Women in Islam

The experiences of Muslim women (Arabic: مسلمات Muslimāt, singular مسلمة Muslimah) vary widely between and within different societies due to culture and values that were often predating Islam's introduction to the respective regions of the world.

[2][3] At the same time, their adherence to Islam is a shared factor that affects their lives to a varying degree and gives them a common identity that may serve to bridge the wide cultural, social, and economic differences between Muslim women.

Included in secondary sources are the fatwā, which are often widely distributed, orally or in writing by Muslim clerics, to the masses in the local language and describe behavior, roles, and rights of women that conform to religious requirements.

The secondary sources classify the lawful and unlawful behaviors of Muslim men and women, which typically fall into the five categories (al-ahkam al-khamsa): wajib/fard (obligatory), mustahabb/mandub (recommended), mubah (neutral), makruh (disapproved), and haram (forbidden).

[39] There are many examples – both in the early history of Islam and in the contemporary world – of Muslim women who have played prominent roles in public life, including being sultanas, queens, elected heads of state, and wealthy businesswomen.

[53][54] Conversely, in a handful of states—notably Shia Iran—with modernist fundamentalist regimes, dress codes which became mandatory in the latter part of the twentieth-century, stipulating that women wear exclusively "religious", as opposed to "secular", garments in public are still in force.

[63] The intention behind this distinction is to help men maintain a state of sobriety, reserve, concentration, and spiritual poverty (the "perfections of the centre"),[63] while women, who symbolize unfolding, infinitude, and manifestation, are not bound by the same constraints.

"[71] Other analysts have pointed out that the Quranic verse most cited in defense of the ḥijāb (Sūrat al-Aḥzāb, 33:59)[62] does not mention this article of clothing at all; instead, it references a "long, overflowing gown" which was the traditional dress at the time of this revelation.

[93] Walid Phares writes that Marxism in the Soviet Union and China, as well as "secular anticlericalism" in Turkey forced women to "integrate themselves into an antireligious society" resulting in a backlash of "gender apartheid" by Islamic fundamentalists.

[132] UNESCO estimates that the literacy rate among adult women was about 50% or less in a number of Muslim-majority countries, including Morocco, Yemen, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Niger, Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Chad.

[180] Prominent female business executives in the Islamic world include Güler Sabancı, the CEO of the industrial and financial conglomerate Sabancı Holding;[181] Ümit Boyner, a non-executive director at Boyner Holding who was the chairwoman of TÜSİAD, the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen Association, from 2010 to 2013;[182] Bernadette Ruth Irawati Setiady, the CEO of PT Kalbe Farma Tbk., the largest pharmaceutical company in the ASEAN trade bloc;[183] Atiek Nur Wahyuni, the director of Trans TV, a major free-to-air television station in Indonesia;[184] and Elissa Freiha, a founding partner of the UAE-based investment platform WOMENA.

This is because, once the marriage is consummated, in exchange for tamkin (sexual submission), a woman is entitled to nafaqa—namely, the financial responsibility for reasonable housing, food and other household expenses for the family, including the spouse, falls entirely on the husband.

of this word is not with the definition "to beat", but as verb phrases which provide a number of other meanings, including, as argued by some, several which are more plausible within the context of 4:34, such as "to leave [your wife in the event of disloyalty]", and "to draw them lovingly towards you [following temporarily not sleeping with them in protest at their disloyal behaviour].

Darimi, a teacher of both Tirmidhi and Muslim bin Hajjaj as well as a leading early scholar in Iran, collected all the Hadiths showing Muhammad's disapproval of beating in a chapter entitled 'The Prohibition on Striking Women'.

A thirteenth-century scholar from Granada, Ibn Faras, notes that one camp of ulama had staked out a stance forbidding striking a wife altogether, declaring it contrary to Muhammad's example and denying the authenticity of any Hadiths that seemed to permit beating.

"[255] Some scholars[256][257] claim Islamic law, such as verse 4:34 of Quran, allows and encourages domestic violence against women, when a husband suspects nushuz (disobedience, disloyalty, rebellion, ill conduct) in his wife.

[285] On December 10, 2014, the Serbian-Turkish pop star Emina Jahović released a video clip entitled Ne plašim se ("I'm not scared") to help raise awareness of domestic violence in the Balkans.

[294]This emphasis on the sublimity of the conjugal act holds true for both this world and the next: the fact that Islam considers sexual relationships one of the ultimate pleasures of paradise is well-known; moreover, there is no suggestion that this is limited only for the sake of producing children.

[295] Accordingly, (and in common with civilisations such as the Chinese, Indian, and Japanese), the Islamic world has historically generated significant works of erotic literature and technique, and many centuries before such a genre became culturally acceptable in the West: Richard Burton's substantially ersatz 1886 translation of The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight, a fifteenth-century sex manual authored by Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Nafzawi, was labelled as being 'for private circulation only' owing to the puritanical mores and corresponding censorship laws of Victorian England.

[317][318] The work of the scholar and historian Al-Sakhawi (1428–1497) on the lives of women show that the marriage pattern of Egyptian and Syrian urban society in the fifteenth century was greatly influenced by easy divorce, and practically untouched by polygamy.

'"[391] In this context, the Muslim caliph Umar ibn Al-Khattab (584–644) believed that a married woman had the right to sex at least once every four days, while according to the hadith scholar, jurist and mystic Abu Talib al-Makki (d.996), "if [a husband] knows that [his wife] needs more, he is obliged to comply".

[416] Notwithstanding these facts, there is a belief amongst some Muslims—particularly though not entirely exclusively in (sub-Saharan) Africa—that female circumcision (specifically the cutting of the prepuce or hood of the clitoris) is religiously vindicated by the existence of a handful of ḥadīths which apparently recommend it.

[433] They dealt principally with coitus interruptus, the most common method, and unanimously agreed that it was licit provided the free wife gave her permission, because she had rights to children and to sexual fulfilment which withdrawal was believed to diminish.

[433][434] According to medieval Muslims, birth control was employed to avoid a large number of dependents to safeguard property, to guarantee the education of a child, to protect a woman from the risks of childbirth—especially if she was young or ill—or simply to preserve her health and beauty.

[488] Women, during early history of Islam, primarily obtained their knowledge through community study groups, ribat retreats and during hajj when the usual restrictions imposed on female education were more lenient.

Some notable Muslim women scholars are: Azizah al-Hibri, Amina Wadud, Fatima Mernissi, Riffat Hassan, Laila Ahmad, Amatul Rahman Omar,[496] Farhat Hashmi, Aisha Abdul-Rahman, and Merryl Wyn Davies.

This historical record contrasts markedly with that of (predominantly Taoist and Buddhist) Chinese-majority nations, where there were no women rulers in the period between the reign of the fierce empress Wu Zetian at the turn of the eighth century (690–705), and the inauguration of Tsai Ing-wen as President of the Republic of China in 2016.

These include Louisa Hanoune, the head of Algeria's Workers' Party and the first woman to be a presidential candidate in an Arab country (2004; Hanoune also ran for the same post in 2009 and 2014);[513][514] Susi Pudjiastuti, Indonesia's Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (2014–2019) who is also a successful seafood and transportation entrepreneur who has been profiled in the Financial Times;[515] Meral Akşener, a veteran Turkish conservative nationalist politician who is the founder and leader of the İyi Party (2017–);[516] and mezzo-soprano opera singer Dariga Nazarbayeva, the Chairwoman of the Kazakhstan Senate and one of her country's wealthiest individuals.

The female International Athlete Ambassadors for Baku 2017—the most recent edition of the games—included Tunisian Olympic medallist wrestler Marwa Amri; taekwondo icons Elaine Teo (Malaysia) and Taleen Al Humaidi (Jordan); and the Palestinian swimmer Mary Al-Atrash.

"[557] The historical strength of various Muslim-led polities—which, unlike other comparable non-Western entities such as China and Japan, were adjacent to "Christian" Europe and/or perceived to be in competition with Western powers—meant that the question of women in Islam has not always been approached objectively by those professing expertise in the subject.