allowed to work in Islam, subject to certain conditions, such as if a woman is in financial need and her employment does not cause her to neglect her important role as a mother and wife.[54][69] It has been claimed that it is the responsibility of the Muslim community to organize work for women, so that she can do so in a Muslim cultural atmosphere, where her rights (as set out in the Quran) are respected.[54] Islamic law however, permits women to work in Islamic conditions,[54] such as the work not requiring the woman to violate Islamic law (e.g., serving alcohol), and that she maintain her modesty while she performs any work outside her home.
In some cases, when women have the right to work and are educated, women's job opportunities may in practice be unequal to those of men. In Egypt for example, women have limited opportunities to work in the private sector because women are still expected to put their role in the family first, which causes men to be seen as more reliable in the long term.[70][page needed] In Saudi Arabia, it is illegal for Saudi women to drive, serve in military and other professions with men.[71][page needed] It is becoming more common for Saudi Arabian women to procure driving licences from other Gulf Cooperation Council states such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.[72]
Legal matters
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Use_of_Sharia_by_country.svg/380px-Use_of_Sharia_by_country.svg.png)
Most Muslim majority countries, and some Muslim minority countries, follow a mixed legal system.[73] The first part of legal system includes a constitution, parliamentary laws and state courts, the second part of legal system includes sharia-based religious laws and religious courts. This has led to disagreements on various issues such as the status of women's testimony in Islam and permissibility of child marriage. Those countries that use Sharia for legal matters involving women, adopt it mostly for personal law; however, a few Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen apply the entire sharia code in legal matters for Muslim women.[74]
In some Islamic areas, local customs such as diyya ("blood money"), jirga, vani and "honor" killing remain an integral part of the customary legal processes involving Muslim women. By implementation, they also discriminate against women. Diyya was established in Arabia before Islamic times.[75][76] While Muhammed affirmed the practice of diyya,[76] Islam does not prescribe any specific amount for diyya nor does it require discrimination between men and women.[77] The Quran has left matters such as its quantity, nature and implications open to debate and the influence of local custom and tradition.[77][78] In practice, however, the killing of a woman will generally invoke a lesser diyya than the killing of a man. Commentators on the status of women in Islam have often focused on disparities in diyyat, the fines paid by killers to victims' next of kin after either intentional or unintentional homicide,[77] between men and women.
Other than applicable laws to Muslim women, there is variation in the process of testimony and acceptable forms of evidence in legal matters. Some Islamic jurists have held that certain types of testimony by women may not be accepted. In other cases, the testimony of two women can equal that of one man (although the Quran says two women and two male are needed but if a male cannot find another male he may carry this testimony out himself). According to the 12th-century maliki Averroes, "[t]here is a general consensus among the jurists that in financial transactions a case stands proven by the testimony of a just man and two women."[79] Reasons at the time the verse was revealed have been put forward including: women's temperament, women's lack of interest in legal matters,[80] and also the need to spare women from the "burden of testifying".[81] In other areas, women's testimony may be accepted on an equal basis with that from men.[79][82] The verse itself however relates to finances only.[83]
Property rights
Bernard Lewis notes that classical Islamic civilization granted free Muslim women relatively more property rights than women in the West, even as it sanctified three basic inequalities between master and slave, man and woman, believer and unbeliever.[84] Even in cases where the property rights were granted, they were very limited and covered only upper class women.[85] Over time, while women's rights have improved elsewhere, those in many Muslim-dominated countries have remained comparatively restricted.[86][87]
Women's property rights in the Quran are based around the marriage contract. A woman, according to Islamic tradition, does not have to give her pre-marriage possessions to her husband and receive a mahr (dower) which she then owns.[88] Furthermore, any earnings that a woman receives through employment or business, after marriage, is hers to keep and need not contribute towards family expenses. This is because, once the marriage is consummated, in exchange for ‘‘tamkin’’ (sexual submission), a woman is entitled to nafaqa – namely, the financial responsibility for reasonable housing, food and other household expenses for the family, including the spouse, falls entirely on the husband.[13][14] In traditional Islamic law, a woman is also not responsible for the upkeep of the home and may demand payment for any work she does in the domestic sphere.[89]
Property rights enabled some Muslim women to possess substantial assets and fund charitable endowments. In mid-sixteenth century Istanbul, 36.8% of charitable endowments (awqāf) were founded by women.[90] In eighteenth century Cairo, 126 out of 496 charitable foundations (25.4%) were endowed by women.[91] Between 1770 and 1840, 241 out of 468 or 51% of charitable endowments in Aleppo were founded by women.[92]
The Qur'an grants inheritance rights to wife, daughter, and sisters of the deceased - women who had no such rights in pre-Arab lands.[93] However, women’s inheritance rights to her father’s property are unequal to her male siblings, and varies based on number of sisters, step sisters, step brothers, if mother is surviving, and other claimants. The rules of inheritance are specified by a number of Qur'an verses, including Surah "Baqarah" (chapter 2) verses 180 and 240; Surah "Nisa(h)" (chapter 4) verses 7–11, 19 and 33; and Surah "Maidah" (chapter 5), verses 106–108. Three verses in Surah "Nisah" (chapter 4), verses 11, 12 and 176, describe the share of close relatives. The religious inheritance laws for women in Islam are different from inheritance laws for non-Muslim women under modern common laws in Europe, Americas, Australia, Asia and Africa.
Sexual crimes
In Islam, sexual intercourse between a Muslim woman and any man to whom she is not married is zina, a religious crime.[94][95] This includes extramarital sex, premarital sex and rape. It is listed as a hadd crime, i.e. a crime against God (murder of a Muslim; theft of a Muslim's property; zina; consumption of alcohol or other intoxicants; and apostasy).[96][97] The punishment in Islam for unlawful sex is fixed at a 100-lash public flogging, or stoning to death.[98] Accusing anyone of sex crime or rape, without proper witnesses, is also a hadd crime.[99]
The crime of rape has been understood by both Sunni Ḥanafī and Mālikī jurists as an act of zinā occurring within the context of what they called "coercion" or istikrāh, but by which they also meant non-consent or invalid consent.[100] Both schools have agreed that the adult male perpetrator (i.e. rapist) of such an act is to receive the ḥadd zinā, but that the non-consenting or invalidly consenting female (i.e. rape victim) is to be regarded as innocent of zinā and relieved of the ḥadd punishment.[100] Similarly, a person who consents to the act, but possesses a defective legal capacity—such as a minor, mentally impaired person, or unconscious person—is also relieved of the ḥadd punishment.[100]
Zina cannot be alleged by any woman or man without four male Muslim eyewitnesses or without confession in court by the man who committed zina.[94][95][101] This sharia requirement of four eyewitnesses severely limits a woman's ability to press rape charges, a crime often committed without eyewitnesses.[94][102][103] Sex with a non-Muslim slave women is not considered adultery.[104] This principle of religious crime only applies for unlawful sex between free Muslim men and free Muslim women.
While a sunnah suggests that a woman should not be punished for having been coerced into having sex,[105] it is the burden of the victim to establish coercion with eyewitnesses. If a man does confess to zina, eyewitnesses are not required.[106] Such a confession may, however, be withdrawn and the need for four male Muslim eyewitnesses reinstated. Failure to provide evidence is treated as a crime of false accusation, punishable with flogging.[107] Currently, it is common for a Muslim woman who makes a claim of rape not only to be denied justice but to be charged with fornication or adultery.[108][109][110][111]
Several Islamic countries, such as Morocco (Penal Code Article 475), allow rapists to avoid criminal prosecution if they marry their victim. In 2012, a 16 year-old Moroccan girl, having been forced by her family and the government prosecutor to marry her rapist – and, subsequently, having endured the rapist's abuse – committed suicide by swallowing rat poison.[112] Morocco’s parliament proposed to revise its Article 475 in 2013. Other Islamic nations with similar laws that protect the rapist in this manner include Lebanon (Article 514), Algeria, Jordan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.[113][114][115][116] There is a disagreement whether this practice is sanctioned by Islam or part of local custom.[117][118]
Witness of woman
In Qur'an, surah 2:182 equates two women as substitute for one man, in matters requiring witnesses.[119]
O ye who believe! When ye deal with each other, in transactions involving future obligations in a fixed period of time, reduce them to writing. Let a scribe write down faithfully as between the parties: let not the scribe refuse to write: as Allah has taught him, so let him write. Let him who incurs the liability dictate, but let him fear His Lord Allah, and not diminish aught of what he owes. If they party liable is mentally deficient, or weak, or unable himself to dictate, let his guardian dictate faithfully, and get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her. The witnesses should not refuse when they are called on (For evidence). Disdain not to reduce to writing (your contract) for a future period, whether it be small or big: it is juster in the sight of Allah, More suitable as evidence, and more convenient to prevent doubts among yourselves but if it be a transaction which ye carry out on the spot among yourselves, there is no blame on you if ye reduce it not to writing.
The sunnah in various hadiths, which record the teachings and actions of Muhammad, are more explicit in comparing Muslim women to Muslim men, in matters of testimony. Of these, Sahih Bukhari, considered authentic and among the most trusted binding hadiths in Islam, two hadiths record the tradition set by the Prophet and his companions:
Once Allah's Apostle went out to the Musalla (to offer the prayer) o 'Id-al-Adha or Al-Fitr prayer. Then he passed by the women and said, "O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women)." They asked, "Why is it so, O Allah's Apostle ?" He replied, "You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you." The women asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?" Allah's Apostle said, "Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?" They replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn't it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?" The women replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her religion."
The Prophet said, "Isn't the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?" The women said, "Yes." He said, "This is because of the deficiency of a woman's mind."
Muhammad Akbar and Mohammad Hanif[120] and Ghulam Ahmed Pervez claim in their books that above mentioned Quran verse is for special circumstances of financial matters, and that this should not apply in criminal matters.
In practice, several Islamic countries presently treat a woman's testimony as half of a man's, in their Sharia courts. For example, since 1979, Pakistan courts have accepted the principle that a woman's testimony is half as reliable as a man's per Islamic guidelines, and adopted it in practice.[121] Similarly, the law in many Arab countries gives a woman’s testimony half the weight of a man’s.[122]
Domestic violence law
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/A_comparison_of_acceptance_of_domestic_violence_in_select_Arab_and_Muslim_majority_countries%2C_UNICEF_2013.png/360px-A_comparison_of_acceptance_of_domestic_violence_in_select_Arab_and_Muslim_majority_countries%2C_UNICEF_2013.png)
Scholars[124][125] claim Islamic law, such as verse 4:34 of Quran, allows and encourages domestic violence against women, when a husband suspects nushuz (disobedience, disloyalty, rebellion, ill conduct) in his wife.[126] Other scholars claim wife beating, for nashizah, is not consistent with modern perspectives of Quran.[127] Some conservative translations suggest Muslim husbands are permitted ‘‘Idribuhunna’’ (use ’’light force’’) on their wives, and others claim permissibility to strike, hit, chastise, or beat.[128][129] The relationship between Islam and domestic violence is disputed by some Islamic scholars.[128][130]
In practice, the legal doctrine of many Islamic nations, in deference to Sharia law, have refused to include, consider or prosecute cases of domestic violence, limiting legal protections available to Muslim women.[131][132][133][134] In 2010, for example, the highest court of United Arab Emirates (Federal Supreme Court) considered a lower court's ruling, and upheld a husband's right to "chastise" his wife and children with physical violence. Article 53 of the United Arab Emirates' penal code acknowledges the right of a "chastisement by a husband to his wife and the chastisement of minor children" so long as the assault does not exceed the limits prescribed by Sharia.[135] In Lebanon, as many as three-quarters of all Lebanese women have suffered physical abuse at the hands of husbands or male relatives at some point in their lives.[136][137] In Afghanistan, over 85% of women report domestic violence;[138] other nations with very high rates of domestic violence and limited legal rights include Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco, Iran, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.[139] In some Islamic countries such as Turkey, where legal protections against domestic violence have been enacted, serial domestic violence by husband and other male members of her family is mostly ignored by witnesses and accepted by women without her getting legal help, according to a Government of Turkey report.[140]
Marriage
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Signing_the_Nikah.jpg/220px-Signing_the_Nikah.jpg)
Under Islamic law, marriage is not a status, it is a contract, that requires a woman's consent.[141] "Women were given inheritance rights in a patriarchal society that had previously restricted inheritance to male relatives/ family members." Annemarie Schimmel claims, "compared to the pre-Islamic position of women, Islamic legislation meant an enormous progress; the woman has the right, at least according to the letter of the law, to administer the wealth she has brought into the family or has earned by her own work."[142] Other scholars suggest Islam subsumed and expanded many cultural practices with regards to women, such as their gender role before and after marriage, continuation of bride price as mahr, and the sanction of female circumcision before she can be married, as Islam started and expanded from the Arabian peninsula.[143][144][145]
In contrast to the Western and Orient world where divorce was relatively uncommon until modern times, divorce was a more common occurrence in certain parts of the late medieval Muslim world. In the Mamluk Sultanate and Ottoman Empire, the rate of divorce was high.[146][147] In medieval Egypt, Al-Sakhawi recorded the marital history of 500 women, the largest sample of married women in the Middle Ages, and found that at least a third of all women in the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria married more than once, with many marrying three or more times. According to Al-Sakhawi, as many as three out of ten marriages in 15th century Cairo ended in divorce.[148] In the early 20th century, some villages in western Java and the Malay peninsula had divorce rates as high as 70%.[146]
Polygamy
Marriage customs vary in Muslim dominated countries. Islamic law allows polygamy, where a Muslim man can be married to four wives at the same time, under certain conditions. Some countries allow Muslim men to enter into additional temporary marriages, beyond the four allowed marriages, such as the practice of sigheh marriages in Iran,[149] and Nikah al-Mutah elsewhere in some Middle East countries.[150][151]
In some countries, polygamy is restricted by new family codes, for example the Moudawwana in Morocco.[152] Polygamy is permitted under restricted conditions,[153] but it is not widespread.[154] The Sharia requires that polygamous men treat all wives equally. Muslim women are not allowed to engage in polyandry, whereas men are allowed to engage in polygyny.[155][156]
A marriage of pleasure, where a man pays a sum of money to a woman or her family in exchange for a temporary spousal relationship, is found and considered legal among Shia sect of Islam, for example in Iran after 1979. Temporary marriages are forbidden among Sunni sect of Islam.[8] Among Shia, the number of temporary marriages can be unlimited, for a duration that is less than an hour to few months, recognized with an official temporary marriage certificate, and divorce is unnecessary because the temporary marriage automatically expires on the date and time specified on the certificate.[157] Payment to the woman by the man is mandatory, in every temporary marriage and considered as mahr.[158][159] Its practitioners cite sharia law as permitting the practise. Women's rights groups have condemned it as a form of legalized prostitution.[160][161]
Endogamy
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Endogamy is common in Islamic countries. The observed endogamy is primarily consanguineous marriages, where the bride and the groom share a biological grandparent or other near ancestor.[166][167] The most common observed marriages are first cousin marriages, followed by second cousin marriages. Consanguineous endogamous marriages are most common for women in Muslim communities in the Middle East, North Africa and Islamic Central Asia.[168][169] About 1 in 3 of all marriages in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan are first cousin marriages; while overall consanguineous endogamous marriages exceed 65 to 80% in various Islamic populations of the Middle East, North Africa and Islamic Central Asia.[167][170]
Some marriages are forbidden between Muslim women and Muslim men, according to sharia.[171] Examples include marrying one's biological father, biological son, biological brother, biological sister's son, milk son or milk brother she has nursed, husband of her biological daughter, and a step father who has had sexual relations with her biological mother.[172][173] There are disputes between Hanafis, Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanabalis schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence on whether and which such marriages are irregular but not void if already in place (fasid), and which are void (batil) marriages.[174]
Age of marriage
The age of marriage in Islam for women varies with country. Traditionally, Islam has permitted marriage of girls below the age of 10, because Sharia considers practices of Muhammad, the Prophet, as a basis for Islamic law. According to Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the two authentic hadiths, the Prophet married Aisha, his third wife when she was 6, and consummated the marriage before she reached the age of 10.[175][176]
Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his passing away).
There is a debate among Islamic scholars what the above sunnah means. Some scholars suggest that it is not the calendar age that matters, rather it is the biological age of the girl that determines when she can be married under Islamic law. According to these Islamic scholars, marriageable age in Islam is when a girl has reached sexual maturity, as determined by her nearest male guardian; this age can be, claim these Islamic scholars, less than 10 years, or 12, or another age depending on each girl. There is a strong belief among most Muslims and scholars, based on Sharia, that marrying a girl less than 15, or 12 years old is an acceptable practice for Muslims.[177][178] Muslim communities in Yemen,[179][180] Saudi Arabia,[181] India,[182][183] Bangladesh, Pakistan,[184] Indonesia,[185] Egypt,[186] Nigeria[187] and elsewhere have insisted that it is their Islamic right to marry girls below age 15.[188]
According to Islamic law (sharia), marriage cannot be forced.[88][189] Other scholars suggest that all child marriages are implicitly forced marriages.[190][191]
Interfaith marriages and Muslim women
In Islam, Muslim women may not marry non-Muslim men, a term that includes infidel, apostate, ex-Muslims, other monotheistic (Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian), non-theistic and polytheistic men (Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and others).[192][193][194] Further, a Muslim – either by birth or after conversion – is not allowed to leave Islam to marry a non-Muslim, because leaving Islam is a religious hudud crime of apostasy punishable with death.[195][196][197] The Quran allows Muslim men to marry women of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians), but the woman must be chaste. Many Islamic scholars explain this gender difference in marriage restrictions, where men can marry some non-Muslim women while Muslim women may never marry non-Muslim men, is that Islam considers marriage an unequal relationship, where a wife is subservient to her husband, and Islam forbids Muslim women who are superior because of their religion to place themselves in a subservient position as a wife of men with inferior religions.[192][198] Sharia stipulates severe punishment for non-Muslim and dhimmi men who marry and consummate their relationship with Muslim women. Hadd punishments are also stipulated for women who marry non-Muslims on their own accord.[9][192][199]
If after marriage, the husband leaves Islam or converts to another religion such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or Buddhism, the marriage of the Muslim woman to him is automatically dissolved.[200] This principle was established at the time of the Prophet; Ramla bint Abi Sufyan whose husband converted to Christianity, whose marriage was declared void by the Prophet because of the husband's decision to leave Islam.[citation needed]
Behaviour and rights within marriage
Islamic law and practice recognize gender disparity, in part, by assigning separate rights and obligations to a woman in married life. A woman's space is in the private sphere of the home, and a man's is in the public sphere.[201][202] Women must primarily fulfill marital and maternal responsibilities,[203] whereas men are financial and administrative stewards of their families.[201][204] According to Sayyid Qutb, the Qur'an "gives the man the right of guardianship or superiority over the family structure in order to prevent dissension and friction between the spouses. The equity of this system lies in the fact that God both favoured the man with the necessary qualities and skills for the 'guardianship' and also charged him with the duty to provide for the structure's upkeep."[205]
The Quran considers the love between men and women to be a Sign of God.[Quran 30:21] This said, the Quran also permits men to first admonish, then lightly tap or push and even beat her, if he suspects nushuz (disobedience, disloyalty, rebellion, ill conduct) in his wife.[126][Quran 4:34][206]
In Islam, there is no coverture, an idea central in European, American as well as in non-Islamic Asian common law, and the legal basis for the principle of marital property. An Islamic marriage is a contract between a man and his wives. A Muslim man and woman do not merge their legal identity upon marriage, and do not have rights over any shared marital property. The assets of the man before the marriage, and earned by him after the marriage, remain his during marriage and in case of a divorce.[207] A divorce under Islamic law does not require redistribution of property. Rather, each spouse walks away from the marriage with his or her individual property. Divorcing Muslim women who did not work outside their home after marriage do not have a claim on the collective wealth of the couple under Islamic law, except for deferred mahr – an amount of money or property the man agrees to pay her before the woman signs the marriage contract.[69][208]
In case of husband's death, his property is inherited partially by his wives according to a combination of sharia laws. If the man did not leave any children, his permanent wives will share a quarter of the movable property and the rest is shared by the blood relatives of the husband (for example, brother, father). If he had children from any of his wives, his wives share an eighth of the property and the rest is for his surviving children and blood relatives. The wives share as inheritance a part of movable property of her late husband, but they do not share anything from immovable property such as land, real estate, farm or such value. A woman's deferred mahr and the man's outstanding debts are paid before any inheritance is applied.[209]
Sexuality
In Islam, a Muslim woman can only have sex after her "nikah" - a proper marriage contract – with one Muslim man; sex is permitted to her only with her husband.[94][104][210] The woman's husband, may however, marry and have sex with more than one Muslim woman, as well as have sex with non-Muslim slave girls who are unmarried or married to non-Muslim men.[95][104][211] According to Quran and Sahih Muslim, two primary sources of Sharia, Islam permits only vaginal sex.[212]
(…) "If he likes he may (have intercourse) being on the back or in front of her, but it should be through one opening (vagina)."
There is disagreement among Islamic scholars on proper interpretation of Islamic law on permissible sex between a husband and wife, with claims that non-vaginal sex within a marriage is disapproved but not forbidden.[212][213][214]
After sex, as well as menstruation, Islam requires women to do ghusl (major ritual washing with water, ablutions), and in some Islamic communities xoslay (prayers seeking forgiveness and purification), as sex and menstruation are considered some of the causes that makes women religiously impure (najis).[215][216] Some Islamic jurists suggest touching and foreplay, without any penetration, may qualify wudu (minor ritual washing) as sufficient form of religiously required ablution.[217] A Muslim woman must also abstain from sex during a ritual fast, and during all times while on a pilgrimage to Mecca, as sexual act, touching of sexual parts and emission of sexual bodily fluids are considered ritually dirty.[218]
Sexual intercourse is not allowed to a Muslim woman during menstruation, postpartum period, during fasting and certain religious activities, disability and in iddah after divorce or widowhood. Homosexual relations and same sex marriages are forbidden to women in Islam.[213] In vitro fertilization (IVF) is acceptable in Islam; but ovum donation along with sperm donation, embryo donation and child adoption are prohibited by Islam.[212][219][220] Some debated fatwas from Shia sect of Islam, however, allow third party participation.[221][222]
Islam requires both husband and wife/wives to meet their conjugal duties. Religious qadis (judges) have admonished the man or women who fail to meet these duties.[223]
A high value is placed on female chastity (not to be confused with celibacy). To protect women from accusations of unchaste behaviour, the scripture lays down severe punishments towards those who make false allegations about a woman's chastity. However, in some[which?] societies, an accusation is rarely questioned and the woman who is accused rarely has a chance to defend herself in a fair and just manner.
Female genital mutilation
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There is no mention of female or male circumcision in the Quran. Although its origins are pre-Islamic, female circumcision—also known as female genital mutilation (FGM)—became associated with Afrcian Countries.[224] Muḥammad did not subject any of his daughters to this practice.[225] However, female circumcision is praised in several hadith (sayings attributed to Muhammad) as noble, but not required, along with advice that the milder forms are kinder to women.[144][226]
A 2013 UNICEF report finds that there is a widespread belief in several countries, particularly Mali, Eritrea, Mauritania, Guinea and Egypt, that female genital mutilation is a religious requirement.[6] A concerted effort is underway to end the practice of female genital mutilation. In Mauritania, where "health campaigners estimate that more than 70 percent of Mauritanian girls undergo the partial or total removal of their external genitalia for non-medical reasons", 34 Islamic scholars signed a fatwa banning the practice in January 2010. Their aim was to prevent people from citing religion as a justification for genital mutilation.[227][228] After years of contradictory rulings on female genital mutilation by Egypt's Al-Azhar University, sometimes favoring and sometimes disfavoring FGM,[229] it declared, in 2007, that FGM is a sin that should be avoided.[230]
Birth control
Islam, as the pre-Islamic Arabic culture before it, is natalist, and promotes the birth of as many children as a Muslim couple can produce. However, under certain circumstances,[which?] it is permissible according to Islamic doctrine to limit (tahdid an-nasl) or at least control ('azl, coitus interruptus) reproduction, without suffering the fate of a penalty for the gesture. Limiting the number of children is recommended when a family lacks the resources to provide for them. In practice, abortion is banned in all the countries where Islam is the state religion, except for Tunisia.
Muslim jurists of the two major sects of Islam, Sunni and Shia, generally agree that birth control and family planning is not forbidden by Sharia.[231] Some fatwas such as from Egypt and Turkey[232] claim birth control is permitted, while others such as from Saudi Arabia discourage or forbid birth control. Large families and many children are considered assets for an Islamic woman. Islamic scholars who oppose birth control cite al-An’am (Sura 6:151), al-Isra' (Sura 17:31), al Takwir (Sura 81:8,9), and al-Mumtahana (Sura 60:12) to argue that even al-Azl (coitus interruptus) is infanticide.[231] Islamic scholars who support birth control quote hadiths where al-Azl was practiced by companions of Muhammad on women who they had seized as captives of war, and with their female slaves.[233] Muslim children are highly valued by Islam, and are considered gifts from God (al-Nahl, Sura 16:72).[234] In practice, several Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia forbid birth control for Muslim women, with contraception inaccessible; in some nations such as Qatar, the husband decides if his wife can use birth control.[235][236]
Egypt's National Council for Women (NCW) has appealed to the Islamist-dominated parliament not to approve two controversial laws on the minimum age of marriage and allowing a husband to have sex with his dead wife within six hours of her death according to a report in an Egyptian newspaper.[237] The appeal came in a message sent by Dr. Mervat al-Talawi, head of the NCW, to the Egyptian People's Assembly Speaker, Dr. Saad al-Katatni, addressing the woes of Egyptian women, especially after the popular uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. She was referring to two laws: one that would legalize the marriage of girls starting from the age of 14 and the other that permits a husband to have sex with his dead wife within the six hours following her death. According to Egyptian columnist Amro Abdul Samea in al-Ahram, Talawi's message included an appeal to parliament to avoid the controversial legislation that rid women of their rights of getting education and employment, under alleged religious interpretations.
Female infanticide
Islam condemns female infanticide.[238]
When the female (infant), buried alive, is questioned – For what crime she was killed;
In some Islamic populations, sex selective female infanticide is of concern because of abnormally high boy to girl ratio at birth.[239] In Islamic Azerbaijan, for example, the birth sex ratio was in the 105 to 108 range, before the collapse of Soviet Union in early 1990s. After the collapse, the birth sex ratios in Azerbaijan has sharply climbed to over 115 and remained high for the last 20 years.[239] The persistently observed 115 boys for every 100 girls born suggests sex-selective abortion of females in Azerbaijan in last 20 years.[240][241][242] Other Muslim majority countries with high birth sex ratio, implying[243][244] female sex selective abortion include Albania (112)[245] and Pakistan (111).[246][247]
Divorce
In Islam, in some circumstances, a woman can initiate a divorce. If a Muslim woman wishes to divorce her husband she has two options under Sharia law: seek a tafriq, or seek a khul. A tafriq is a divorce for certain allowable reasons. This divorce is granted by a qadi, a religious judge, in cases where the qadi accepts her claims of abuse or abandonment. If a tafriq is denied by the qadi, she cannot divorce. If a tafriq is granted, the marriage is dissolved and the husband is obligated to pay her the deferred mahr in their marriage contract. The second method, by far more common in wife-initiated divorces, khul is a divorce without cause, by mutual consent. This divorce requires a husband's consent and it must be supported by consideration that passes from the wife to the husband. Often, this consideration almost always consists of the wife relinquishing her claim to the deferred mahr. In actual practice and outside of Islamic judicial theory, a woman’s right to divorce is often extremely limited compared with that of men in the Middle East.[248]
In contrast to limited allowable methods of divorce to a woman, Islam allows a Muslim husband may unilaterally divorce his wife, as talaq, with no requirement to show cause, nor is there any intervention by a qadi. However, upon talaq, the husband must pay the wife her deferred mahr.[249] The husband is free to marry again immediately after a divorce, but the woman must observe iddah, that is wait for 3 lunar months[250] before she can remarry after divorce, to establish paternity, in case she discovers she is pregnant. In case of death of her husband, the iddah period is 4 lunar months and 10 days before she can start conjugal relations with another Muslim man.[251][252][253]
This contentious area of religious practice and tradition is being increasingly challenged by those promoting more liberal interpretations of Islam.
- Obligations during divorce
A key verse relating to obligation of women during divorce is 2:228:[254]
And the divorced women should keep themselves in waiting for three courses; and it is not lawful for them that they should conceal what Allah has created in their wombs, if they believe in Allah and the last day; and their husbands have a better right to take them back in the meanwhile if they wish for reconciliation; and they have rights similar to those against them in a just manner, and the men are a degree above them, and Allah is Mighty, Wise.
This verse not only explains the divorce rights of women in Islam, it sets out iddah to prevent illegal custody of divorcing husband's child by a woman, specifies that each gender has divorce rights, and that Muslim men are a degree above Muslim women.[254][255][256]
Movement and travel
Although no limitation or prohibition against women's travelling alone is mentioned in the Quran, there is a debate in some Islamic sects, especially Salafis, regarding whether women may travel without a mahram (unmarriageable relative).[257] Some scholars state that a woman may not travel by herself on a journey that takes longer than three days (equivalent to 48 miles in medieval Islam).[258] According to the European Council for Fatwa and Research, this prohibition arose from fears for women's safety when travel was more dangerous.[257] Some scholars relax this prohibition for journeys likely to be safe, such as travel with a trustworthy group of men or men and women, or travel via a modern train or plane when the woman will be met upon arrival.[257]
Sheikh Ayed Al-Qarni, a Saudi Islamic scholar, has said that neither the Quran nor the sunnah prohibits women from driving and that it is better for a woman to drive herself than to be driven by a stranger without a legal escort.[259] He also stated, however, that he "personally will not allow [his] wife or daughters or sisters to drive."[259] In most Muslim countries women are allowed to drive. However, they are forbidden to drive in Saudi Arabia per a 1990 fatwa (religious ruling);[260] Saudi Arabia is currently the only Muslim country that bans women from driving.[261][262] John Esposito, professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, has argued that these restrictions originate from cultural customs and not Islam.[263]
- Cleanliness and travel restrictions
A Muslim woman may not move in a mosque, or perform salat, while she is menstruating or during postpartum period, because bodily fluids are considered ritually impure in Islam. Some Muslim scholars suggest that the woman should stay in her house, or near her house, during this state.[218][264][265] Some Islamic jurists claim that this is an incorrect interpretation of sharia, and suggest the Islamic intent was about hygiene, not about religious ritual cleanliness.[218]
Dress code
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Islam admonishes Muslim women to dress modestly in garments that does not reveal the extremities to any man other than their husband, father, certain male family members, small children and male slaves free of sexual needs.[218][266] However, the Quran does not specify particulars, style or design of the clothing and other dress forms; clothing have varied widely across Islamic regions, styles have changed over the centuries, as do interpretation and regional requirements of Muslim dress codes. In some Muslim countries, some sort of head covering or veiling (hijab) is mandated for both Muslim women and men.[218][267] In a handful of Islamic countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia all women are required to veil in public, although the forms of veiling vary between countries; for example, from hijab, burqa, khimar to other designs. In most Muslim societies, veils are a matter of personal choice.[268]
Historically, Muslim societies have used dress to distinguish social status, occupation, purity, believers from non-believers, male from female, and sometimes regional identity.[218] Under Ottoman law, for example, dress of women from various religious communities within the empire was strictly regulated, with each religion allowed only specific colors, dress, shoes, and garments. In modern era, dress codes for Muslim women vary by region, and ranges from strict enforcement of mandatory dress code considered proper under Islam, to an optional personal choice that is partly based on pre-Islamic customs.
Islamic women’s dress code, and the veil in particular, has become controversial in many non-Muslim countries.[269] It is viewed by many as a sign of oppression of Muslim women, a security threat, or double standards where non-Muslim women visiting Islamic countries are required to accept local dress codes while Muslim women visiting non-Islamic countries are unwilling to accept the same principle.[270][271][272] Others, however, view attempts to ban burqa in public as a sign of disrespect, and double standards where a Christian nun may wear her religious dress but Islamic woman may not wear her religious dress.[273] Controversy over discriminatory dress code for Muslim women, and for non-Muslim women or slave girls under Muslim rule, is not new under Islam; from Spanish Caliphate to West Asia to South Asia to North Africa, dress code for women in Islam has been debated for centuries.[274]
Religious life
In Islam, there is no difference between men and women's relationship to God; they receive identical rewards and punishments for their conduct.[275]
According to a saying attributed to Muhammad, women are allowed to go to mosques.[276] However, as Islam spread, it became unusual for women to worship in mosques because of fears of unchastity caused by interaction between sexes; this condition persisted until the late 1960s.[277] Since then, women have become increasingly involved in the mosque, though men and women generally worship separately.[278] (Muslims explain this by citing the need to avoid distraction during prayer prostrations that raise the buttocks while the forehead touches the ground.[279]) Separation between sexes ranges from men and women on opposite sides of an aisle, to men in front of women (as was the case in the time of Muhammad), to women in second-floor balconies or separate rooms accessible by a door for women only.[279]
Female religious scholars were relatively common from early Islamic history throughout the 16th century.[280] Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a Sunni religious scholar, has listed 8,000 female jurists, and orientalist Ignaz Goldziher estimates 15 percent of medieval hadith scholars were women.[281] Women, during early history of Islam, primarily obtained their knowledge through community study groups, ribat retreats and during hajj when the usual restrictions imposed on female education were more lenient.[282] After the 16th century, however, female scholars became fewer.[281] In the modern era, while female activists and writers are relatively common, there has not been a significant female jurist in over 200 years.[283] Opportunities for women's religious education exist, but cultural barriers often keep women from pursuing such a vocation.[281]
Women's right to become imams, however, is disputed by many. A fundamental role of an imam (religious leader) in a mosque is to lead the salat (congregational prayers). Generally, women are not allowed to lead mixed prayers. However, some argue that Muhammad gave permission to Ume Warqa to lead a mixed prayer at the mosque of Dar.[284][285]
Hui women are self-aware of their relative freedom as Chinese women in contrast to the status of Arab women in countries like Saudi Arabia where Arab women are restricted and forced to wear encompassing clothing. Hui women point out these restrictions as "low status", and feel better to be Chinese than to be Arab, claiming that it is Chinese women's advanced knowledge of the Quran which enables them to have equality between men and women.[286]
Sufi female mystics
Sufi Islam teaches the doctrine of tariqa, meaning following a spiritual path in daily living habits. To support followers of this concept, separate institutions for men (ta'ifa, hizb, rabita) and women (khanqa, rabita, derga) were created. Initiates to these groups pursued a progression of seven stages of spiritual discipline, called makamat (stations) or ahwal (spiritual states).[287]
Rabiah al-Basri is an important figure in Islamic Mysticism called Sufism. She upheld the doctrine of "disinterested love of God".[288]
Current female religious scholars
There are a number of prominent female Islamic scholars. They generally focus on questioning gender-based interpretations of the Quran, the traditions of the Prophet and early Islamic history. Some notable Muslim women scholars are: Azizah al-Hibri, Amina Wadud-Muhsin, Fatima Mernissi, Riffat Hassan, Laila Ahmad, Farhat Hashmi, Aisha Abdul-Rahman, and Merryl Wyn Davies.[289]
Politics
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Many classical Islamic scholars, such as al-Tabari, supported female leadership.[292] In early Islamic history, women including Aisha, Ume Warqa, and Samra Binte Wahaib took part in political activities.[284] Abdurrahman ibn `Awf consulted with women in their rooms when he was charged of choosing `Uthman or Ali as the third caliphate after the death of Umar.[293] The Caliph Umar appointed Samra Bint Nuhayk Al-Asadiyya as a market inspector in Mecca and Ash-Shifa bint Abdullah as an administrator in Medina. Ash-Shifa would later on become the head of Health and Safety in Basra, Iraq.[294] Other historical Muslim female leaders include Razia Sultana, who ruled the Sultanate of Delhi from 1236 to 1239,[291][295] and Shajarat ad-Durr, who ruled Egypt from 1250 to 1257.[296]
Female heads of state in Muslim-majority countries during the modern era
In the modern era, Pakistan became the first Muslim-majority state with an elected female head of state (1988).[297] In the past several decades, a number of countries in which Muslims are a majority, including Indonesia (President Megawati Sukarnoputri, 2001),[298] Kosovo (President Atifete Jahjaga, 2011),[299] Pakistan,[300] Bangladesh (prime ministers Begum Khaleda Zia (1991) and Sheikh Hasina (1996, 2009),[301] Turkey (Prime Minister Tansu Çiller, 1993),[302] and Kyrgyzstan (President Roza Otunbayeva, 2010) have been led by women.[303]
Female legislators in Muslim-majority countries in the twenty-first century
According to Sheikh Zoubir Bouchikhi, Imam of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston’s Southeast Mosque, nothing in Islam specifically allows or disallows voting by women.[304] Until recently most Muslim nations were non-democratic, but most today allow their citizens to have some level of voting and control over their government. However, some Muslim countries gave women suffrage in early 20th century. For example, Azerbaijan extended voting rights to women in 1918,[305] two years before it became part of Soviet Union. Females in Turkey similarly gained the right to vote in municipal and parliamentary elections in 1930 and 1934 respectively.[306][307]
Several Muslim-majority nations have passed laws to incorporate more women in their parliaments and political processes. For example, Indonesia passed a law in 2013 that required political parties to field at least 30% women candidates in elections or pay penalty;[308][309] Tunisia's mandated electoral lists composed of 50% women in both the 2011 and 2014 legislative elections;[310][311] and in 2012, Algeria set a minimum parliamentary female membership requirement of 30%.[312] Following the May 2012 legislative elections, women constitute 31.6% of Algerian MPs.[312] In Senegal, 50% of local and national electoral lists have to be female as of 2012.[313][314]
In 2012, among all regions of the world, the Gulf Arab region had the lowest overall percentage of women in parliament, and no women in the parliaments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.[315] However, since 2012 Saudi women have been allowed to vote in some elections.[316][317] The Shura Council of Saudi Arabia now includes female members after a January 2013 decree by the Saudi King that created reserved parliamentary seats for women.[318] Kuwait granted its women the right to vote in the first half of the 1980s;[319] this right was later rescinded, and then reintroduced in 2005.[320]
Comparison with other religions
The Marxist writer Valentine Moghadam argues that the position of Muslim women is mostly influenced by the extent of urbanization, industrialization, proletarization and political ploys of the state managers rather than culture or intrinsic properties of Islam; Islam, per Moghadam, is neither more nor less patriarchal than other world religions, such as Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism.[321][322] William Montgomery Watt claims that Muhammad, in the historical context of his time, can be seen as a figure who improved women's rights among those who were free and Muslim.[323]
In contrast, for slave women who accepted Islam and women who refused to accept Islam, women’s rights were severely limiting. Slaves are mentioned in at least twenty-nine verses of the Quran.[324] including references to slave women, slave concubinage, and when to free slaves. Quran and hadiths recommended the institution of slavery, using the words 'abd' (slave) and the phrase ma malakat aymanukum ("that which your right hands own") to refer to women slaves, seized as captives of war. The Qur'an recognizes the basic inequality between master and women slave, between free women and slave women, as well as their unequal rights.[325][326] According to Muslim theologians, it has been lawful[327][328] for male masters to have sexual relations with female captives and slaves without her consent; the purchase of female slaves for sex was lawful from the perspective of Islamic law, and this was a motive for the purchase of slaves throughout Islamic history.[329][330] Slave women did not have a right to free movement or consent, nor did they have a right to bride price or property such as a ‘‘mahr’’.[331][332] Sikainga claims women slavery was widespread and "female slaves in many Muslim societies were prey for members of their owners' household, their neighbors, and their guests."[331]
Notable women in Islam
Women have played an integral part in the development and spiritual life of Islam since the inception of Islamic civilisation in the seventh century AD. Khadijah, a businesswoman who became the Prophet Muhammad's employer and first wife,[333] was also the first Muslim.[334] There have been a large number of female saints throughout the Islamic world spanning the highest social classes (a famous example being Princess Jahānārā, the daughter of the Moghul emperor Shāh Jahān) and the lowest (such as Lallā Mīmūna in Morocco);[335] some of them, such as Rābi'a of Basra (who is cited reverentially in Muḥammad al-Ghazālī's classic The Revival of Religious Sciences) and Fāṭima of Cordoba (who deeply influenced the young Ibn 'Arabī) have been pivotal to the conceptualisation of Islamic mysticism.[335]
Today, some notable personalities of the Islamic world include the Turkish Sufi teacher Cemalnur Sargut – a disciple of the novelist and mystic Samiha Ayverdi (1905-1993),[336] Camille Adams Helminski, the first woman to translate a substantial portion of the Qu'ran into English,[337] and Shaykha Fariha al Jerrahi, the guide of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order.[338]
With deepening globalisation, the topic of women in Islam has gained greater prominence in recent years as modest but increasing numbers of females in majority (post-)Christian or Buddhist populations are converting to the Islamic religion.[339][340] Notable recent female converts to Islam include the author and former MTV Europe VJ Kristiane Backer (from Lutheranism, 1995);[341] iconic singer Janet Jackson (who was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, 2013);[342] and model Felixia Yeap (from Buddhism, 2014).[343]
The Hala Sultan Tekke complex in Larnaca, Cyprus – a shrine to the Prophet Muḥammad's wet nurse, who according to Sunni tradition is buried there – is deemed to be the third or fourth most significant Islamic holy site in the world.
Modern debate on the status of women in Islam
Within the Muslim community, conservatives and Islamic feminists have used Islamic doctrine as the basis for discussion of women's rights, drawing on the Quran, the hadith, and the lives of prominent women in the early period of Muslim history as evidence.[344] Where conservatives have seen evidence that existing gender asymmetries are divinely ordained, feminists have seen more egalitarian ideals in early Islam.[344] Still others have argued that this discourse is essentialist and ahistorical, and have urged that Islamic doctrine not be the only framework within which discussion occurs.[344]
Conservatives and the Islamic movement
Conservatives reject the assertion that different laws prescribed for men and women imply that men are more valuable than women. Ali ibn Musa Al-reza reasoned that at the time of marriage a man has to pay something to his prospective bride, and that men are responsible for both their wives' and their own expenses but women have no such responsibility.[345]
The nebulous revivalist movement termed Islamism is one of the most dynamic movements within Islam in the 20th and 21st centuries. The experience of women in Islamist states has been varied. Women in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan faced treatment condemned by the international community.[346] Women were forced to wear the burqa in public,[347] not allowed to work,[348] not allowed to be educated after the age of eight,[349] and faced public flogging and execution for violations of the Taliban's laws.[350][351] The position of women in Iran, which has been a theocracy since its 1979 revolution, is more complex. Iranian Islamists are ideologically in favour of allowing female legislators in Iran's parliament[352] and 60% of university students are women.[353]
Liberal Islam, Islamic feminism, and other progressive criticism
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/Islamic_Feminism_Symbol.svg/100px-Islamic_Feminism_Symbol.svg.png)
Liberal Muslims have urged that ijtihad, a form of critical thinking, be used to develop a more progressive form of Islam with respect to the status of women.[354] In addition, Islamic feminists have advocated for women's rights, gender equality, and social justice grounded in an Islamic framework. Although rooted in Islam, pioneers of Islamic feminism have also used secular and western feminist discourses and have sought to include Islamic feminism in the larger global feminist movement. Islamic feminists seek to highlight the teachings of equality in Islam to question patriarchal interpretations of Islamic teachings.[355] Others point out the incredible amount of flexibility of shariah law, which can offer greater protections for women if the political will to do so is present.[356][357]
After the September 11, 2001, attacks, international attention was focused on the condition of women in the Muslim world.[358] Critics asserted that women are not treated as equal members of Muslim societies[359][360] and criticized Muslim societies for condoning this treatment.[359] Some critics have gone so far as to make allegations of gender apartheid due to women's status.[361] Phyllis Chesler has alleged that Western academics, especially feminists, have ignored the plight of Muslim women in order to be considered "politically correct".[362] However, one survey has found that most Muslim women do not see themselves as oppressed.[363]
The Indonesian Islamic professor Nasaruddin Umar is at the forefront of a reform movement from within Islam that aims at giving women equal status. Among his works is a book The Qur'an for Women, which provides a new feminist interpretation.
Some Muslim women exposed to the growth in civil rights accessible to secular or non-Muslim women have protested to strengthen their own rights within Islamic communities. One example is Malaysia, where 60% of the population is Muslim, and where there are separate parallel legal systems for secular law and sharia law. In 2006, Marina Mahathir, the daughter of Malaysia's former Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, published an editorial in the Malaysia Star newspaper to denounce what she termed "a growing form of apartheid" for Malaysia's Muslim women:
Non-Muslim Malaysian women have benefited from more progressive laws over the years while the opposite has happened for Muslim women.
She pointed out that polygamy was illegal in Malaysia for non-Muslims but not for Muslims, and that child custody arrangements for Muslims were biased towards fathers as opposed to the shared-custody arrangements of non-Muslim parents.[364] Women's groups in Malaysia began campaigning in the 1990s to have female sharia judges appointed to the sharia legal system in the country, and in 2010 two female judges were appointed.[365]
See also
- Muslim women in science and technology
- Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam
- Female figures in the Quran
- Female political leaders in Islam and in Muslim-majority countries
- Islamic feminism
- Muhammad's wives
- Namus
- Sex segregation and Islam
- Timeline of first women's suffrage in majority-Muslim countries
- Women in Arab societies
Notes
- ^ a b c Motahhari, Morteza (1983). Jurisprudence and Its Principles, translator:Salman Tawhidi, ISBN 0-940368-28-5.
- ^ a b c Kamali, Mohammad Hashim. Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence, Cambridge: Islamic Text Society, 1991. ISBN 0-946621-24-1
- ^ a b c d Haddad and Esposito, (1998), Islam, Gender, and Social Change, Oxford University Press, pp. xii–xx.
- ^ Priscilla Offenhauer, WOMEN IN ISLAMIC SOCIETIES: A SELECTED REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE, Library of Congress, Washington DC (2005)
- ^ Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973)
- ^ a b Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Statistical Overview and Exploration of the Dynamics of Change, United Nations Children's Fund, July 2013 (UNICEF 2013)
- ^ Shari'ah, see section on family law (polygamy) Encyclopedia Britannica (2012)
- ^ a b Elizabeth Fernea (1985), Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices of Change, University of Texas Press, ISBN 978-0292755291, pages 258-269
- ^ a b Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America (Keller et al, Indiana University Press), pp. 624–626.
- ^ a b c Dunn, S., & Kellison, R. B. (2010). "At the Intersection of Scripture and Law: Qur'an 4: 34 and Violence against Women". Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 26(2), pp. 11–36.
- ^ Karin van Nieuwkerk. Women Embracing Islam: Gender and Conversion in the West. University of Texas Press. Retrieved December 31, 2007.
Secular feminists in Muslim societies demanded full equality in the public sphere, calling for access to education, work, and political participation as part of women's self-development and the empowering of the society in the decolonizing process. Within this feminist framework women accepted the notion of complementarity in the private sphere, upholding the notion of male predominance, regarded as benevolent predominance in the family.
- ^ Karin van Nieuwkerk. Women Embracing Islam: Gender and Conversion in the West. University of Texas Press. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
Becoming a Muslim is not just about taking a religious identity. It affects who you are as a person and how you live your life on an hour-to-hour and day-to-day basis. (My) day is divided by prayer, I know what to eat and what to avoid, how to wash, how to dress, and how to act towards my children and husband.
- ^ a b Towards Gender Equality: Muslim Family Laws and the Shari‘ah Ziba Mir-Hosseini (2009); Wanted: Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family; Editor: Zainah Anwar, ISBN 978-983-2622-26-0, pp 31-33
- ^ a b Doi, A. Rahman, & Bewley, A. (1992). Women in Shari'ah. Ta-Ha, 4th Edition; ISBN 978-1842000878
- ^ Elizabeth Fernea (1985), Women and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices of Change, University of Texas Press, ISBN 978-0292755291, pages 264-269
- ^ "Shari`ah and Fiqh". USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts. University of Southern California.
- ^ Stowasser, B. F. (1994). Women in the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation. Oxford University Press
- ^ Chebel, Malek (2009). L'islam explique par Malek Chebel. Perrin. pp. 35–6. ISBN 978-2-262-02982-1.
- ^ Amira Sonbol, Rise of Islam: 6th to 9th century, Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures
- ^ Watt (1956), p. 287.
- ^ Agrama, H. A. (2010). "Ethics, tradition, authority: Toward an anthropology of the fatwa". American Ethnologist, 37(1), pp. 2–18.
- ^ Asaf Romirowsky, "Fatwa Rules to Live By", Political Studies Review, vol. 19, #1/2 (Spring 2007), pp. 174–176.
- ^ Hosen, N. (2004). Behind the scenes: fatwas of Majelis Ulama Indonesia (1975–1998). Journal of Islamic Studies, 15(2), pp. 147–179.
- ^ William Muir (September 1, 2004). The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline And Fall from Original Sources. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4179-4889-5.
- ^ An-Nisa, University of Southern California
- ^ Amherst Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and John L. Esposito (1998), Islam, Gender, and Social Change, Oxford University Press, pp. 32–35.
- ^ Muslim Women Through the Centuries Council on Islamic Education, UCLA, Los Angeles, p. 31.
- ^ a b Barlas, A. (2001). "Muslim women and sexual oppression: Reading liberation from the Quran". Macalester International, 10(1), 15.
- ^ Levy, R. (1957). The social structure of Islam. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521091824, pages 83-158, 244-259.
- ^ Engineer, Asghar Ali (2008). The rights of women in Islam. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
- ^ Ali, K. (2006). Sexual ethics and Islam: Feminist reflections on Qur'an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence, Oxford, pages 39-72, Chapter 3
- ^ Abbott, N. (1942). "Women and the state in early Islam". Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1(3), pp. 341–368
- ^ Engineer, A.A. (2001). Islam, Women, and Gender Justice. What Men Owe to Women, Albany, NY: State University of New York, 109-128.
- ^ Belinda Jack, The Woman Reader, ISBN 978-0300120455, Yale University Press, p 84
- ^ Lindsay (2005). Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World first=James E. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 196. ISBN 0-313-32270-8.
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- ^ Lindsay, James E. (2005). Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 197. ISBN 0-313-32270-8.
- ^ Lindsay, James E. (2005). Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 196, 198. ISBN 0-313-32270-8.
- ^ Guity Nashat, Lois Beck (2003). Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800. University of Illinois Press. p. 69. ISBN 0-252-07121-2.
- ^ a b Francis Robinson, The British Empire and Muslim Identity in South Asia, Oxford University Press, pages 18-21; Francis Robinson (1982), Atlas of the Islamic World Since 1500, ISBN 978-0871966292
- ^ Hope and despair for women in Islamic states Ufuk Gokcen, OIC (January 19, 2013)
- ^ Investing in the Children of the Islamic World UNICEF (2007)
- ^ M. Steven Fish (2002), "Islam and Authoritarianism", World Politics 55, October 2002, pp. 4–37.
- ^ Donno and Russett (2004), "Islam, authoritarianism, and female empowerment", World Politics, vol. 56, issue 04, July 2004, pp. 582–607
- ^ Nepal, a South Asian nation, is not OIC member; provided here for completeness and accuracy of list per the cited source.
- ^ The Global Gender Gap Report 2012 World Economic Forum, Switzerland (2013)
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- ^ BUCHANAN, ROSE TROUP (July 5, 2013). "A small step for female education in Saudi Arabia". The Independent. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ Amani Hamdan (2005), Women and education in Saudi Arabia: Challenges and achievements, International Education Journal, 6(1), pp. 42-64
- ^ a b Adult and Youth Literacy, 1990-2015, UNESCO (2012), ISBN 978-92-9189-117-7
- ^ a b c d Al Qaradawy, Yusuf. The Status Of Women In Islam. Chapter: The Woman as Member of the Society: When is a woman allowed to work?
- ^ Laurie A. Brand (1998), Women, State and Political Liberalisation. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 57–58
- ^ Maya Shatzmiller (1994), Labour in the Medieval Islamic World, Brill Publishers, ISBN 90-04-09896-8, pp. 6–7, 350–401;
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- ^ Ahmad, Jamil (September 1994). "Ibn Rushd". Monthly Renaissance. 4 (9). Retrieved October 14, 2008.
- ^ Girl Power, ABC News
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- ^ Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell (1853). Woman's Record: Or, Sketches of All Distinguished Women, from "The Beginning Till A.D. 1850, Arranged in Four Eras, with Selections from Female Writers of Every Age. Harper Brothers. p. 120.
- ^ The Art as a Profession, United States National Library of Medicine
- ^ G. Bademci (2006), First illustrations of female "Neurosurgeons" in the fifteenth century by Serefeddin Sabuncuoglu, Neurocirugía 17: 162–165.
- ^ Ahmed, F. Z., Greenleaf, A., & Sacks, A. (2014). The Paradox of Export Growth in Areas of Weak Governance: The Case of the Ready Made Garment Sector In Bangladesh. World Development, 56, 258-271
- ^ Heath, R. (2014). Women’s Access to Labor Market Opportunities, Control of Household Resources, and Domestic Violence: Evidence from Bangladesh. World Development, 57, 32-46
- ^ Ruma Paul Bangladesh factories agree to pay rise, but protests go on, Reuters (November 2013)
- ^ "Women of Our World 2005" (PDF). Retrieved September 8, 2013.
- ^ a b The Global Gender Gap Report 2012 World Economic Forum, Switzerland (2013), page 11, 25
- ^ Priscilla Offenhauer, WOMEN IN ISLAMIC SOCIETIES: A SELECTED REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE, Library of Congress, Washington DC (2005), pp 73-76
- ^ a b JAMAL NASIR, THE STATUS OF WOMEN UNDER ISLAMIC LAW AND MODERN ISLAMIC LEGISLATION, 3d edition, 2009
- ^ Assaad, R., 2003, Gender & Employment: Egypt in Comparative Perspective, in Doumato, E.A. & Posusney, M.P., Women and Globalization in the Arab Middle East: Gender, Economy and Society, Colorado, Lynne Rienner Publishers
- ^ Sebastian Maisel and John A. Shoup (2009), Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab States Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Arab States, ISBN 978-0313344428, Greewood
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- ^ El Fadl, p86.
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- ^ a b c Ghamidi, Mizan, The Penal Law of Islam.
- ^ Joseph and Najmabadi, p. 407.
- ^ a b Ibn Rushd, Bidayatu’l-Mujtahid (1st ed.), vol. 4 (Beirut: Daru’l-Ma‘rifah, 1997), p. 311).
- ^ Ghamidi. Burhan : The Law of Evidence. Al-Mawrid.
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- ^ "Bearing Witness?". Jannah.org. Retrieved September 8, 2013.
- ^ Bernard Lewis (2002), What Went Wrong?, ISBN 0-19-514420-1, pp. 82–83
- ^ Joseph and Naǧmābādī, Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures: Family, Law and Politics, Brill Academic, pp. 137-138, ISBN 978-9004128187
- ^ Joseph and Naǧmābādī, Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures: Family, Law and Politics, Brill Academic, pp. 299-305, ISBN 978-9004128187
- ^ Naila Kabeer (1999), Resources, agency, achievements: Reflections on the measurement of women's empowerment. Development and change, 30(3): 435-464
- ^ a b Jamal Badawi, The status of women in Islam. JUNE 4, 2008
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- ^ Baer, Gabriel (1983). "Women and Waqf: An Analysis of the Istanbul Tahrîr �of 1546". Asian and African Studies.
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at position 52 (help) - ^ Burton & Ballantyne (2005). "Women, Property and Power in Eighteenth-Century Cairo (Author: Mary Ann Fay)". Bodies in Contact: Rethinking Colonial Encounters in World History. Duke University Press. pp. Pp.129–130. ISBN 978-0822334675.
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has extra text (help) - ^ Zilfi, Madeline C. (1997). "Women and Waqf Revisited: The Case of Aleppo 1770-1840 (Author: Margaret L. Meriwether)". Women in the Ottoman Empire: Middle Eastern Women in the Early Modern Era. Brill. pp. Pp.131–132. ISBN 978-9004108042.
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has extra text (help) - ^ Glassé, Cyril (1989). The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam. London, England: Stacey International. pp. Pp.188–189.
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has extra text (help) - ^ a b c d Quraishi, A. (1997). Her Honor: An Islamic Critique of the Rape Laws of Pakistan from a Woman-Sensitive Perspective, Michigan Journal of International Law, vol. 18, #287 (1997).
- ^ a b c Sidahmed, A. S. (2001). "Problems in contemporary applications of Islamic criminal sanctions: The penalty for adultery in relation to women", British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 28(2), pp. 187–204.
- ^ Kamali, M. H. (2003), Principles of Islamic jurisprudence, Cambridge, UK (Islamic Texts Society).
- ^ Guy Bechor (2012), Between Vision and Reality: Law in the Arab World, ISBN [?], pp. 105–110.
- ^ Hallaq, W. B. (1999). A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunni Usul al-Fiqh. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-59986-3, pp. 70–71.
- ^ Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. 178–181.
- ^ a b c Marie A. Failinger, Elizabeth R. Schiltz, Susan J. Stabile, Marie A. Failinger, Elizabeth R. Schiltz, Susan J. Stabile (2013). "Competing Approaches to Rape in Islamic Law (Author: Hina Azam)". Feminism, Law, and Religion. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate. pp. Pp.328–329. ISBN 978-1-4094-4421-3.
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has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Esmaeili, H., & Gans, J. (1999). "Islamic law across cultural borders: the involvement of western nationals in Saudi murder trials", Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 28:145; see also [Quran 24:4].
- ^ Cheema, M. H., & Mustafa, A. R. (2008). "From the Hudood Ordinances to the Protection of Women Act: Islamic Critiques of the Hudood Laws of Pakistan". UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near East Law, 8:1–101.
- ^ Kamali, M. H. (1998). "Punishment in Islamic law: A critique of the hudud bill of Kelantan, Malaysia", Arab Law Quarterly, 13(3), 203–234.
- ^ a b c Juan Eduardo Campo (2009). Encyclopedia of Islam. Infobase Publishings. pp. 13, 14. ISBN 978-1-4381-2696-8.
- ^ Uzma Mazhar (2002). "Rape in Islam". Muslimaccess.com. Retrieved November 7, 2012.
- ^ Sunan Abu Dawud Sunan Abu Dawood, 38:4366
- ^ Peters, R, "Zinā or Zināʾ" in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (second edition) edited by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs (Brill Online).
- ^ Jon Henley (January 3, 2002). "French 'rape victim' faces jail for adultery". The Guardian. Retrieved January 6, 2013.
- ^ Shahnaz Khan, Zina: Transnational Feminism, and the Moral Regulation of Pakistani Women, University of British Columbia Press, ISBN 978-0-7748-1285-6, pp. 58–63.
- ^ Afghanistan: Surge in Women Jailed for 'Moral Crimes' Human Rights Watch (May 21, 2013)
- In Pakistan, Rape Victims Are the 'Criminals', Seth Mydans, New York Times (May 17, 2002)
- ^ Fatima-Zahra Lamrani, Rape as Loss of Honor in the Discourse of Moroccan Rape Trials, Language and Law, June 2004
- ^ "Morocco protest after raped Amina Filali kills herself". BBC News. March 15, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2013.
- ^ Elizabeth Flock, Afghan woman freed from jail after agreeing to marry rapist, The Washington Post, December 1, 2011.
- ^ Warrick, Catherine (2009). Law in the service of legitimacy: Gender and politics in Jordan. Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate. pp. 65–68. ISBN 978-0-7546-7587-7.
- ^ Mohammad Omar Farooq, Rape and Hudood Ordinance: Perversions of Justice in the Name of Islam, Pakistan, December 2006.
- ^ Freedom House. "Women's Rights in the Middle East and North Africa 2010".
- ^ Ouis, P. (2009). "Honourable Traditions – Honour Violence, Early Marriage and Sexual Abuse of Teenage Girls in Lebanon, Occupied Palestinian Territories and Yemen". International Journal of Child Rights, 17, 445.
- ^ Pernilla Ouis and Tove Myhrman (editors): "A New Approach: Gender-Based Sexual Violence as a Violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child". Gender-Based Sexual Violence Against Teenage Girls in the Middle East, Sweden, 2007. ISBN 978-91-7321-256-4.
- ^ Engineer, A. (2008). The rights of women in Islam. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd.; ISBN 978-8120739338; page 73-74
- ^ Women-and-Quran
- ^ Kandiyoti, D. (Ed.). (1991). Women, Islam, and the state. Temple University Press; see page 16-17
- ^ Kelly, S. (2010), Recent gains and new opportunities for women’s rights in the Gulf Arab states, Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Gulf Edition; Editors: Kelly and Breslin; ISBN 978-1442203969
- ^ Percentage of women aged 15–49 who think that a husband/partner is justified in hitting or beating his wife/partner under certain circumstances UNICEF (2013)
- ^ Hajjar, Lisa. "Religion, state power, and domestic violence in Muslim societies: A framework for comparative analysis." Law & Social Inquiry 29.1 (2004); see pages 1-38
- ^ Treacher, Amal. "Reading the Other Women, Feminism, and Islam." Studies in Gender and Sexuality 4.1 (2003); pages 59-71
- ^ a b John C. Raines & Daniel C. Maguire (Ed), Farid Esack, What Men Owe to Women: Men's Voices from World Religions , State University of New York (2001), see pages 201-203
- ^ Jackson, Nicky Ali, ed. Encyclopedia of domestic violence. CRC Press, 2007. (see chapter on Qur'anic perspectives on wife abuse)
- ^ a b Ahmed, Ali S. V.; Jibouri, Yasin T. (2004). The Koran: Translation. Elmhurst, NY: Tahrike Tarsile Qurʼān. Print.
- ^ Following verses of Quran and Hadiths are most cited by secondary and tertiary sources on permissibility of domestic violence under Islamic law:
- Steps recommended to Muslim husband for chastising his Muslim wife[Quran 4:34]
- Aisha discusses wife beating with Allah’s messenger: Sahih al-Bukhari, 7:72:715
- The Prophet hit A’isha on chest which caused her pain: Sahih Muslim, 4:2127
- Prophet’s statement that a man should not be questioned for beating his wife: Sunan Abu Dawood, 11:2142
- ^ Bakhtiar, Laleh. Verse in Koran on beating wife gets a new translation. New York Times (March 25, 2007)
- ^ Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn, and Lois Bardsley-Sirois. "Obedience (Ta'a) in Muslim Marriage: Religious Interpretation and Applied Law in Egypt." Journal of Comparative Family Studies 21.1 (1990): 39-53.
- ^ Maghraoui, Abdeslam. "Political authority in crisis: Mohammed VI's Morocco."Middle East Report 218 (2001): 12-17.
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- ^ Oweis, Arwa, et al. "Violence Against Women Unveiling the Suffering of Women with a Low Income in Jordan." Journal of Transcultural Nursing 20.1 (2009): 69-76.
- ^ UAE: Spousal Abuse never a Right, Human Rights Watch (2010)
- ^ Lebanon - IRIN, United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs (2009)
- ^ Lebanon: Enact Family Violence Bill to Protect Women, Human Rights Watch (2011)
- ^ Afghanistan - Ending Child Marriage and Domestic Violence Human Rights Watch (September 2013), pages 11-13
- ^ Moha Ennaji and Fatima Sadiq, Gender and Violence in the Middle East, Routledge (2011), ISBN 978-0-415-59411-0; see pages 162-247
- ^ Domestic violence against women in Turkey Jansen, Uner, Kardam, et al.; Turkish Republic Prime Minister Directorate General Office (2009); see Chapter 6
- ^ Esposito (2004), p. 339
- ^ Schimmel (1992) p.65
- ^ "Mahr." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Brill Online
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- ^ a b Rapoport, Yossef (2005). Marriage, Money and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society. Cambridge University Press. p. 2. ISBN 0-521-84715-X.
- ^ Chebel, Malek (2009). L'islam explique par Malek Chabel. Perrin. p. 113. ISBN 978-2-262-02982-1.
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- ^ Ghamidi, Mizan, The Social Law of Islam.
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- ^ Tadmouri, G. O., Nair, P., Obeid, T., Al Ali, M. T., Al Khaja, N., & Hamamy, H. A. (2009). Consanguinity and reproductive health among Arabs. Reprod Health, 6(17), 1-9
- ^ a b Joseph, S. E. (2007). Kissing Cousins, Current Anthropology, 48(5), pages 756-764
- ^ Consanguineous marriages Brecia Young (2006)
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- ^ Shaw, A. (2001), Kinship, cultural preference and immigration: consanguineous marriage among British Pakistanis, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 7(2), 315-334
- ^ Leila Ahmed (1993), Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate, ISBN 978-0300055832; See also: [Quran 4:23]
- ^ J. N. D. Anderson, Invalid and Void Marriages in Hanafi Law, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1950), pp. 357-366
- ^ Ahmed, L. (1986). Women and the Advent of Islam. Signs, 11(4), 665-691
- ^ Ali, Kecia (2010), Marriage and slavery in early Islam, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-05059-4, pages 35-77
- ^ A.A. Ali, Child Marriage in Islamic Law, The Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University (Canada), August 2000; see pages 16-18
- ^ Saudi judge refuses to annul 8-year-old's marriage, CNN World, April 12, 2009
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- ^ YEMEN: Deep divisions over child brides IRIN, United Nations News Service, (March 28, 2010)
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- ^ "Ibni `Abbaas reported that a girl came to the Messenger of God, Muhammad (sws), and she reported that her father had forced her to marry without her consent. The Messenger of God gave her the choice [between accepting the marriage and invalidating it]." Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal 2469. "...the girl said: "Actually I accept this marriage but I wanted to let women know that parents have no right [to force a husband on them]". Sunan Ibn Maja 1873.
- ^ Ouattara, M., Sen, P., & Thomson, M. (1998). Forced marriage, forced sex: the perils of childhood for girls. Gender & Development, 6(3), pp 27-33
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- ^ a b c Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-82703-4, pages 161–175
- ^ [Quran 60:10]
- ^ [Quran 2:221]
- ^ Saeed, A., & Saeed, H. (Eds.). (2004). Freedom of religion, apostasy and Islam. Ashgate Publishing; ISBN 0-7546-3083-8
- ^ See Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:52:260 * Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:83:17 * Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:89:271
- ^ [Quran 3:90] * [Quran 9:66] * [Quran 16:88]
- ^ Fluehr-Lobban, C., & Bardsley-Sirois, L. (1990). "Obedience (Ta'a) in Muslim Marriage: Religious Interpretation and Applied Law in Egypt." Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 21(1), pp 39–53
- ^ Leeman, A. B. (2009), "Interfaith Marriage in Islam: An Examination of the Legal Theory Behind the Traditional and Reformist Positions." Indiana Law Journal, 84, pp 743–746
- ^ Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-82703-4, pp. 144–165
- ^ a b Hessini, L., 1994, "Wearing the Hijab in Contemporary Morocco: Choice and Identity," in Göçek, F. M. & Balaghi, S., Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East: Tradition, Identity & Power, New York, Columbia University Press
- ^ Suad Joseph and Afsāna Naǧmābādī, Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures: Family, Body, Sexuality, Volume 3, pp 224–227 and 250–281
- ^ Ahmed, L., 1992, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate, New Haven, Yale University Press.
- ^ Qur'an, [Quran 4:34]
- ^ Amherst Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and John L. Esposito (1998), Islam, Gender, and Social Change, Oxford University Press, pp 20–38
- ^ Hajjar, Lisa, "Religion, state power, and domestic violence in Muslim societies: A framework for comparative analysis." Law & Social Inquiry 29.1 (2004); pp 1–38
- ^ Ahmad v. Ahmad, No. L-00-1391, 2001 WL 1518116 (Ohio Ct. App. Nov. 30, 2001)
- ^ Sameena Nazir and Leigh Tomppert, Ed., Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2005)
- ^ Rules of Inheritance Wife and Husband (2007)
- ^ see also: [Quran 23:5] and [Quran 23:6], [Quran 70:29] and [Quran 70:30]
- ^ see also, slaves were traditionally referred to by the phrase – the righthand owns: [Quran 23:5] with [Quran 23:6]; [Quran 70:29] with [Quran 70:30]; Sahih al-Bukhari, 5:59:459; Sahih Muslim, 8:3432 with introduction to Chapter 29 of Kitab Al-Nikah, on the same page, by University of Southern California scholars
- ^ a b c Editor: Susan Crocklin (1996). "Religious views regarding gamete donation", in Family Building Through Egg and Sperm Donation. Boston: Jones and Bartlett, ISBN 978-0-86720-483-4, pp 242–250
- ^ a b Schenker, Joseph (2000). "Women's reproductive health: Monotheistic religious perspectives." International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, 70(1), 77-86
- ^ G I Serour (1995), "Traditional sexual practices in Islamic world", Global Bioethics, Issue 1, pp. 35–47
- ^ Janet L. Bauer, "Sexuality and the Moral 'Construction' of Women in an Islamic Society", Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 3. (Jul., 1985), pp. 120–129
- ^ Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan Ṭūsī, Concise Description of Islamic Law and Legal Opinions, ICAS Press London, ISBN 978-1-904063-29-2, pp 17–24
- ^ Brannon Wheeler, "Touching The Penis in Islamic Law", History of Religions, Vol. 44, No. 2 (November 2004), pp. 89–119
- ^ a b c d e f Martin et al. (2003), Encyclopedia of Islam & the Muslim World, Macmillan Reference, ISBN 978-0028656038
- ^ Inhorn, M. C. (2006). "He Won't Be My Son." Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 20(1), pp 94–120
- ^ Husain, Fatima A. (2000). "Reproductive issues from the Islamic perspective." Human fertility, 3(2), pp 124–128; doi:10.1080/1464727002000198831
- ^ Serour, G. I. (2005). "Religious perspectives of ethical issues in ART 1. Islamic perspectives of ethical issues in ART." Middle East Fertility Society Journal, 10(3), 185–190
- ^ Clarke, M. (2006). "Islam, kinship and new reproductive technology." Anthropology Today, 22(5), pp 17–20
- ^ Glassé, Cyril (1989). The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam. London, England: Stacey International. pp. 357–358.
- ^ "Ending Footbinding and Infibulation: A Convention Account", Gerry Mackie, American Sociological Review, Vol. 61, No. 6 (Dec., 1996), pp. 999–1017
- ^ Gomaa, Ali (2013). "The Islamic view on female circumcision" (PDF). African Journal of Urology. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
- ^ (a) Islamic Ruling on Male and Female Circumcision World Health Organization (1996); page 17-18; (b) Dr. Muhammad Salim al-Awwa, Secretary General of the World Union of the Muslim Ulemas, Female Circumcision Neither a Sunna, nor a Sign of Respect, (Al Azhar, Cairo)
- ^ "Mauritania fatwa bans female genital mutilation", BBC, January 18, 2010
- ^ Mohamed Abdel Wedoud. "Mauritanian Islamic leaders ban genital mutilation". Magharebia. Retrieved January 17, 2011.
- ^ (a) Sami A. ALDEEB ABU-SAHLIEH, "To Mutilate in the Name of Jehovah or Allah: Legitimization of Male and Female Circumcision", Medicine and Law, Volume 13, Number 7–8: Pages 575–622, July 1994; (b) Ellen Gruenbaum (2000), The Female Circumcision Controversy: An Anthropological Perspective; University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 978-0-8122-1746-9; (c) Suad Joseph and Afsaneh Najmabadi (2005), Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures: Family, Law and Politics; Brill Academic (Netherlands), ISBN 978-9004128187
- ^ "Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change" (PDF). UNICEF. July 2013. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
- ^ a b Hasna, F. (2003). "Islam, social traditions and family planning." Social Policy & Administration, 37(2), pp 181–197
- ^ "Pope bans, Turkey allows". en.timeturk.com. Retrieved September 28, 2013.
- ^ Akbar, Khalid Farooq (1974), "Family planning and Islam: A review", Hamdard Islamicus, 17(3), 234–238
- ^ Omran, A. R. (1992), Family Planning in the Legacy of Islam, London and New York: Routledge
- ^ Al-Sabaie, A. (1989). "Psychiatry in Saudi Arabia: cultural perspectives." Transcultural Psychiatry, 26(4), 245–262
- ^ Mobaraki, A. H., & Söderfeldt, B. (2010). "Gender inequity in Saudi Arabia and its role in public health", EMHJ, 16(1)
- ^ "Video: having sex with dead wife is allowed in Islam (necrophilia)". EuropeNews. July 12, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2013.
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/medical/infanticide_1.shtml
- ^ a b France MESLÉ, Jacques VALLIN, Irina BADURASHVILI (2007). A Sharp Increase in Sex Ratio at Birth in the Caucasus. Why? How?. Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography. pp. 73–89. ISBN 2-910053-29-6.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "Gendercide in the Caucasus" The Economist (September 13, 2013)
- ^ Michael, M; King, L; Guo, L; McKee, M; Richardson, E; Stuckler, D (2013), "The mystery of missing female children in the Caucasus: an analysis of sex ratios by birth order", International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 39 (2), pp. 97–102, ISSN 1944-0391
- ^ John Bongaarts (2013), "The Implementation of Preferences for Male Offspring", Population and Development Review, Volume 39, Issue 2, pages 185–208, June 2013
- ^ HIGH SEX RATIO AT BIRTH IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE Christophe Z Guilmoto, CEPED, Université Paris-Descartes, France (2012)
- ^ Stump, Doris (2011), Prenatal Sex Selection, Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, Council of Europe
- ^ Sex Imbalances at Birth: Current trends, consequences and policy implications United Nations FPA (August 2012)
- ^ Klasen, S. (1994), "Missing women" reconsidered, World Development, 22(7), 1061–1071
- ^ Abandoned, Aborted, or Left for Dead: These Are the Vanishing Girls of Pakistan, Habiba Nosheen and Hilke Schellmann, June 19, 2012, The Atlantic
- ^ Joseph and Najmabadi, p99.
- ^ WAEL B. HALLAQ, SHARIA: THEORY, PRACTICE, TRANSFORMATIONS 271 (2009)
- ^ [Quran 2:228]
- ^ [Quran 2:234]
- ^ Esposito, John, ed. (2003), "Iddah", The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-512558-4
- ^ Shehzad Saleem. The Social Directives of Islam: Distinctive Aspects of Ghamidi’s Interpretation, Renaissance. March, 2004.
- ^ a b McLarney, E. (2010). "The private is political: Women and family in intellectual Islam". Feminist Theory, 11(2), 129-148.
- ^ Syed, J. (2010). "An historical perspective on Islamic modesty and its implications for female employment". Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 29(2), pp. 150–166.
- ^ Sherif-Trask, B. A. H. I. R. A. (2004). Muslim families in the United States. The Handbook of Contemporary Families, pp. 394–408.
- ^ a b c Women Traveling without Mahram. European Council for Fatwa and Research.
- ^ Muhammad ibn Adam al-Kawthari. "Can Women Travel Without A Mahram?" Sunnipath.com (July 3, 2005).
- ^ a b Somayya Jabarti & Maha Akeel. "Women Not Prohibited From Driving in Islam, Says Al-Qarni." Arab News (January 11, 2004).
- ^ Amnesty International. "Saudi Arabia: Women." Amnesty.org.
- ^ John L. Esposito(2002), p.99, What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam, Oxford University Press
- ^ Natana J. Delong-Bas(2004), p.123, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad, Oxford University Press
- ^ For a detailed analysis of this subject, see: Khalid Chraibi – The King, the Mufti and the Facebook Girl – a power play – Who decides what is licit in Islam [1]
- ^ Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan Ṭūsī, Concise Description of Islamic Law and Legal Opinions, ICAS Press London, ISBN 978-1-904063-29-2
- ^ Hundt, G. L., Beckerleg, S., Kassem, F., Jafar, A. M. A., Belmaker, I., Saad, K. A., & Shoham-Vardi, I. (2000). Women's health custom made: building on the 40 days postpartum for Arab women. Health care for women international, 21(6), pp 529-542
- ^ * Jawad Syed (2010), An historical perspective on Islamic modesty and its implications for female employment, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 29(2), pp 150-166;
- Reece, D. (1996), Covering and communication: The symbolism of dress among Muslim women, Howard Journal of Communications, 7(1), pp 35-52;
- Quran 24.30 & 24.31, Quran 33:59, Sahih Bukhari 1:8:347, Sahih Bukhari 6:60:282, Sunnan Abu Dawud 32:4091, Tafsīr At-Tabari 2:123, etc.
- ^ Mary Fulkerson and Sheila Briggs (2012), The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theology, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0199273881, pp 406-412
- ^ Bangladesh bans enforced Islamic dress code Anbarasan Ethirajan, BBC News (22 August 2010)
- ^ See references in Islamic scarf controversy in France wikipedia article, for example
- ^ McGoldrick, Dominic. Human Rights and Religion: The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe. Hart Publishing (2006), p13. ISBN 1-84113-652-2.
- ^ Dutch Consider Ban on Burqas in Public GREGORY CROUCH, New York Times (November 18, 2006)
- ^ Minister says burka is 'alien', prompting applause from Libs DEBBIE GUEST, JODIE MINUS, THE AUSTRALIAN, (APRIL 11, 2011)
- ^ ""No Such Custom": An Exposition of I Corinthians 11:2-16". Ovc.edu. Retrieved November 7, 2012.
- ^ Stillman, Y. K. (2003). Arab dress: a short history: from the dawn of Islam to modern times (Vol. 2). N. A. Stillman (Ed.). Brill, The Netherlands; ISBN 978-9004135932; see also Vol 1
- ^ Equality of Men and Women in all Three Levels of Islam
- ^ "Do not stop Allah's women-slave from going to Allah's Mosques." (Sahih al-Bukhari, 2:13:23.)
- ^ Mattson, Ingrid. "Women, Islam, and Mosques." In Encyclopedia of Women And Religion in North America (Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon, ed.). Indiana University Press (2006), p616. ISBN 0-253-34688-6.
- ^ Mattson, Ingrid. "Women, Islam, and Mosques." In Encyclopedia of Women And Religion in North America (Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marie Cantlon, ed.). Indiana University Press (2006), p616-17. ISBN 0-253-34688-6.
- ^ a b Smith, Jane L. Islam in America. Columbia University Press (2000): p111. ISBN 0-231-10967-9.
- ^ Abou-Bakr, Omaima (2010). "Articulating Gender: Muslim Women Intellectuals in the Pre-Modern Period". Arab Studies Quarterly. 32 (3).
- ^ a b c Power, Carla. "A Secret History." New York Times (February 25, 2007).
- ^ Nadwī, Muḥammad Akram (2007). Al-Muḥaddithāt: The Women Scholars in Islam. Oxford: Interface Publications.
- ^ Khaled Abou El Fadl. "In Recognition of Women." Themodernreligion.com. Originally published (in a slightly different form) in The Minaret (July/Aug 1991) and reprinted in Voices vol. 1, no. 2 (Dec/Jan 1992).
- ^ a b Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, Religious leadership of women in Islam, April 24, 2005, Daily Times, Pakistan
- ^ Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, (Bayrut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al- ‘Arabi, n.d.) vol.5, 3:1375
- ^ Maria Jaschok, Jingjun Shui (2000). The history of women's mosques in Chinese Islam: a mosque of their own. Routledge. p. 203. ISBN 0-7007-1302-6. Retrieved January 23, 2011.
- ^ Chebel, Malek (2009). L'islam explique par Malek Chabel. Perrin. p. 138. ISBN 978-2-262-02982-1.
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- ^ Ziauddin Sardar and Zafar Abbas Malik (2009). Islam: A graphic guide. Totem. pp. 160–2. ISBN 978-1-84831-084-1.
- ^ "Benazir Bhutto: Daughter of Tragedy" by Muhammad Najeeb, Hasan Zaidi, Saurabh Shulka and S. Prasannarajan, India Today, January 7, 2008
- ^ a b Beale, Thomas William and Henry George Keene. An Oriental Biographical Dictionary. W.H. Allen (1894), p.392.
- ^ Anne Sofie Roald. Women in Islam: The Western Experience, p186-7.
- ^ "Jeddah Dawah Center > Q & A ABOUT ISLAM > The first group > PART TWO > Chapter 7: Family and Women Affairs". Worldreminder.net. Retrieved September 8, 2013.
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- ^ "Tansu Çiller." About.com.
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- ^ "US Library of Congress recalls Azerbaijani women's suffrage". The European Azerbaijan Society. July 27, 2011. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
- ^ Ramirez et al (1997), The changing logic of political citizenship: Cross-national acquisition of women's suffrage rights: 1890 to 1990, American Sociological Review, Vol. 62, No. 5, pp. 735-745
- ^ Kandiyoti & Kandiyoti (1987), Emancipated but unliberated? Reflections on the Turkish case, Feminist studies, 317-338
- ^ "Female quotas for Indonesia poll". BBC News. February 19, 2003. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
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- ^ "Tunisia passes landmark election law for November vote". France 24. May 2, 2014. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
- ^ a b Bachelet, Michelle (May 16, 2012). "UN Women welcomes increased number of women in Algeria's Parliament". UN Women welcomes increased number of women in Algeria’s Parliament. United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). Retrieved July 12, 2014.
- ^ "Senegal's President Macky Sall wins national assembly landslide". BBC News. July 5, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
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:|pages=
has extra text (help) - ^ Olimat (2009), Women and Politics in Kuwait, Journal of International Women's Studies, 11(2), pp. 199-212
- ^ Wikan, Unni (November 1995). "Review of Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East". American Ethnologist. 22 (4): 1078–1079. doi:10.1525/ae.1995.22.4.02a01200.
- ^ Moghadam, Valentine (1993). Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East. USA: Lynne Rienner Publishers. p. 5. ISBN 978-1588261717.
- ^ Maan, McIntosh (1999)
- ^ Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, Slaves and Slavery
- ^ Brunschvig. 'Abd; Encyclopedia of Islam, page 13.
- ^ ([Quran 16:71], [Quran 24:33],[Quran 30:28])
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/slavery_1.shtml
- ^ Brunschvig, see article on 'Abd, Encyclopedia of Islam
- ^ Mazrui, A. A. (1997). Islamic and Western values. Foreign Affairs, pp 118-132.
- ^ Ali, K. (2010). Marriage and slavery in early Islam. Harvard University Press.
- ^ a b Sikainga, Ahmad A. (1996). Slaves Into Workers: Emancipation and Labor in Colonial Sudan. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-77694-2.
- ^ Tucker, Judith E.; Nashat, Guity (1999). Women in the Middle East and North Africa. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21264-2.
- ^ Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: Prophet for Our Time, HarperPress, 2006, pp.37-38 ISBN 0-00-723245-4
- ^ Glassé, Cyril (1989). The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam. London, England: Stacy International. p. 280.
- ^ a b Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam, State University of New York Press, 1994, p.199
- ^ "Cemalnur Sargut: Official Biography". Biography. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ "Muslim Women Past and Present: Camille Adams Helminski". Camille Adams Helminski | WISE Muslim Women. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ "LINEAGE > FARIHA FATIMA AL-JERRAHI". Fariha Fatima al-Jerrahi | Nur Ashki Jerrahi Community. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/11/islam-converts-british-women-prejudice
- ^ http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/universalising-islam-in-malaysia-hew-wai-weng
- ^ Karen Armstrong, From MTV to Mecca: How Islam Inspired My Life, Arcadia Books Ltd and Awakening Publications, 2012, p.135
- ^ http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ramadan-2014-muhammad-ali-janet-jackson-other-stars-who-converted-islam-1454182
- ^ Owoseje, Toyin (July 4, 2014). "Ramadan 2014: Former Playboy Bunny Felixia Yeap Converts To Islam". International Business Times UK. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ a b c Deniz Kandiyoti, "Women, Islam and the State", Middle East Report, No. 173, Gender and Politics. (Nov.-Dec. 1991), pp. 9–14.
- ^ Quoted in Grand Ayatollah Makarim Shirazi, Tafsir Nemoneh, on verse 4:12.
- ^ M. J. Gohari (2000). The Taliban: Ascent to Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 108–110. For an example, see http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/6185.htm.
- ^ M. J. Gohari (2000). The Taliban: Ascent to Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 108–110.
- ^ Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "Chronology of Events January 1995 – February 1997."[dead link] UNHCR.org.
- ^ U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. "Report on the Taliban's War Against Women." State.gov (November 17, 2001).
- ^ Template:PDFlink, Physicians for Human Rights, August 1998.
- ^ A woman being flogged in public[dead link]
- ^ See, e.g., Tahereh Saffarzadeh, Masumeh Ebtekar, Marzieh Dabbaq and Zahra Rahnavard.
- ^ Esfandiari, Golnaz. "Iran: Number Of Female University Students Rising Dramatically." Radio Free Europe/Free Liberty (November 19, 2003).
- ^ Haddad, Moore, and Smith, p19.
- ^ Madran, Margot. "Islamic feminism: what's in a name?" Al-Ahram Weekly Online, issue no. 569 (January 17–23, 2002).
- ^ "The Role of Islamic Shari'ah in Protecting Women's Rights".
- ^ [2] Wagner, Rob L.: "Saudi-Islamic Feminist Movement: A Struggle for Male Allies and the Right Female Voice", University for Peace (Peace and Conflict Monitor), March 29, 2011.
- ^ United States Institute of Peace. Islam and Democracy, Women in Religious Peacebuilding Peace Watch (August 2002).
- ^ a b Timothy Garton Ash (May 10, 2006). "Islam in Europe". The New York Review of Books.
- ^ Kamguian, Azam. "The Liberation of Women in the Middle East." NTPI.org.
- ^ Feminist author Phyllis Chesler, for example, asserted: "Islamists oppose the ideals of dignity and equality for women by their practice of gender apartheid." (Kathryn Jean Lopez, "Witness to the Death of Feminism: Phyllis Chesler on Her Sisterhood at War". National Review (March 8, 2006).) For further examples, see http://www.google.com/search?q=%22gender+apartheid%22+islam
- ^ Kathryn Jean Lopez, "Witness to the Death of Feminism: Phyllis Chesler on Her Sisterhood at War". National Review (March 8, 2006).
- ^ Helena Andrews, "Muslim Women Don't See Themselves as Oppressed, Survey Finds", The New York Times, June 8, 2006.
- ^ Berger, Sebastien (March 11, 2006). "Malaysian Muslim women 'live under apartheid'". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
- ^ England, Vaudine (July 9, 2010). "Malaysian groups welcome first Islamic female judges". BBC News. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
References
- El Fadl, Khaled Abou. "The Death Penalty, Mercy, and Islam: A Call for Retrospection." In Religion and the Death Penalty: A Call for Reckoning (Erik C. Owens, John David Carlson, and Eric P. Elshtain, eds.). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing (2004), ISBN 0-8028-2172-3.
- Friedmann, Yohanan (2003). Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-02699-4.
- Glassé, Cyril. The New Encyclopedia of Islam (2002), AltaMira Press, ISBN 0-7591-0189-2.
- Yvonne Haddad and John Esposito. Islam, Gender, and Social Change, Published 1998. Oxford University Press, US. ISBN 0-19-511357-8.
- Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Kathleen M. Moore, and Jane I Smith. Muslim Women in America: The Challenge of Islamic Identity Today. Oxford University Press (2006): ISBN 0-19-517783-5.
- Hessini, L., 1994, Wearing the Hijab in Contemporary Morocco: Choice and Identity, in Göçek, F. M. & Balaghi, S., Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East: Tradition, Identity & Power, New York, Columbia University Press
- Suad Joseph and Afsaneh Najmabadi. Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures BRILL (2005), ISBN 90-04-12818-2
- Javed Ahmed Ghamidi. Mizan. Al-Mawrid (2001–present).
- Levy, Reuben (1969). The Social Structure of Islam. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Further reading
- Scripture
- Books
- Roded, Ruth (1994). Women in Islamic biographical collections: from Ibn Saʻd to Who's who. Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 978-1-55587-442-1.
- Andrea, Bernadette, Women and Islam in Early Modern English Literature, Cambridge University Press, 2008 (978-0-521-86764-1): Bernadette Andrea: Books
- Ahmed, Leila, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical roots of a modern debate, Yale University Press, 1992
- Armstrong, Karen. The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, London, HarperCollins/Routledge, 2001
- Baffoun, Alya. Women and Social Change in the Muslim Arab World, In Women in Islam. Pergamon Press, 1982.
- Darwish, Nonie. Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, Thomas Nelson, 2008. ISBN 978-1-59555-161-0
- Esposito, John and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Islam, Gender, and Social Change, Oxford University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-19-511357-8
- Hambly, Gavin. Women in the Medieval Islamic World, Palgrave Macmillan, 1999, ISBN 0-312-22451-6
- Joseph, Suad (ed.) Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures. Leiden: Brill, Vol 1–4, 2003–2007.
External links
- George Mason University Archive, Islam - Women in World History, Roy Rosenzweig Center
- Arab Studies Journal A peer reviewed publication that frequently covers topics relating to women in Islam.
- The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures Brill, The Netherlands
- Oxford Islamic Studies Online – numerous entries dealing with the role of women in Islamic societies.
- Women in the Middle East: Progress or Regress? Middle East Review of International Affairs, Volume 10, No. 2, Article 2 – June 2006
- Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures: Family, Law and Politics, Editors: Joseph and Naǧmābādī, Brill, The Netherlands, ISBN 978-9004128187