Women in Arab Societies - Arab Women After Islam

Arab Women After Islam

Islam was introduced in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century, and improved the status of women compared to earlier Arab cultures. According to the Qur'anic decrees, both men and women have the same duties and responsibilities in their worship of God. As the Qur'an states: "I will not suffer to be lost the work of any of you whether male or female. You proceed one from another".(Qur'an 3:195)

The Qur'an rejected the traditional and cultural practice of killing unwanted female children soon after birth. As it appears in (Qur'an 16:58-59),the religious message states: "When news is brought to one of them, of (the birth of) a female (child), his face darkens, and he is filled with inward grief. With shame he hides himself from his people, because of the bad news he has had! shall he retain it (his face) (sufferance and) contempt, or bury it in the dust? Ah! what an evil (choice) they decide on!" The Prophet of Islam said that "one to whom a daughter is born and who does not bury her alive, does not humiliate her not prefer a son to a daughter, will be sent to Paradise". Another tradition of Muhammad makes hell fire prohibited to he who undergoes trials and tribulations due to a daughter and yet does not hate her and behaves well towards her.

The Islamic studies professor William Montgomery Watt states:

It is true that Islam is still, in many ways, a man's religion. But I think I’ve found evidence in some of the early sources that seems to show that Muhammad made things better for women. It appears that in some parts of Arabia, notably in Mecca, a matrilineal system was in the process of being replaced by a patrilineal one at the time of Muhammad. Growing prosperity caused by a shifting of trade routes was accompanied by a growth in individualism. Men were amassing considerable personal wealth and wanted to be sure that this would be inherited by their own actual sons, and not simply by an extended family of their sisters’ sons. This led to a deterioration in the rights of women. At the time Islam began, the conditions of women were terrible - they had no right to own property, were supposed to be the property of the man, and if the man died everything went to his sons. Muhammad improved things quite a lot. By instituting rights of property ownership, inheritance, education and divorce, he gave women certain basic safeguards. Set in such historical context the Prophet can be seen as a figure who testified on behalf of women's rights.