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Lesson Women's Rights in Islam
The true Islamic religion - with its divine teachings and wise guidance - pays special attention to the Muslim woman, and it preserves her dignity, ensures she achieves her honor and happiness, and prepares for her the means for a comfortable life away from the places of suspicion, temptation, evil, and corruption. This special care takes on many forms.
Honor and High Status
Islam guarantees women their dignity and humanity and gives them their proper status, whatever they are: mothers, wives, daughters, and so on. So it has commanded that she is shown righteousness, kindness, and special attention. Islam also fights against corrupt religious, intellectual, and social legacies that belittle, humiliate, and despise women.
Umar Ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “By Allah, if we were in the Jahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic era of ignorance), we did not regard women as a matter, until Allah sent down what He revealed to them, and divided for them what He divided” (Al-Bukhari, 4913, Muslim 1479). The light of Islam shone more than 1400 years ago. It raised the status of women and removed many of the injustices practiced by many people and nations, including the fact that a woman was not entitled to own property or inherit. The wife was inherited or burned if her husband died, She was also bought and sold, and this custom remained prevalent - in England, for example - until the beginning of the twentieth century.
Justice Between Women and Men
Islam is the religion of the Lord of the Worlds, the All-Knowing, the Just, the Wise, and from Allah’s justice and wisdom is that He does not equate two things that are different and does not differentiate between two things that are alike, as such we find the Islamic legislation equates between men and women in those things that they are similar in and differentiates between them in what is different, so He made rights and duties that befits the nature of each gender, needs and abilities, and the instinct that He created them upon. Islam gave women their appropriate status in all areas and made them equal to men in many issues, including:
The origin of creation
The contempt of the previous nations for women reached such a level that they excluded them from being entirely human. Aristotle said: A woman is an imperfect man, and nature has left her on the lowest rung of the ladder of creation, and Socrates likened her to a poisoned tree. So a large conference was held in Rome in which they decided that women are without soul or immortality, will not inherit the afterlife, are an abomination, and should not eat meat, laugh, or speak! As for the French, they held a conference in 586 to discuss an "important" issue: Is a woman considered human or non-human?! Does she have a soul not?! And if she has a soul, is it an animal or human spirit?! And if it is human, is it at the level of a man's soul or lower than it?! Ultimately, they decided she was human but was created to serve only man. As for Islam, then it has given equality to both genders in terms of their creation; Allah says: (O humanity! Be mindful of your Lord, Who created you from a single soul, and, He created its mate, one, and through both, He spread countless men and women. And be mindful of Allah—in Whose Name you appeal to one another—and ˹honour˺ family ties. Surely Allah is ever Watchful over you.) [Nisaa:1)
Islam gives equality to both man and woman in legal obligations and in the reward and reward for them in this world and the Hereafter, as Allah says: (Whoever does good, whether male or female, and is a believer, We will surely bless them with a good life, and We will certainly reward them according to the best of their deeds.) [An-Nahl:97] He also says: (But those who do good—whether male or female—and have faith will enter Paradise and will never be wronged ˹even as much as˺ the speck on a date stone.)[An-NIsaa:124] The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was asked about a man who finds wetness but does not remember having a wet dream. He said: «take a bath» And about the man who sees that he had a wet dream and does not find wetness. He said: «Do not wash it.» Umm Sulaym said: If the woman sees that, does she have to do a ghusl? He said: «Yes. Women are the twins of men.»(Abu Dawud 236).
And the first to believe in the message of the Messenger, ﷺ was a woman, and she is the mother of the believers, Khadija (may Allah be pleased with her.) Women were also part of the first group that migrated to Ethiopia, and they were part of the very first delegation that came from Madinah and pledged allegiance to the Prophet ﷺ.
In Islamic history, women were shining role models known for their excellent qualities, abundance of knowledge, and understanding of the message of Islam. Moreover, they were often pioneers in this field, as Muslim men took many matters of their religion from examples of female Muslim scholars and pioneers in science and education. The most prominent is the Mother of the Believers, Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her.)
The woman and the man participate in collective worship out of obligation, recommendation, or permissibility, such as Umrah and Hajj, the prayer for rain and the two Eid prayers, and the Friday and congregational prayers. She is commanded to call to Islam, enjoin good, and forbid evil. Other precise forms of equality between the sexes in legal duties and no exceptions are made from that except for what is related to the difference in their physical make-up.
While Islam endorsed the principle of equality in their religious duties as a general rule, it considers the difference in nature between the sexes and the resulting difference in roles, so it organizes these tasks and puts each one in its proper place, which leads to their integration in everyday life. For example, the man is responsible for spending on the woman and children; he must protect them and take care of all family affairs. On the other hand, the woman is responsible for her home, husband, and children and has other responsibilities that she must bear.
Islam guaranteed women their civil, social, and personal status rights, which are rights guaranteed to women since the start of the Islamic call more than 1400 years ago and long before civil and human rights organizations advocated for them in the modern era.
Women's civil and social rights
Women's Rights in their Personal Status and Marriage
The above are just examples to explain some of the rights of women in Islam; otherwise, the rights that Islamic law has given to women are too many to mention here.
