The Role of Women

The Role of Women

The role of women in Islam has been misunderstood in the West because of general ignorance of the Islamic system and way of life as a whole, and because of the distortions of the media.

The Muslim woman is accorded full spiritual and intellectual equality with man, and is encouraged to practice her religion and develop her intellectual faculties throughout her life. In her relations with men both are to observe modesty of behavior and dress and a strict code of morality which discourages unnecessary mixing of the sexes. Her relations with her husband should be based on mutual love and compassion. He is responsible for the maintenance of the wife and children, and she is to give him the respect due to the head of the family. She is responsible for the care of home and the children's early training. She may own her own property, run her own business and inherit in her own right.

She may not be married without being consulted and is able to obtain divorce. The system of limited polygamy can be seen to have its uses which may be in the interests of women as well as men.Finally she can look forward to an old age in which she is respected and shown every care by her children and by the society as a whole. It would appear therefore that the Islamic system has achieved the right mixture of freedom and security that women seek and that is in the interest of the society as a whole.