Women in ISLAM

(Wasiq Shaheen, Lahore)

Gender Analysis

This article investigated the status and role of woman in Islam towards gender equality. Islam treats both, man or woman equally in obligation and reward, equally in education, equally subservient to God and obliged to worship Him and obey His commands in their daily life, woman has right to property, freedom of expression, matrimonial rights, equally in spiritual duties, equality in treatment, equality in employment, equality in political sphere. The paper concluded that to achieve gender equality.

Islam and gender is a controversial problem for scholars and analysts of the Middle East. Unfortunately, the debate on this issue has at times become highly acrimonious and not always placed in its proper historical or sociological contexts. Women's limited participation in the scientific labor force particularly at the highest echelons may be one of the most persistent and slow-moving demographic characteristics in the scientific world today. A report released last month by the US National Science Foundation suggests that women scientists are at the bottom of the salary ladder by the time they reach mid-career.

Broadly speaking, two related gender issues exacerbate the problem: one is attitudinal and based on beliefs and values, the other relates to legal doctrines. The attitudinal component concerns the prevalence in much of the Middle East of certain patriarchal values, learned through the socialization experience, on women and gender roles. The legal dimension pertains to the essentially discriminatory nature of Islamic personal stares laws and the criminal code when applied to women. The combination of these two factors--patriarchal attitudes and legal strictures--places women in a highly disadvantageous position in the social order. Clearly, many Islamic countries do not apply either the full Islamic criminal code or the complete version of personal stares laws to their citizens. The intensity of patriarchal values also varies both within one country and from one Islamic society to another. Nonetheless, the two themes of patriarchy and legal discrimination continue to remain central to the debate on Islam and gender.

The problem is further complicated by strong positions that many Islamists have taken on gender segregation in public space and in favor of other non-egalitarian gender views. In their own particular way, the Islamist movements have centralized the women's issue both in their extensive discourse on the subject as well as in their behavior in public space.

Naturally human beings are divided into two genders and both are given responsibilities and rights which suit them, discrimination is the practice of granting or denying rights or offer privileges based on the gender. Islamic considers woman not only equal to man but in some respects give her importance more than man. Anyhow the misconception spread to the contrary, the present demonstrates beyond doubt that the gender equality, freedom and dignity that Islam offers to woman remain unparalleled.

The degeneration of the Muslim woman around the world over the past centuries is a necessary corollary to their cultural disorientation wrought in the main by the colonial holocaust. The platform for action that they need is the one projecting the universal Islamic values. Some considerable aspects apart, the proposed United Nations work-plan, at times, is in direct conflict with their cultural milieu and, therefore, most likely to generate confusion and add to their disorientation that they need to shake off at the first available opportunity if they are serious to walk the road to equality.

“The number of female researchers in the Islamic World is above average, but this does not translate to the quality of their participation, says Athar Osama”.

Wsi Chohan
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