The Rights of Women in Islam

CONTENTS

THE AUTHOR	17
PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD	21
PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR	23
INTRODUCTION	43

PART ONE
PROPOSAL AND ENGAGEMENT
PROPOSAL AND ENGAGEMENT	53
Does a man’s proposal of marriage insult a woman?	53
It is a man’s instinct to make the approach and ask, and a woman’s, instinct to be a source of attraction and act with self-restraint:	54
Man seeks union with woman, not to enslave her:	55
The custom of asking the hand of woman in marriage is a very safe and wise way of safeguarding the honour and prestige of a woman:	56
Errors by the writer of the forty articles in the Civil Law:	57

PART TWO
FIXED-TERM MARRIAGE
FIXED-TERM MARRIAGE	63
Contemporary life and fixed-term marriage	66
Modern youth, the time of puberty, and the onset of sextual activity	67
Monasticism for a fixed period, sexual communism, or fixed-term marriage	67
Experimental marriage	69
Russell’s views on fixed-term marriage	69
FIXED-TERM MARRIAGE (2)	73
Objections and difficulties	74
Criticism	80
FIXED-TERM MARRIAGE AND THE PROBLEM OF THE HAREM	85
Social causes for harems	86
Is the provision of fixed-term marriage a license for promiscuity?	88
Harems in the present world	89
Prohibition by the Caliph of fixed-term marriage	90
A tradition from ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib	94

PART THREE
WOMAN AND HER SOCIAL INDEPENDENCE
WOMAN AND HER SOCIAL INDEPENDENCE	99
Freedom in determining one’s future	99
Marrying a woman before she is born	100
Exchange of daughters	101
The Holy Prophet gave az- Zahra, his daughter full freedom in choosing a husband	102
The Islamic movement in favour of women was entirely independence	102
Permission of fathers	104
A man is a slave of his passions and a woman is a captive of her lovingness	106

PART FOUR
ISLAM AND MODERNITY
ISLAM AND MODERNITY (1)	115
The exigencies of the age	115
Islam and the demands of the age	117
Confused thinking	119
What does time itself conform to?	120
Adaptation or abrogation?	122
ISLAM AND MODERNITY (2)	127
Rigid people and ignorant people	129
The story in the Qur’an	131
ISLAM AND MODERNITY (3)	137
The secret of the dynamism and flexibility of Islamic law	138
Attention to essence and meaning as opposed to shape and form	139
A permanent law for a permanent requirement and a variable law for a varying requirement	141
The question of change of script	145
It does not matter what you wear, as long as you do not imitate slavishly	145
The question of “ahamm wa muhimm” (that which is more important and that which is significant)	146
Laws with the right of ‘veto’	147
The governing authority	147
The fundamental of ijtihad	148

PART FIVE
THE HUMAN STATUS OF WOMAN IN THE QUR’AN
THE HUMAN STATUS OF WOMAN IN THE QUR’AN	153
The particular philosophy of Islam concerning family rights	153
Equality or identicalness	155
The status of woman in the world-view of Islam	157
EQUALITY, BUT NOT UNIFORMITY	165
The Declaration of Human Rights is philosophy and not law	170
Philosophy cannot be proved by questionnaires	172
A glance at the history of women’s rights in Europe	173
THE DIGNITY AND THE RIGHTS OF HUMAN BEINGS	177
Important points in the preamble to the Declaration of Human Rights	178
The dignity and respect of man	179
The decline and fall of the human being in western philosophy	180
The west is involved in a basic contradiction about man	183
The west has forgotten both itself and its God	185

PART SIX
THE NATURAL BASIS OF FAMILY RIGHTS
THE NATURAL BASIS OF FAMILY RIGHTS (1)	189
The connection between natural rights and the direction in which nature moves	190
Social rights	191
Family rights	192
THE NATURAL BASIS OF FAMILY RIGHTS (2)	195
Is family life conditioned by nature or regulated by convention?	196
The theory of the four eras	197
Woman in nature	201

PART SEVEN
THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMAN AND MAN
THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMAN AND MAN	207
Is it a question of symmetry or one of imperfection and perfection?	208
Plato’s theory	210
Aristotle against Plato	211
The opinion of the modern world	212
Reciprocal differences	213
Feeling towards each other	214
THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMAN AND MAN (2)	217
The masterpiece of creation	218
A union stronger than passion	220
Reciprocal differences in the feelings of men and women towards each other:	221
The view of a female psychologist	223
A hasty movement	224
The view of Will Durant	224

PART EIGHT
DOWER AND MAINTENANCE
DOWER AND MAINTENANCE (1)	231
A short history of the dower:	231
The dower in the Islamic system of rights	233
A look at history	235
The real philosophy of the dower	236
Dower as in the Qur’an	240
Two kinds of sentiments in animals	241
Presents and gifts in illicit relations	241
European love-affairs are more natural than their marriages	242
DOWER AND MAINTENANCE (2)	243
The customs of the pre-Islamic period that that were abolished by Islam	243
Islam has its own system of dower	247
Rule of nature	248
Criticisms	249
DOWER AND MAINTENANCE (3)	257
The repression of European women up to the second half of the nineteenth century	258
Why did Europe suddenly grant financial independence?	259
The Qur’an and the financial independence of woman:	260
A Comparison	261
Criticism and reply	262
Three kinds of maintenance	264
DOES MODERN WOMAN NOT WANT A DOWER OR MAINTENANCE?	267
An advantage to women in financial matters	267
The purpose of propaganda against maintenance	272
Wealth in place of husband	273
Is the Declaration of Human Rights an insult to woman?	276

PART NINE
THE QUESTION OF INHERITANCE
THE QUESTION OF INHERITANCE	281
The cause of woman’s being deprived of inheritance	281
Inheritance of an adopted son:	284
Inheritance by a confederation:	284
Woman as a part of the share of inheritance	284
Woman’s inheritance in the Sassanid period in Iran	285
The share of women in inheritance according to Islam	286
An objection by the worshippers of the west	287
The objection of atheists at the beginning of Islam about inheritance	289

PART TEN
RIGHT OF DIVORCE
RIGHT OF DIVORCE (1)	293
The increase of divorce in modern life	293
Divorce in Iran	295
The environment in divorce-infected America	296
Assumptions	297
DIVORCE (2)	303
Dishonourable divorces	305
A malicious tale without any truth	308
Why did Islam not make divorce Illegal?	312
DIVORCE (3)	315
Natural laws in the case of marriage and divorce	316
The natural status of man in family life	318
The view of a female psychologist	321
The structure which is built on affections and feelings	322
It is something more than equality which strengthens the foundation of the family	325
Equality in corruption	325
DIVORCE (4)	327
The nature of peace in the family is different from all other forms of peace	330
1. Islam welcomes any factor that will do away with divorce	331
2. The wife’s past services to the household:	337
DIVORCE (5)	343
The right of divorce arises from the particular role of the man in the matter of love, and is not based upon his ownership	344
Divorce is a release in the same way as the inherent nature of marriage is dominance	344
Penalty for divorce	347
Wife having the right of divorce as an entrusted right	347
JUDICIAL DIVORCE	351
Whether some marriages are a cancer which the wife must suffer and put up with:	352
Deadlocks	354
The deadlock of divorce	356
View of Ayatullah Hilli	357
Other arguments and citation	361
The view of Shaykh at-Tai’ifah	362

PART ELEVEN
POLYGYNY
POLYGYNY	367
Sexual communism	367
Plato’s view:	368
Several husbands:	368
The difficulty with polyandry:	371
Polygyny:	371
Islam and polygyny:	372
Polygyny in Iran:	375
THE HISTORICAL CAUSES OF POLYGYNY (1)	379
The cause of the disappearance of polyandry:	382
The failure of sexual communism	384
THE HISTORICAL CAUSES OF POLYGYNY (2)	389
Geographical factors	389
The form of polygyny in western countries	391
Menstruation	394
The child-bearing period of woman is limited	395
Economic factors	395
Factor of number and tribe	396
There are more women than men	397
An analysis	397
THE RIGHT OF WOMAN IN POLYGYNY	401
Causes of the excess of the number of women fit to be married over the number of men	406
Women have more resistance to disease	408
Right of woman in polygyny	409
Russell’s view	411
One in every ten English children	413
Polygyny is prohibited while homosexuality is lawful!	414
IS IT THE NATURE OF MAN TO BE POLYGYNOUS?	417
Polygyny is a source of protection for monogamy:	420
The real point at issue:	421
Twentieth-century man’s fraudulence:	422
The crises arising from the frustration of unmarried women	425
Various results following from the phenomenon of the excess in the number of women	426
DISADVANTAGES AND SHORTCOMINGS IN POLYGYNY	429
A correct analysis:	430
From the psychological point of view	431
The point of view of up-bringing	433
From the moral point of view	435
From the point of view of rights:	437
From the philosophical point of view	439
THE ROLE OF ISLAM IN POLYGYNY	443
Limitations	443
Justice	443
The danger of injustice	448
Harems	449
Other conditions and possibilities	449
Modern Man and Polygyny	451
INDEX	453