Woman in Islam

In her present struggle woman aims at absolute equality with man in her public and private rights, and in her striving she has won victories of many kinds — victories whose roads she long paved with earnestness and with silent, fruitful work, and for which she long poured out rivers of her sweat, her tears, and her blood. Have they reached the Arab East? Let us pause a little, and go back one thousand four hundred years, to see what Muhammad (peace be upon him) gave to woman, and let us cast a general glance over what he offered her.

Islam raised woman's standing, and gave her rights when she is a child, rights when she is a wife, and rights when she is a mother.

As for her rights as a child: Islam made it incumbent upon her parents to maintain her, rear her, educate her, and prepare her for the life of marriage and motherhood — whereas before Islam they used to bury the girl-child alive and took no joy in her birth. Islam forbade that and prohibited it in the sternest terms, for the Holy Koran says: "And when the girl buried alive is asked for what sin she was slain"; and it says: "And slay not your children for fear of want; We will provide for them and for you; surely their slaying is a great wrong." And from the sayings of the Prophet: whoever has a daughter and trains her, and trains her well, and lavishes upon her of the bounty God has lavished upon him, she will be for him a screen and a way of passage from the Fire to Paradise.

As for her rights as a wife: Islam made her free in the choice of her husband once she has reached the age of majority; her father has no right to force her to marry a man she does not accept as a husband. Then Islam made it incumbent upon the husband to keep good company with her and to provide her maintenance — food, clothing, lodging, and service. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: the best of you is he who is best to his family; and he said also: I enjoin you to treat women well. And the Prophet said: every one of you is a shepherd, and every one of you is answerable for his flock — the ruler is a shepherd, the man is a shepherd, and the woman is a shepherd over her house and her children.

And as for her rights as a mother: he made it a duty to honor her and to be good to her, and he set obedience to her before obedience to the father. It is related in a tradition that a man came to the Prophet and said: who among people has the best claim to my good companionship? He said: your mother. The man said: then who? He said: your father. And he said also: "The mother's prayer is the more swiftly answered." It was asked, and why is that, O Messenger of God? He said: she is more tender than the father, and the prayer of the womb does not fall to the ground.

And woman has, beyond this, rights and considerations in Islam —

In marital relations: Islam appeared when all marital relations were in a state of great chaos. Plurality of wives had neither limit nor order — some of the Arabs had as many as a hundred wives — and divorce likewise was arbitrary, subject to whim. Then Islam came, and took up the plurality of wives with reform: it set a limit to it, established conditions, and confirmed woman's rights, and thereby abolished the chaos of the age of ignorance, in that it confined plurality to four only, conditional upon the possibility of dealing justly among them. And Islam looked upon marriage as being, in reality, a contract like all other contracts, in which the work is divided between the two parties, each according to his aptitude; it deemed it reasonable to permit the dissolution of any contract that leads to the contrary of its purpose, but it forbade resorting to this without necessity, and empowered woman to seek the mediation of the courts in case of need. Thus the Law permitted divorce for necessity, and not out of a desire for pleasure.

In civil rights: this is where Islam distinguished itself in bettering woman's condition. Fourteen centuries and a half ago it gave woman full capacity in civil matters — to own, to sell, to buy, to give, to bequeath, to bear witness, to act by proxy, and all other dealings and contracts — without leave of guardian or husband; and it empowered her to hold civil judgeship, the superintendence of endowments, and guardianship.

In public elections: Muhammad (peace be upon him) was the first to give woman the right to vote. For the Arabs knew but one form of popular election, the "bay'a," the pledge of allegiance; and the books of history assure us that women took part in pledging allegiance to the Messenger, and that Hind, daughter of Utba and mother of Mu'awiya, debated with Muhammad the clauses of his pledge as a voter debates his electoral program with a candidate for parliament.

In administrative posts: it is worth recalling that administrative posts were very few in the time of the Message; yet there is no text and no noble tradition that bars woman from holding office, and what barred her in fact was only man's dominion, and the veil that he imposed upon her. Thus Islam affirmed woman's existence, opened to her the field of work and competition without restriction or limit, and allowed woman to affirm her personality and to express the full range of her aptitudes. But historical reality shows us that she did not enjoy all these rights; rather we see that she was shut up in her house, and a thick veil was drawn over her — a veil of ignorance and illiteracy, a veil not imposed by the Law, but legislated for her by man and by custom. Muhammad was dutiful toward woman; and the Arab man has been undutiful toward her, unbelieving in her importance, her sanctity, and her mission.