Gender in Islam

Author: Farhat Naz Rahman

Equality is the term, which is hard to define. There is a sense in which all human beings are equal, but in actual life, we find that no two human beings are really equal in all respects. Inequality leads to injustice and oppression only where artificial impediments, whether in the shape of laws and customs or traditions, are super-added to natural inequalities so as to prevent men and women from developing their native capacities to full. (1)

Equality does not mean identicality: it means equity. Islam presents the roles of men and women as complementary roles and not contradictory or conflicting roles; the roles of partners with a common set of goals and objectives and not roles that conflict with each other, with each of them having the objective of the civilizations and societies that for centuries refused to consider women as human beings, or to give them any rights, have now gone from one extreme to another. Islam has never had anything to do with such nonsense. When women had no rights in the world it declared:
"And women shall have rights, similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable." (Al-Baqarah, 2:228)

That still remains Islam's command - today and forever. Similar rights, not same rights. Qualitative, not quantitative equality. Both men and women are equal in their humanity and in their dignity; in their accountability to perform their assigned tasks and be judged according to their performance.

However, their assigned tasks are not the same. Their Creator has given them different capabilities: the tasks are based on those capabilities. This distinction is not an error that needs to be corrected. It is the only basis for building a healthy and prosperous society. Islam liberates a woman from the modern tyranny of having to become a man in order to get a sense of self worth and achievement in striving for supremacy.

The egalitarian conception of gender inhering in the ethical vision of Islam existed in tension with the hierarchical relation between the sexes encoded into the marriage structure instituted by Islam. This egalitarianism is a consistent element of the ethical utterances of the Quran. Among the remarkable features of the Quran, particularly in comparison with the scriptural texts of other monotheistic traditions, is that women are explicitly addressed; one passage in which this occurs declares by the very structure of the utterances, as well as in overt statement, the absolute moral and spiritual equality of men and women. (2)

“For Muslim men and women,-for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true [truthful] men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in charity, for men and women who fast ( and deny themselves), for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in God's praise,- for them has God prepared forgiveness and a great reward”. (Sûrah 33: 35) (3)

Women's position is determined not so much by the principles of Islam as by social practices. Any discrimination based on gender is a grave offense and against the teachings of the Qur'an. The Qur'an regards men and women as complementary to each other, one sex making up what the other lacks.  Islam does not consider a woman a mere shadow or an extension of a man, always following him or obeying him. She has her full individual freedom and responsibility to the belief in the message of Allah and in practicing its obligations.

Islam like other major religions of the world, which developed in patriarchal cultures, has been used traditionally to deprive women of their God-created, God-given fundamental human rights. (4) Somewhere in the dust of history, our Ulema adopted the Christian theory that women are the source of (original and) all evil.

Quranic consideration of women on earth centres on her relationship to the group, i.e. as a member of a social system. However, it is also important to understand how Quran focuses on women as an individual because the Quran treats the individual, whether male or female, in exactly the same manner: that is, whatever the Quran says about the relationship between Allah and individual is not in gender terms. With regard to spirituality, there are no rights of women distinct from rights of man. (5)

A number of elements in Sufism strongly suggest that the Sufi ethos countered that of the dominant society with respect also to their gender arrangements and their view of women. From early on, its proponents counted women among the important contributors to their tradition and almost the elect spiritual leaders, honoring, for example, Rabi`a al `Adawiyya. Moreover, Sufi tales and legends incorporate elements that also suggest that they engaged with and rejected the values of the dominant society with regard to women. (6) The narratives about Rabi`a al `Adwiyya, for instance, exemplify distinctly counter-cultural elements with respect to ideas about gender. Short narratives depict Rabi`a surpassing her male colleagues in intellectual forthrightness and percipience as well as in spiritual powers. One relates how Hasan al-Basri approached Rabi`a, who was meditating with some companions on a bank. Throwing his carpets on the water, Hasan sat on it and called to Rabi`a to come and converse with him. Understanding that he wanted to impress people with his spiritual powers, Rabi`a threw her prayer carpet into the air and flew up to it; sitting there she said, "O Hasan, come up here where people will see us better." Hasan was silent, for it was beyond his power to fly. "O Hasan. " Rabi`a then said, " that which you did a fish can do…and that which I did a fly can do. The real work (for the saints of God) lies beyond both of these." (7) Another narrative tells how the Ka`aba (the house Allah) rose up and came forward to meet Rabi`a when she was making her pilgrimage to Mecca. She commented: "What have I to do with the house, it is the Lord of the house I need." Meanwhile an eminent fellow Sufi, Ibrahim ibn Adham, was taking many years over his pilgrimage to Mecca, piously stopping to perform ritual prayers many times along the way. Arriving in Mecca and seeing no Ka`aba, he thought his eyes were at fault until a voice informed him that the Ka`aba had gone forth to meet a woman. When Rabi`a and the Ka’aba arrived together, Rabi`a informed Ibrahim, who was consumed with jealousy that the Ka`aba had so honored her, that whereas he crossed the desert making ritual prayers, she came in inward prayer.

The tale thus shows a woman not only surpassing a man but also gently undercutting the formalism and literalness of orthodox religion and the trappings of piety. Another remark attributed to Rabi`a, made about another Sufi, Sufyan al Thawri, shows the same thing. "Sufyan would be a [good man]," she said, "if only he did not love traditions."  (8)
Textual injunctions on gender equity and the prophetic model are sometimes disregarded by some if not most Muslims individually and collectively. Revision of practices (not divine injunctions) is needed. It is not the revelatory Qur'an and the Sunnah that need any editing or revision. What need to be reexamined are fallible human interpretations and practices. Diverse practices in Muslim countries often reflect cultural influences (local or foreign), more so than the letter or spirit of the Shariah. Fortunately, there is an emerging trend for the betterment of our understanding of gender equity, based on the Qur'an and Hadith, not on alien and imported un-Islamic or non-Islamic values and not on the basis of the existing oppressive and unjust status quo in many parts of the Muslim world. (9)

Theologically, Islam tends to assert the equality of the male and female principles, while in its practical social structures it establishes a distinction. To understand this paradox is to understand the essence of the Islamic philosophy of gender, which constructs roles from below, not from above. Women's functions vary widely in the Muslim world and in Muslim history.  In peasant communities, women work in the fields; in the desert; while among the urban elites, womanhood is more frequently celebrated in the home.  Recurrently, however, the public space is rigorously desexualized, and this is represented by the quasi-monastic garb of men and women, where frequently the color white is the color of the male, while black, significantly the sign of inferiority, of the Ka'ba and hence the celestial Layla, denotes femininity. In the private space of the home these signs are cast aside, and the home becomes as colourful as the public space is austere and polarized. Modernity, refusing to recognise gender as a sacred sign, and delighting in random erotic signaling, renders the public space 'domestic' by colouring it, and makes war on all remnants of gender separation, crudely construed as judgmental.

There are other aspects of the Shari’a that deserve mention as illustrations of our theme, not least those, which have been largely forgotten by Muslim societies. The Lawgiver sometimes designs the intersections between the two gender universes as rights of women, and sometimes as rights of men; and the former category is more frequently omitted from actualized Muslim communities. Frequently the jurists' exegesis of the texts is pluri-vocal. Domestic chores, for instance, appear as an aspect of interior sociality, but this is not identified with purely female space, since they are regarded by some madhhabs, including the Shafi'i, as the responsibility of the man rather than the wife. A'isha was asked, after the Blessed Prophet's death, what he used to do at home when he was not at prayer; and she replied: 'He served his family: he used to sweep the floor, and sew clothes.' (Bukhari, Adhan, 44.) On this basis, Shafi'i jurists defend the woman's right not to perform housework.'  (1)0

In the Hanafi madhhab, by contrast, these acts are regarded as the wife's obligations. Another sufficient reminder of the difficulty of generalising about Islamic law, which remains a diverse body of rules and approaches. Islam's theology of gender thus contends with a maze, a web of connections, which demand familiarity with a diverse legal code, regional heterogeneity and with the metaphysical no less than with the physical.

This complexity should warn us against offering facile generalisations about Islam's attitude to women. Journalists, feminists and cultivated people generally in the West have harboured deeply negative verdicts here. Often these verdicts are arrived at through the observation of actual Muslim societies; and it would be both futile and immoral to suggest that the modern Islamic world is always to be admired for its treatment of women. This imbalance will continue unless actualized religion learns to reincorporate the dimension of ihsân, which valorizes the feminine principle, and also obstructs and ultimately annihilates the ego, which underpins gender chauvinism. We need to distinguish, as many Muslim women thinkers are doing, between the expectations of the religion's ethos (as legible in scripture, classical exegesis, and spirituality), and the actual asymmetric structures of post-classical Muslim societies, which, like Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Chinese cultures, contain much that is in real need of reform.

Muslim women have for long periods of Islam's history left their homes to become scholars. A hundred years ago the orientalist Ignaz Goldziher showed that perhaps fifteen percent of medieval hadith scholars were women, teaching in the mosques and universally admired for their integrity. Colleges such as the Saqlatuniya Madrasa in Cairo were funded and staffed entirely by women.

Male and female are aspects of duality, whereas God is unique. Nothing else resembles Him. He has no counterpart. So why is the male pronoun used to refer to Him? First of all, Arabic has no gender-neutral pronoun.  Everything is either ‘he’ or ‘she,’ including inanimate objects. Even though English has the pronoun ‘it,’ to use ‘it’ to refer to God has a drawback, because ‘it’ is basically used for things and creatures that can’t think. Likewise, to refer to God as ‘she’ has certain connotations of weakness in a human context. Like it or not, men have dominated public life and human societies throughout history. Therefore, the Qur'an uses ‘He’ to refer to Allah, while making it clear that God transcends all dualistic traits. Descriptions of Allah abound in the Qur'an or the Sunnah, but none of them gives the slightest inkling that He is masculine or feminine.

When we turn to the Qur'an, we find an image of Godhead apophatically stripped of metaphor. God is simply Allah, the God; never Father. The divine is referred to by the masculine pronoun: Allah is He (huwa); but the grammarians and exegetes concur that this is not even allegoric: Arabic has no neuter, and the use of the masculine is normal in Arabic for genderless nouns. No male preponderance is implied, any more than femininity is implied by the grammatically female gender of neuter plurals. (11)

The modern Jordanian theologian Hasan al-Saqqaf emphasises the point that Muslim theology has consistently made down the ages: God is not gendered, really or metaphorically. The Quran continues Biblical assumptions on many levels, but here there is a striking discontinuity. The imaging of God has been shifted into a new and bipolar register, that of the Ninety-Nine Names. Muslim women who have reflected on the gender issue have seized, I think with good reason, on this striking point. For instance, one Muslim woman writer, Sartaz Aziz, writes:
“I am deeply grateful that my first ideas of God were formed by Islam because I was able to think of the Highest Power as one completely without sex or race, and thus completely unpatriarchal . . . We begin with the idea of a deity who is completely above sexual identity, and thus completely outside the value system created by patriarchy”. (12)

In fact, by far the most conspicuous of the Divine Names in the Koran is al-Rahman, the All Compassionate. And the explicitly feminine resonance of this name were remarked upon by the Prophet (s.w.s.) himself, who taught that rahma, loving compassion, is an attribute derived from the word rahm, meaning a womb. (Bukhari, Adab 13)
Further confirmation for this is supplied in a famous hadith:
'On the day that He created the heavens and the earth, God created a hundred rahmas, each of which is as great as the space which lies between heaven and earth. And He sent one rahma down to earth, by which a mother has rahma for her child.' (Muslim, Tawba, 21) Drawing on this explicit identification of rahma with the 'maternal' aspect of the phenomenal divine, the developed tradition of Sufism habitually identifies God's entire creative aspect as 'feminine', and as merciful. (13)

In her book “The Tao Of Islam” the Japanese scholar Sachiko Murata has drawn parallels with the attributes of God (proverbial 99 names of Allah) in the concept of Yin and Yang whereby the names of Majesty can be considered Yang/Masculine/Jalal as for example, The Avenger, The Destroyer, The Reckoner. Examples of Yin/Feminine/Jamal names are the Great Bestower, The Most Indulgent, The Beautiful, The Source of Peace. The vast majority of what are called “The Most Beautiful Names of God” (Al-Asma al Husna) – the proverbial 99 names of God – mostly fall into these categories.

In this context one can note the significance of the name, ‘Al-Rahman’ which means, The Gracious-Compassionate One, The All-Merciful. At a simple statistical level it is the most often repeated attribute in the Quran. Apart from its overwhelming presence in the text, every chapter, except one, begins with this name accompanied by its variant Al-Rahim. Etymologically they are inextricably tied to the roots of the word for ‘Womb’ in Arabic, making it a Yin/Feminine attribute par excellence. (14)

Fortunately, there is an emerging trend for the betterment of our understanding of gender equity, based on the Qur'an and Hadith, not on alien and imported un-Islamic or non-Islamic values and not on the basis of the existing oppressive and unjust status quo in many parts of the Muslim world. It is not the revelatory Qur'an and the Sunnah that need any editing or revision. What needs to be reexamined are fallible human interpretations and practices. (15)

The issues related to women generally cover four areas: 
(a) Status of women, 
(b) role of women, 
(c) participation and other rights of women, and 
(d) dress and conduct of women. 

Our approach is most commonly apologetic (defending or explaining the virtues of Islam, without recognizing and solving the problems, whenever appropriate or warranted). An example of such a well-articulated, apologetic approach:
"What then is all this uproar by the Muslim women of today about? Is there any right or facility that Islam has not already given her so that she should still feel constrained to launch a campaign to win them through means such as suffrage and representation in parliament? Let us see:
She demands an equal human status. But Islam has already given this to her in theory as well as in practice before law.
She wants economic independence and the right to participate in social life directly. Well, Islam was the first religion that gave her this right.
She wants the right to education? Islam not only recognizes it but makes the acquisition of it obligatory on her as well.
Does she want the right not to be given in marriage without her permission? Islam has given her this right as well as the right to arrange her own marriage.
Does she demand that she should be treated kindly and fairly while performing her functions within the house, and that she should have the right to ask for a separation from her husband if he should fail to treat her in a just and fair manner? Islam does give her all these rights and makes it incumbent upon men to safeguard them.
Also does she want the right to go and work outside? Islam recognizes this right of her too. (16)

One may notice from the above apologetic statement, there is a valid point made about what Islam says and suggests, but hardly anything about the contemporary problems in the society and the kind of concerns various segments of the society have in regard to gender issues. As we defend the message of Islam, we tend to gloss over the harsh realities of the gap that exists between the Qur'anic and Prophetic vision on one hand, and the existing conditions of the Ummah, on the other. We enthusiastically proclaim that Islam is the only Deen (way of life; religion) that has made seeking knowledge incumbent upon all Muslims, men and women. Yet, illiteracy is a wide-spread problem of the Ummah, with the rate of illiteracy being disproportionately higher among the Muslim women. Why? An examination of these issues is critical if we want to build a better Islamic future for ourselves in this world. Currently, rather probably as always, we have polarities in our thoughts, attitudes and conducts.

Once an objective and fair assessment of Muslim practices is made, it should be compared with the normative teachings of Islam. There are enough indications to show that a gap does exist between the ideal and the real. Given the existence of such a gap, a wide gap at times, it follows that Muslim reformers and other international bodies and movements share at least one thing in common: an awareness of the need to close or at least narrow that gap. The problem arises, however, as to the most effective frame of reference and to the particulars of implementation.

International bodies and women's rights organizations tend to consider documents and resolutions passed in conferences as the ultimate basis and standard expected of all diverse peoples, cultures and religions. Committed Muslims, however, both men and women, believe in the ultimate supremacy of what they accept as God's divine revelation (the Qur'an and authentic hadith). To tell Muslims that one's religious convictions should be subservient to "superior" man-made (or woman-made) standards or to secular humanism is neither acceptable nor practical. Even if pressures, economic and otherwise, are used to bring about compliance with such resolutions or documents, the resulting changes are not likely to be deep-rooting and lasting. For Muslims, divine injunctions and guidance are not subject to a "voting" procedure or to a human election, editing or whimsical modifications. They constitute, rather, a complete way of living within Islam’s spiritual, moral, social, political and legal parameters. Imposed cultural imperialism is not the solution.

The Qur'an strongly guarantees all fundamental human rights, without reserving them to men alone. These rights are so deeply rooted in our humanness that their denial or violation is tantamount to a negation or degradation of that which makes us human. These rights came into existence with us, so that we might actualize our human potential. These rights not only provide us with the opportunity to develop all of our inner resources, but they also hold before us a vision of what God would like us to be, what God deems to be worth striving for. The renunciation of a God-given right would be no more virtuous than the refusal to utilize a God-given talent.

The first and most basic right emphasized by the Qur'an is the right to be regarded in a way that reflects the sanctity and absolute value of each human life. Each person has the right not only to life but also to respect, not by virtue of being a man or a woman, but by virtue of being a human being. "Verily," states the Qur'an, "we have honored every human being" [Sûrah 17:A1-Isra': 70]. Human beings are deemed worthy of esteem because, of all creation, they alone chose to accept the "trust" of freedom of the will (Sûrah 33:Al-Ahzab: 72). Human beings can exercise freedom of the will because they possess the rational faculty, which is what distinguishes them from all other creatures (Sûrah 2:Al Baqarah: 30-34). Although human beings can become "the lowest of the low," the Qur'an declares that they have been made "in the best of moulds" (Sûrah 95:At-Tin: 4-6), having the ability to think, to have knowledge of right and wrong, to do the good and to avoid the evil. Thus, on account of the promise which is contained in being human, namely, the potential to be God's vicegerent on earth, the humanness o fall human beings is to be respected and considered an end in itself.

Flowing from this primary right is the right to be treated with justice and equity. The Qur'an puts great emphasis on the right to seek justice and the duty to do justice. Justice encompasses both the concept that all are equal and recognition of the need to help equalize those suffering from a deficiency or loss.

Yet justice is not absolute equality of treatment, since human beings are not equal as far as their human potential or their human situation is concerned. While each person's humanness commands respect, the Qur'an also establishes the right to recognition of individual merit. Merit depends not on gender or any other characteristic, but only on righteousness. Righteousness consists of "just belief' plus "just action," including faith, prayer, wealth- sharing, equitable and compassionate behavior, and patience in the face of hardship or difficulty.

Of importance to women in the Muslim world today is the Qur'anic idea that justice takes into account the unequal conditions of different groups of people. This idea stems from the Quranic ideal of community, or "ummah," a word deriving from the root "umm," meaning mother. Like a good mother with her children, the good community cares about the well-being of all its members, offering particular support to the downtrodden, oppressed, and "weak" classes. This includes women, slaves, orphans, the poor and infirm, and minorities.

As discussed earlier, another fundamental right is the right to be free of traditionalism and authoritarianism. Instrumental here is the right to seek knowledge, which the Qur'an emphasizes perhaps more than any other right. Acquiring knowledge is a prerequisite for evaluating the conditions of life and working toward the creation of a just world. Denied knowledge, Muslim women are denied justice.

Additionally, with great implications for the status of Muslim women, human beings possess the right to work, to earn, and to own property. This right is not the monopoly of men. In Islam, everything belongs to God, not to any person, and so every human being has the right to a means of living. Given the Qur'an's recognition of women as persons in their own right and not as adjuncts to men, the right to earn a living is of great importance to women, and the Qur'an entitles both women and men to the fruits of their labors.

Human beings also have the right to develop their aesthetic sensibilities and the right to survive but to thrive, to enjoy "the good life." This requires self-actualization or development, which is not possible without social justice. Not only an end in themselves, women's rights are a basic component of social justice and a fundamental aspect of creating a just society, in which all people can actualize their God-given potential.

It is often said that rights entail responsibility, meaning the responsibility not to use rights to justify destructive behavior. Rights also entail another kind of responsibility: the duty not to neglect them. Rights given to us by God ought to be exercised, since everything that God does is for "a just purpose," as pointed out by a number of Qur'anic verses.

In short, as beings in a covenantal relationship with God, we must strive to secure and guard the rights that God has given us and which, therefore, cannot be revoked by any temporal authority. To me, being a Muslim means renewing the cry of the modernists, "Back to the Qur'an and forward with ijtihâd." In the same vein, it means acting on these words of Iqbal: "The teaching of the Qur'an that life is a process of progressive creation necessitates that each generation, guided but unhampered by the work of its predecessors, should be permitted to solve its own problems."  These are useful guidelines today for the liberation of all Muslims, especially women, from traditional authoritarianism.

The Hadith: Confusion and Distortion:
Muslims often confuse Hadith (what the Prophet did or said) with the Quran. But Hadith was not written down until well over a century after Mohammad's death. And, in spite of the precautions taken by Al-Bukhari or al-'Asqalani, many Hadith become part of Muslim folklore, and have been invested with meaning and consequence totally absent from the context in which they may or may not have occurred. Human memory is imperfect at best. And yet nobody dares question the plausibility of some of the Companions remembering verbatim the exact words spoken by Mohammad years after the event. Or that those same words, especially when concerning such a hot topic as sexual equality, can be passed down over a further four or five generations, without a single deviation of stress, punctuation or grammar, somehow exempt from all bias, conscious or unconscious, in the selection, omission and interpretation of such texts! This is surely to endow human beings with supra-human qualities?

In The Veil and the Male Elite, the Moroccan sociologist Fatima Mernissi  was nonplused and angered when a schoolteacher in Rabat puts her down, quoting a Hadith to the effect that Mohammad said Those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never know prosperity. Like so many Muslims, Mernissi realized she did not know the texts well enough to be able to refute the schoolteacher then and there. She decided to return to the original texts to find out why and in what context Mohammad could have said such a thing. And in the process discovered how Muslim historians had selectively written women out of early Islamic history. Mernissi found the Hadith in Al-Bukhari's collection Al-Salih (The Authentic), collected three hundred years after Mohammad's death. She next consulted al-Asqalani's Fath al-bari, a complete analysis of each Hadith, how it was passed down, who corroborated the saying and their reliability.  This particular Hadith was in fact attributed to Abu Bakra, an ex-slave and Companion, who claims to have heard Mohammad utter these words when Mohammad was informed that the rival Sassanids had chosen a woman to lead them in battle against the Muslims. Abu-Bakra conveniently remembered this quotation twenty five years after the event, just after the Battle of the Camel, in which A'isha commanded an army in battle against the fourth caliph Ali, her own brother-in-law, whom she felt was betraying the Muslim cause. Abu Bakra was a trimmer.  After A'isha's defeat he could have been executed, dismissed, banished by the victor, because he had not come out against A'isha and for Ali. Abu Bakra told Ali that he had reminded A'isha of this Hadith of her late husband, to warn her to surrender before the decisive battle. Abu Bakra's opportunistic memory should have been further discounted because he had once been flogged for bearing false witness in an adultery case. This should have been sufficient reason twice-over for Al-Bukhari to have rejected Abu Bakra as a reliable source. So how and why did this Hadith, and other examples cited by Mernissi, become accepted as authentic, and therefore binding on women? Mernissi and others argue that Islam came of age and was written down for future generations at a most unfortunate time, when matrilineal society was being replaced throughout the entire Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean worlds by patriarchal values and institutions. These scholars argue that the compilers of texts, whether consciously or unconsciously, selected texts that made sense for the times they lived in, that reflected prevailing cultural values. And in this way, much of the egalitarian ethos inherent in the Quran was downplayed or subordinated to partial and partisan Hadith.
If history belongs to the victors, then much of Islamic history belongs to men, to the obvious detriment of women. And the rapid geographic spread of Islam on the back of military conquest also turns out to be double-edged. Islam conquers, but it also absorbs, and is thereby transformed. The message of the Quran, often elliptical and allegorical, is heard and interpreted one way in Arabia, but in a much more restrictive way in Mesopotamia or Persia, more conservative societies. Islamic armies rely on local administrators to implement their rule and ideas. The genius of Islam - why it spreads so rapidly - is precisely because of its plasticity, its ability to adapt and take on the color and temperament of local cultures. Such a supple, accommodating faith literally sweeps North Africa and south Asia like proverbial wildfire.

But accommodation is a two-way process. Many of these new Islamic societies are a lot less egalitarian in their attitudes towards women. It is no accident that many of the restrictive institutions and attitudes in the West now popularly associate with Islam - concubines and harems, purdah and Mut'ah (temporary marriage, permitted in Shi'a and Persian culture) - come from cultures outside Arabia. Arab attitudes, in turn, became more restrictive as Arab Muslims began to adopt customs from recently conquered and converted Muslims.

Doubts and disagreements, which existed under Abu Bakr and Uthman, two of the first Four Caliphs, are glossed over and eventually forgotten.
Similarly, important differences within the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence or Shariah - regarding the right of a woman to initiate divorce, remarry or force a husband to sign a marriage contract forbidding polygamy - are progressively downplayed to the point where few if any Muslims are probably still aware that they existed. Egalitarianism, dissent, a general acceptance that the Quran only sets down principles - should not be taken literally. Indeed, they can and should be interpreted by each successive generation to fit circumstance and culture. But they often seem to have been progressively forgotten in favor of a traditional, andocentric Islam, based as much on self-interest as on myth, and on a partial and biased reading of what, nevertheless, remains potentially a radical document and tradition, precisely because of its egalitarian ethos. The same process of restrictive interpretation, of intellectual sclerosis, is sadly evident in much of the current debate about modernity, based once again on both a partial and partisan understanding of Islam's intellectual history, and a denial of much of its own past.

References:
1 M. Mazharuddin Siddiqi; ‘Women in Islam’
2 Leila Ahmed; ‘Women and Gender in Islam’
3 Al Quran Sûrah 33: 35
4 From Dr Riffat Hassan's open letter to General Perwaiz Musharraf written in 2001.
5 Amina Wadud-Muhsin; ‘Quran and Woman’ Kuala Lumpur 1992
6 Leila Ahmed; ‘Women and Gender in Islam’ Yale University Press 1992
7 Margaret Smith; ‘Rabi`a the Mystic and her Fellow-saints in Islam’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928) 36
8  Ibid., 9, 16.
9 Badawi, J.1997. ‘Gender Equity in Islam’. WAMY Studies on Islam.
10 Abdal Hakim Murad;  ‘Islam, Iriguaray, and the Retrieval of Gender’ (April 1999)
11 ibid
12 ibid
13 ibid
14 ‘Perspective on Islam: Cultural Complications’ by Dr Durre S. Ahmed, A paper presented at Symposium on “Women and Religion, Debates on Search” held on March 1996at Chinag Mai, Thailand by Henrich Boll Foundation.
15 Badawi, J.1997. ‘Gender Equity in Islam’. WAMY Studies on Islam.
16 Muhammad Qutb; ‘Islam the Misunderstood Religion’, p. 124, IIFSO edition
                    
About the author: 
Farhat Naz Rahman BA; LLB resides in Karachi, Pakistan.  Farhat is a research scholar in Islamic Learning, M.A. in Islamic Studies and a candidate for PhD in the same subject. Her Topic of Research is "Women and the social laws of the Qur'an". She is also an activist and a freelance journalist and has presented papers on women's issues at several international forums.
rahmanfarhat@hotmail.com