ISLAM, WOMEN AND GENDER JUSTICE
Keywords:
Primacy of Scripture, Methodology of Creating Islamic Legal Structure, Sources of Shari‘ah Law, Differentiating the Essential and the Contextual, Re-interpreting the Qur’anic Notion of Justice, Qur’an Reinstates Justice to WomenAbstract
It is generally thought that Islam treats women unfairly and gender justice is not possible within Islamic law known as the Shari‘ah law. This assertion is partly true and partly untrue: true as far as the existing Shari‘ah laws are concerned; untrue, as the existing laws were codified during 2nd and 3rd centuries of Islam when general perspective of women’s rights was very different from today’s perspective. The Qur’anic verses which are quite fundamental to the Islamic law, were interpreted so as to be in conformity with the views about gender rights prevailing then.
References
Muhammad Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1984, 147-148.
Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 156.
Maulana Muhammad Ali, 1973, 97.
