Women in Islam

Islam and Infanticide

Before Islam, the burial of newborn girls alive was practised among some Arab tribes. The Quran condemned it explicitly. In Surah al-Takwir (81:8-9), God asks on the Day of Judgement: "When the girl buried alive is asked, for what sin was she killed?" The verse does not merely prohibit the act. It frames it as a crime that will be prosecuted before God.

The Prophet ﷺ replaced the cultural devaluing of daughters with something deliberate: he promised paradise to any father who raises his daughters well, educates them, and treats them with kindness. He said: "Whoever has three daughters, or two daughters, and is patient with them, and clothes them, and fears God regarding them, will enter paradise." (Abu Dawud)

Islam did not just ban a practice. It replaced a culture of shame around daughters with one of spiritual reward.

Female Genital Mutilation

FGM has no basis in the Quran. The foundational Islamic legal principle is "la darar wa la dirar": there should be neither harm inflicted on oneself nor harm inflicted on others (Ibn Majah). FGM causes documented, irreversible physical harm to women. On this basis alone, mainstream Islamic scholarship rejects it.

The hadith occasionally cited in support of FGM are either weak in chain, misapplied, or refer to a different and far less invasive practice permitted by some classical scholars. The four madhabs did not agree on its status (ranging from disliked to prohibited) and no madhab made it obligatory. FGM is a cultural practice, concentrated in specific geographic regions, that predates Islam and exists in non-Muslim communities in those same regions.

Inheritance: What the System Actually Says

Islamic inheritance law (Fara'id) is one of the most precisely detailed legal systems in history. Shares are determined by relationship to the deceased and financial responsibility, not by gender alone.

There are many specific situations in fara’id in which women inherit equally to men, and some in which they inherit more. The examples below illustrate the pattern.

• A mother and father each receive one sixth of the estate when the deceased has children: equal shares
• When there are no children, the mother's share increases; the father's does not automatically
• A daughter inherits more than a brother when no male children exist
• A wife's share is protected regardless of the husband's debts
• Maternal half-siblings inherit equally regardless of gender

Where a son receives more than a daughter, this is directly tied to his financial obligations. A son is legally required to pay mahr, support his wife and children financially, and support unmarried sisters and elderly parents if needed. A daughter has none of these obligations. Her inheritance is entirely her own; she cannot be asked to contribute it to the household, her husband has no legal claim on it, and it remains hers to keep, invest, or spend as she chooses.

The system is not: men get more because they are worth more. It is: men receive more because they owe more.

Women Were Not Barred From Knowledge

The book Suwar min Hayat al-Sahabiyyat documents the lives of female companions, women who were scholars, teachers, and narrators of hadith in the earliest Muslim community. Aisha alone narrated over 2,200 hadith and was consulted by senior male companions on matters of jurisprudence after the Prophet's ﷺ death.

Later, figures like Karimah al-Marwaziyyah taught Sahih al-Bukhari to scholars who travelled across the world to study under her. Fatima al-Fihri founded what is considered the world's oldest continuously operating university. Al-Shuhda of Baghdad was called Fakhr al-Nisa (the Pride of Women) and taught hadith to thousands.

Protection of Women's Honour: Qadhf

The Quran (24:4) prescribes eighty lashes for anyone who falsely accuses a chaste woman of adultery and cannot produce four witnesses: "And those who accuse chaste women and then do not produce four witnesses — lash them with eighty lashes and do not accept from them testimony ever after." This is qadhf, one of the hudud offences, carrying a fixed penalty.

The significance is the direction of protection: false accusation of sexual immorality is treated as a serious crime against the woman, not merely a social wrong. Her honour has legal standing. A man who slanders a woman's chastity faces criminal consequences under Islamic law, not just social censure.

The Prohibition of Temporary Marriage

The Prophet ﷺ permanently prohibited mutah (temporary or fixed-term marriage). This prohibition is the unanimous position of Sunni scholarship and has remained in force since. The prohibition was a structural protection for women: a temporary arrangement, by its nature, produces no lasting obligation, no stable household, and no protection for children. The Islamic framework of marriage (mahr, maintenance, and the full obligations of a permanent contract) cannot function in a temporary arrangement. Prohibiting mutah closed a route through which women, particularly those in vulnerable circumstances, could be exploited under the appearance of a religious sanction.

Why a Muslim Woman Cannot Marry a Non-Muslim Man

Islamic marriage comes with a specific set of legally binding rights that a husband must uphold:

• Mahr: a gift of her choosing, with no upper limit, that becomes her sole property
• Full financial provision for her living expenses, regardless of her own wealth
• No right for the husband to compel her to contribute financially
• The right to kindness and respectful treatment (Quran 4:19)
• The right to sexual fulfilment
• The right to practise her religion without interference

A non-Muslim man is not bound by these obligations. He has no religious compulsion to uphold them, and no Islamic legal framework holds him accountable. A Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim man enters a contract with no enforcement mechanism for her most fundamental rights.

A Muslim man marrying a Jewish or Christian woman, by contrast, is religiously obligated to uphold all of these rights towards her, including her right to practise her own religion freely. The asymmetry in the rule is not arbitrary. It reflects which direction the legal protection runs.

Beyond the legal framework, Islamic marriage gives the husband a leading role in the household and in the religious formation of the children. A Muslim woman married to a non-Muslim man enters a setting in which the practice of her religion, the upbringing of her children as Muslims, and her own deen are exposed to pressures the law cannot remove. The reverse case (a Muslim husband married to a Jewish or Christian wife) does not produce the same exposure, because Islam already obliges him to protect her right to practise her religion and to raise the children Muslim.

Women's Agency in Islamic History

Islamic history presents vivid models of women's agency rooted in the deen itself. Khadijah bint Khuwaylid was an independent businesswoman who proposed to the Prophet ﷺ and was his closest confidant in the years of revelation. Aisha bint Abi Bakr transmitted thousands of hadith, adjudicated complex fiqh questions, and led an army. Umm Salamah advised the Prophet ﷺ on strategy at Hudaybiyyah. Fatimah al-Fihri founded the world's first university in Fez. These are not exceptions to an Islamic framework; they are products of it.

Addressing Genuine Doubts

A father who favours his son, a husband who controls his wife's income, a family that pressures a woman to forgo her inheritance: all of these are violations of Islamic law, not expressions of it. The Quran is explicit that a woman's property is hers (4:32). The Prophet ﷺ spoke against preferential treatment between children. Read more in misogynistic-families.

If the religion itself guaranteed these rights and the community failed to uphold them, the problem is the community. The answer is not to doubt the religion but to hold the community to its own standard.