Women’s Rights in Islam

“I also saw Hellfire, and I have never seen such a terrible sight. I saw that the majority of the inhabitants were women.” When asked why this was so, Mohammed replied, “They are ungrateful to their husbands and to good deeds. Even if you are good to one of them all of your life, whenever she sees some harshness from you she will say, ‘I have never seen any good from you.’”

—Sahih Bukhari 2.18.16

The women asked, “O Allah’s Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?” He replied, “Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?” They agreed that this was so. 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 that this was so. He said, “This is the deficiency in her religion.”

—Sahih Bukhari 1.6.301

The Prophet said: If I were to command anyone to make prostration before another I would command women to prostrate themselves before their husbands, because of the special right over them given to husbands by Allah.

—Sunan Abu-Dawud 11:2135

On October 9, 2012, a Taliban gunman climbed on board a school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. He was looking for a 15-year-old girl named Malala Yousafzai. The gunman threatened to shoot everyone on the bus unless Malala was identified. When she was pointed out, he fired. The bullet went through her head and neck and lodged in her shoulder near the spinal cord.

The injured teenager was taken to a military hospital in Peshawar, where doctors performed delicate operations to remove the bullet and remove pressure from the swelling of Malala’s injured brain. On October 15, she was transported to the United Kingdom for specialized treatment at a hospital skilled in treating injured military personnel. Within two days, she had come out of her coma and was responding well to treatment. She was discharged to continue rehabilitation at home in January, but underwent another operation on February 2, 2013 to reconstruct her skull and restore her hearing.

What prompted this attack and Malala’s long recovery ordeal? She had been blogging in favor of education for women and girls. Along the way, her comments had been deemed insulting to Pakistan’s Taliban, which had been exerting tremendous effort to destroy girls’ schools in the Swat Valley where she lived. In the eyes of the Taliban, their attack was justified both by the Qur’an and by sharia law. Since the Taliban deemed Malala’s efforts to be opposing Islam and Islamic forces, they believed it was right to target and kill a girl.

The assassination attempt on Malala was not an isolated incident. Rather, it was a very public demonstration of the treatment of women under Islam which Westerners find difficult to wrap their minds around. Similar public demonstrations include a 2007 incident where a Pakistani man shot a female government minister who appeared in public with her head uncovered, and a 2002 tragedy in Saudi Arabia where 15 teenage girls died in a school fire because the religious police wouldn’t permit them to leave the building without their full Islamic dress.1 What all these cases have in common is religiously- sanctioned subjugation of women by violence.

RELIGIOUSLY SANCTIONED DIFFERENCES

To discover the Islamic view of women we must look not at what contemporary politicians say, but at what the highest religious authorities in Islam say. Those authorities are three: the Qur’an, the Sira (accepted biographies of Muhammad), and the Hadith (traditional stories and sayings of Muhammad). Following Bill Warner we will refer to these authorities collectively as the Trilogy.2 As we have seen in other chapters, the Trilogy promotes a dualistic view of the world where the primary division is between the believers and the unbelievers (kafirs). The dualistic view of the world is also applied within Islam itself. Within Islam, the primary division is between men and women.3

This dualistic view means there is one set of rules for men and another set for women. The key principle in Islam is, as its name implies, submission. Muslims must submit to Allah, while kafirs must in turn submit to Muslims. Women must submit to men. The only area where men and women will be treated equally, according to Islam, is on Judgment Day. At that time, they will both be judged alike on how well they have followed the rules of submission. Of course, the rules women are expected to follow are rules enjoining them to submit to their husbands, fathers, and brothers.4

As Bill Warner’s investigations showed, more than 90% of the Trilogy which addresses the status of women implies or directly states their inferiority to men. It is reported on multiple occasions that most of those in Hell will be women. Women are understood to be inferior intellectually and spiritually to men. Muhammad commands women to have their religious practice directed by their husbands or fathers.5 The Qur’an declares that women “have rights … similar (to those of their husbands) … but men have a degree (of responsibility) over them.”6

Muslim men are taught that they have duties toward women, such as providing them with material support. But these duties are not much different from those of a master over his slaves. Again, the Qur’an makes this clear:

Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has made them to excel the other, and because they spend (to support them) from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient (to Allah and to their husbands) … As to those women on whose part you see ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful).7

The fact that men are required to support women is included here not just as a duty of the man but as a mark of female subservience to men. Being subservient to men is described by Muhammad elsewhere as a sign of excellence in women:

When Allah’s Messenger was asked which woman was best he replied, “The one who pleases (her husband) when he looks at her, obeys him when he gives a command, and does not go against his wishes regarding her person or property by doing anything of which he disapproves.”8

The veil, or hijab, or niqab or whatever other form of covering for women is used as a fundamental sign of submission to men. In multiple hadith, the veiling or seclusion of women is repeatedly described as a way to separate them from public society.9 The assumption in Islam is that the primary connections for a woman are either familial or sexual. This is why being alone with a male non-relative is worth a beating or worse for a Muslim woman. It is also why women may be unveiled among their relatives—the sexual relationship is not involved.10 Finally, once a woman is past childbearing age the use of the veil is no longer compulsory if she is unmarried.11 Far from being a symbol of liberation as some Muslim apologists claim, the veil or hijab is a sign that the woman accepts the Islamic view of her role in society—and the need to obscure her sexuality. It is a sign of submission.

It is sometimes claimed that Islam preaches the equality of men and women or that Islam marked a significant advance in women’s rights. On the first point, the equality is only equality before Allah and still requires that women accept an inferior position to men. On the second, while Islam may have been an advance for women from barbaric or tribal customs of the 7th century, the problem is that the advances have remained essentially static ever since. The Trilogy governs what Muslims are supposed to think about the proper relations between men and women, and the Trilogy is not subject to advancement or correction because it is of divine origin.12

Author V.S. Naipaul illustrated the fundamental issue with these claims for “women’s rights” in Islam 30 years ago. Describing an Iranian woman he saw on television speaking out in favor of the Islamic revolution, Naipaul observed:

Fourteen hundred years ago in Arabia, she said, girl children were buried alive; it was Islam that put a stop to that. Well, we didn’t all live in Arabia (not even the woman with the covered head); and many things had happened since the sixth century. Did women—especially someone as fierce as the woman addressing us— still need the special protection that Islam gave them? Did they need the veil? Did they need to be banned from public life and from appearing on television?13

In Islam, such questions must be answered according to the Trilogy. The Trilogy’s answer is that of course women must still be veiled and so on. That is what the Qur’an and the Prophet demand. Anything else would be un-Islamic

THE MATHEMATICAL VALUE OF A WOMAN

Islam places a value on women roughly equal to one half of a man. The Trilogy makes this valuation clear in several places. The Qur’an directs Muslims to use Muslim witnesses at court, and if two men can’t be found you can substitute one man and two women in a pinch.14 This valuation is confirmed in the Hadith quoted at the beginning of this chapter.15 In inheritance, male heirs are to receive a portion equal to that of two females.16 For women who behave in an indiscrete manner sexually, their inheritance can be cut off as punishment.17 In one of the hadith, Muhammad’s favorite wife Aisha complains that the true value of women in Islam is much less than half a man, telling the Prophet, “You have made us equal to the dogs and the asses.”18

This valuation is taken quite seriously in Islam. Perhaps the most significant modern example can be found in Saudi Arabia. Following Islamic law, the Saudis require those found guilty of murder to pay diyyah (blood money) to the family of the deceased. The blood money owed to the family of a killed woman is half the amount extracted from the killer of a man.19

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

Marriage in Islam is not a religious sacrament; it is a civil contract like any other business contract. Marriage is encouraged and celibacy condemned. Men are permitted between one and four wives (the Prophet was permitted more wives as a special dispensation from Allah), but they can enjoy as many slave-girls as they wish.20 If the woman obeys her husband and never acts in a sexual manner toward another man—including being alone with one—she is due food and shelter from her husband.

A common Islamic term used for the wife’s vagina translates as “plowed field” (or tilth). Consequently, the Qur’an addresses men: “Your wives are a tilth for you, so go to your tilth … when or how you will.”21 In the Hadith it is made clear that the woman’s most significant contribution to the marriage is sex and children, and the husband’s right to enjoy his wife’s sexual favors should not be abrogated.22 Control of a woman’s sexuality at all times is considered to be crucial—and is a common component of honor killings, as we shall see in more detail below.

Once married, a Muslim woman is expected to submit to her husband as she previously did with her father. The man decides who is allowed to come into the house and how it will be run. Women are discouraged from leaving the home unless they are accompanied by a male relative—a rule which is enforced in Saudi Arabia today by the morality police.23

Among Shia Muslims women are also involved in the phenomenon of Nikah al-Muah (literally, “pleasure marriage”). This is a temporary marriage arrangement between a man (who can be married or unmarried) and an unmarried woman for a time and price agreed on between them. Since this institution amounts to religiously sanctioned prostitution in practice, “temporary wives” tend to congregate in Shiite holy cities where they offer their companionship.24

The example of Muhammad being betrothed to the six-year-old Aisha provides religious justification for child marriage in Islam. The places where child marriage is pushed to the greatest extremes tend to be those Muslim countries where women generally are most vulnerable. For example, a 2002 study of five refugee camps on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border found that over half of the women and girls between the ages of 8 and 13 were married. In one extreme case, a 10-year-old girl was engaged to a man of 60. A wealthy Saudi man in his 60s received international attention in 2005 when he got married for the 58th time—the latest to a 14-year-old girl.25

Women are also subject to exploitation in Islamic divorce. For men, getting a divorce is as simple as telling your wife “I divorce you” (or some similar verbal formula) three times. This is particularly significant because after divorce the man has no further obligations toward his former wife. There is no alimony, no child support—indeed, child custody almost invariably is given to the father. Since divorces are so easy for men, they can be capricious.26 After a divorce, a woman must wait for a certain period of time before she can remarry.27 A man is under no such obligation.

RELIGIOUSLY SANCTIONED VIOLENCE

The beating of women is sanctioned throughout the Trilogy. In addition to the verses cited above, Qur’an 38:44 contains an instruction directly from Allah to Job concerning his wife: “And take in your hand a bundle of thin grass and strike therewith (your wife), and break not your oath.” Although the injunctions usually emphasize that women are to be beaten “lightly,” the reasons justifying it are numerous. Above all, men are not to be questioned with regard to how they treat their wives: “The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: A man will not be asked why he beat his wife.”28

The real-world consequences of such beliefs are startling. The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences has reported that more than 90% of Pakistani women have been beaten or even sexually abused for offenses to their husbands, fathers, or brothers. “Offenses” include cooking unsatisfactory meals or giving birth to female children.29 Very young women are particularly vulnerable. Studies a decade ago showed that in Egypt 29% of married adolescent girls are beaten, while in Jordan 26% of domestic abuse cases were committed against wives under 18.30

Islam also provides sanction for the hideous practice of female circumcision—a practice which amounts to genital mutilation, as the clitoris is cut off. Somali women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali has described her own experience with this practice in her book Infidel:

Then the scissors went down between my legs and the man cut off my inner labia and clitoris. I heard it, like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat. A piercing pain shot up between my legs, indescribable, and I howled.31

Although the practice is not directly required by Islam, parts of the Trilogy demonstrate that it has been clearly assumed as normal.32 Sharia law makes it obligatory for men and women, Bill Warner has argued, despite purposefully misleading translations which sometimes obscure this obligation in order to forestall criticism.33 The Grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar University—the oldest and most prestigious religious training center in Sunni Islam—described female circumcision as a “laudable practice that [does] honor to women.”34 An estimated 170,000 women in the United Kingdom have undergone female circumcision despite the practice being outlawed and Muslim women representing a small minority of the total population.35

Because of Islam’s dualistic morality, non-Muslim women are viewed as beneath non-Muslim men. This means a number of outrages are permissible for Muslims. For Muhammad, rape was a supreme tactic of war—one which humiliated kafir men and crushed the spirits of kafir women.36 But even Muslim women are vulnerable to rape. By Islamic law, they must bring four male witnesses to testify in order for a rape accusation to be accepted as such. Otherwise, a woman who cries rape in Islamic society may quickly find herself imprisoned on charges of adultery. To take one example, in Pakistan 75% of the women in prison are in on charges of adultery.

The use of rape as a tactic of war is still very much alive and well in Islamic society. It has been part of the Islamist struggle against the ruling regime in Syria. Early in 2013, Islamist militiamen targeted women in particular as part of a reign of terror against towns and villages in Syrian Kurdistan. Women were kidnapped, forced into marriage, ransomed, and raped according to local women.37

One of the most egregious forms of violence against women in Islam is what we sometimes refer to as “honor killings.” It is important to recognize that this form of violence is not directly sanctioned or mandated anywhere in Islam. Instead, the phenomenon arises from a key Islamic concept known as ghira. Ghira means jealousy, pride, honor, self-respect. Violence in defense of one’s ghira is assumed as natural in Islam.38

Because of these attitudes, efforts to regulate or punish honor killings are typically opposed in Islamic countries. In 2003, Jordan’s parliament voted down a law that would have stiffened penalties on honor killings. Opponents said the law would violate religious traditions and “destroy families and values.”39 The situation leads to cases like that of Ali Jasib Mushiji in Iraq. In 2003, the 17-year-old Mushiji shot his mother and half-brother to death after he suspected them of a sexual affair and killed his own 4-year-old sister because he thought she was their child. He told reporters he “wiped out his family to cleanse its shame.”40

Even women can be involved in carrying out honor killings. In 2003, a Palestinian Arab girl named Rofaya Qaoud became pregnant after being raped by her own brothers. Her mother demanded that Rofaya kill herself, and when the girl refused she did the job herself. Using a plastic bag, razor blades, and a wooden stick, Rofaya’s mother suffocated, slashed, and beat her daughter to death. The mother later explained, “This is the only way I could protect my family’s honor.”41

Muslims bring these attitudes with them when they emigrate to the West. In a 2005 case in Germany, a Turkish girl named Hatin Surucu was gunned down by her own brothers while waiting at a bus stop. When Hatin’s case was brought up to young Turks at a Berlin high school near where the incident occurred, the students insisted that Hatin “had only herself to blame.” According to one, she “deserved what she got—the whore lived like a German.”42

WOMEN WHO HAVE SPOKEN OUT

A number of women from Muslim communities have tried to speak out against the treatment of women under Islam. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the best-known in the Western world. She is most famous for her work on the controversial film Submission, which depicts scenes of abuse of Muslim women interspersed with passages from the Qur’an. Director Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death in the street over the film. For an extra macabre touch, the Muslim murderer pinned a death threat against Hirsi Ali to van Gogh’s body with a knife.

Hirsi Ali has received a lot of criticism from both Muslim and non-Muslim sources for alleged generalizations and one-sidedness in her views of Islam. Nevertheless, she has stuck to her guns, observing in an interview:

That the husband has the right to beat his wife is in the Koran. That a woman has to dress a certain way is in the Koran, that she must stay in the house is also there. And on it goes.43

It is all the more remarkable that she has continued to speak out in the face of death threats. Wafa Sultan is another courageous proponent of women’s rights. Born in Syria, Sultan emigrated to America after witnessing atrocities carried out against innocent countrymen by Islamic extremists in 1979. She describes as a turning point the assassination of one of her professors by gunmen crying out “God is great!” Following this incident, she turned against Islam and co-founded the organization Former Muslims United. Sultan has been

outspoken on the role of Islam in the treatment of women:
Muslim education has stunted women to the point of depriving them of their mind and their conscience … Women have seen themselves relegated to the status of men’s animals.44

Sultan has explained that discriminatory practices are not based on a misreading of Islamic texts but are fully sanctioned and condoned by them. Instead, she provocatively argues that Islam was created to serve the carnal desires of its founder:

I firmly believe that the Islamic faith was created to serve Muhammad, and to legitimize his desires and urges … Islam allowed men to marry infants in order to justify Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha. Islam forbade adoption in order to justify Muhammad’s marriage to the wife of his adopted son—a thing forbidden by the pre-Islamic moral values of the Arabs. Islam permitted taking women captive and violating their honor in order to justify Muhammad’s marriage to Safiya after killing her husband, her father, and her brother that same night.45

Of course, after providing such an interview Sultan found herself on the receiving end of censure and death threats. In the face of this, she has continued to advocate for Islamic women.

Another admirably courageous and vocal feminist and former Muslim is Nonie Darwish. The author of two books, Now They Call Me Infidel and Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Darwish is also the Director of Former Muslims United. She was born in Egypt, where her father was killed in a 1956 assassination. She blames Islamic culture and the violence it promotes for her father’s death. In 1978 Darwish moved to the United States and converted to Christianity. As with the previous two women, Darwish has also been criticized for failing to go along with the idea that oppression of women is merely a failure of individual Muslims.

In 2006, Darwish had an invitation to speak at Brown University rescinded because of her controversial opinions about Muslims. Instead of backing off, she reiterated her positions in an interview later that year:

The majority of Muslim women are oppressed and that is due to Islamic sharia law which severely discriminates against women. Even the most educated and powerful Muslim women are faced with a legal system that is very discriminatory against women. Muslim women start the marital relationship from a weaker position … Polygamy has a devastating impact on families. There are chronic social ills and tragedies stemming from this single right. The court system is designed to oppress women, without a doubt.46

In the same interview, she explains how the Islamic-sanctioned concept of pride or honor (that is, ghira) produces violence against women:

Arab culture is based on pride and shame and a Muslim man cannot survive with this kind of shame unless he kills the source of that shame which is the female relative who have had sex [sic] outside of marriage. It is not known how common this crime of honor killing happens since it often goes unreported and the police often looks [sic] the other way.47

All three of these women ran counter to a politically correct ideology which prefers to see the abuse of women in Islam as a matter of individual extremists rather than anything to do with the culture itself. But it cannot be denied that there is ample religious justification for oppressive treatment of women in Islam. And because the Trilogy is divine and perfect, it is not subject to revision or improvement. Any attempts to improve women’s rights from where Muhammad left them are bound to run into objections and deadly resistance from religious conservatives. Not surprisingly, all three of the most outspoken proponents of women’s rights have been forced to leave Islamic countries and even the religion itself. Women’s rights in any post-7th century sense are not compatible with Islam.