An Appraisal of the Rights of Women under the Shar’iah

This paper examines the rights of women under the shar’iah or Islamic law. A major aim of the paper is, among others, to correct some widespread misconceptions about the status of both the Islamic women and women living under the Islamic law or in an Islamic State. These misconceptions and illusions were born mainly out of mythology, including Arabic and Islamic mythology, such as the tale of the “One Thousand and One Nights”, and information broadcast abroad by early European travelers and orientalists unfamiliar with language and local customs. Efforts will be made to cover certain issues such as the status of women during the jahiliyah period,[i] concept of sexual equality, evidence, inheritance, leadership (political or religious), marriage, maintenance, divorce, settlement of dispute, custody of children and individual dignity of women among others. The paper then concludes by restating the obvious that the compassionate and dignified status of women under the Shar’iah was decreed not because such status reflects the environment of the seventh century or due to threat or pressure of women and their organizations but rather because of intrinsic truthfulness.  This demonstrates the divine origin of Islamic law or Shar’iah.

[i] The period of darkness or ignorance or the pre-Islamic period.