Gender Inequality In Islam

Women who have the misfortune of living in predominately Muslim societies often are confronted with adversities concerning their rights in marriage, divorce, education, and seclusion. Consequently, many Westerners seeing a lack of equality towards women in these societies consider it as a confirmation of their own misconceptions about Islam itself. Islam is often rejected as being an intolerant and violent religion that discriminates against and subjugates women, treating them as second-class citizens. From a Muslim’s perspective, Islam’s stance on women can be approached by two opposing views. Scholars amongst the Muslim apologists have claimed, “The verses in the Qur’an represented Muhammad's intention to improve a debased condition of women that prevailed during the Jahiliya, the time of ignorance before Islam came into being.” (Doumato, 177) If inequalities still exist between men and women, they cannot be attributed to Islam, but are a result of the misinterpretation of Islam’s true meaning. Others have entirely denied the notion of inequality between men and women in Islam, claiming that the alleged inequalities “are merely perceived as such by foreign observers who confuse seclusion and sex difference with inequality.” (Ibid.) Many Muslim apologists defend the Koran as noble for the very fact that it raises women to an equal status of men despite their inferiority.

Regardless of whether or not women are or should be equal to men, what

“Islam has not in all cases accorded similar rights to man and woman. But it has not also prescribed similar duties and similar punishments for the two sexes.” (Mutahhari 33) There can be no denial that Islam views men and women as functionally different, admitting them different rights and ...

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...same-sex marriage often argue, everyone has the equal right to marry any consenting adult of the opposite sex. In a state that has not legalized same-sex marriage, homosexuals have equal rights in marriage as heterosexuals, but such a law is still discriminatory based on sex. These are just a couple of many ways in which men and women might be treated differently, but equally in modern Western society.

To mathematically prove the existence of a long-term and balanced equality by weighing out the different privileges established in the Koran for each sex is hopeless, but the argument is still legitimate.

Either we must acknowledge that men and women are in fact different and should thus be treated differently, but equally, or we can deny any differences between men and women, in such a case all differences in treatment must be dissolved in order to avoid hypocrisy.