Women’s Liberation in Islam

Where modern western man fell deeply into error, was in his blind acceptance of the concept of the equality of the sexes without giving due consideration what equality—in its best sense—ought to mean, or what in practice it entails.

According to modern thinking, giving equal status to women meant bringing them out of their homes and standing them face to face with men in all facets of life without any regard for the practical and moral problems which might ensue.

Rethinking Equality Between Men and Women

Islam, on the other hand, defines separate roles, and, therefore, separate spheres of work for men and women, since it is natural and realistic to do so. The other great error made by modern western thinkers was to assume that a role which was separate and different, and played out in other than traditionally masculine strongholds, was necessarily of trifling importance—in short, inferior.

As such, the West concluded that in giving a separate role to woman Islam gives them an inferior position. Conversely, since it is held in the West (in theory) that women must be given a place in all masculine spheres it is also concluded that the West gives her a superior position.

So modern man imagines that his feminine counterpart has, in actuality, been accorded a superior position. But let us examine what, in fact, is the state of women’s affairs. In the societies of the West, which have attained a high level of material development, theory has yet to be put into practice, and men and women still live and work in their own very separate domains. The status of women is, in practice, almost the same as it was in ancient times, there still being mutually exclusive divisions into male and female spheres, with the corresponding attitudes still very much in evidence. If this were not so, what need would there be for “women’s lib”?

Islam’s Approach to Women’s Liberation

Fourteen hundred years ago, Islam launched a much-needed “women’s lib” movement, whose purpose was to free women from artificial curbs, and to give them the position which any normal human being should have in society. (One instance, for example is to give them a share in family property). This movement raised their status without any sacrifice of femininity or traditional values, and without creating any perversion in society.

Having launched its movement under the guidance of revelation, its Islamic exponents were in no doubt as to what limits should be set to societal change.

The West, however, in its preoccupation with modernity, plunged headlong into experimentation with the old order of values, sweeping away traditional moral precepts and “restrictive” conventions. All of this was done under the banners of “reason,” “empiricism,” “logic,” “liberalism,” and so on, but, in actual fact, the whole “liberation” movement has been swamped in a welter of emotion, creating a number of social problems.