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Women in Islam

© Fatima Aly Jaffer

In the name of God, the most Powerful, the most Loving, Who created Man and Woman equal, giving each responsibilities and rights that they may live together and spread peace and success in the world and Who has said in the Qur’an:

“Whosoever performs good deeds, whether male or female, and is a believer, verily to them We will give a new life that is good and pure, and We will reward them according to the best of their actions.

(The Bee, 16:97)

When I first began to write about what the Prophet of Islam (pbuh) has done for women, I was at a loss of what to type. How is it possible to describe or even list out all the things he has done for us when everywhere I look, I see the influence of his touch.

The very life that I have as a Muslim woman is a gift of his teachings.

Before the Prophet (pbuh) began teaching Islam, women were placed below animals in the chain of existence. The Arab men probably held their swords in higher value than their women! While men in Arabia treated their women as objects of pleasure and considered them necessary for the growth of population, men outside of Arabia were not any better.

History tells us that around the world, women were considered weaker, less intelligent, and in some faiths pure evil. Men would begin each day by theanking their deities for not making them women!

With the coming of Islam, there was an explosion of true feminism. Not the version we have today, but the one that God had planned for us. With Islam, women got the right to life, to education, to respect, to choice of spouse, to inheritance, to business. The laws that protect women are present everywhere in the laws of Islam better known as the Sharia.

But more important is the need to understand that this was not all that the Prophet (pbuh) brought for womankind. A bunch of rights? Any country could give us that. Any constitution could be developed for it.

Is there then, more to the message Islam has for women?

Most definitely.

When studying the message of the Prophet (pbuh), the realisation that hits home is that the greatest gift he gave womankind was independence. He named us, gave a rank and placed us in society with a set of rights and also a set of duties. He gave us the same goal that he gave to men – to gain nearness to God - and allowed us the freedom to be individual people, each and every one of us, in our own right.