Notes The move to paint Islam as a pioneering force in women's rights is a recent one, corresponding with the efforts of Muslim apologists (not otherwise known for their feminist leanings) and some Western academics prone to interpreting history according to personal preference. In truth, the Islamic religious community has never exhibited an interest in expanding opportunities for women beyond the family role.



The fourth Caliph, who was Muhammad's son-in-law and cousin, said just a few years after the prophet's death that "The entire woman is an evil. And what is worse is that it is a necessary evil."



A traditional Islamic saying is that, "A woman's heaven is beneath her husband's feet." One of the world's most respected Quran commentaries explains that, "Women are like cows, horses, and camels, for all are ridden." (Tafsir al-Qurtubi v. 17, p. 172)



The revered Islamic scholar, al-Ghazali, who has been called 'the greatest Muslim after Muhammad,' writes that the role of a Muslim woman is to "stay at home and get on with her sewing. She should not go out often, she must not be well-informed, nor must she be communicative with her neighbors and only visit them when absolutely necessary; she should take care of her husband... and seek to satisfy him in everything... Her sole worry should be her virtue... She should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any moment." [Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim p.47 quoting Ghazali's "The Revival of Religious Sciences"]



A Yemeni cleric recently explained in a television broadcast what makes women inferior and unable, say, to serve as good witnesses: "Women are subject to menstruation, when their endurance and mental capacity for concentration are diminished. When a woman witnesses a killing or an accident, she becomes frightened, moves away, and sometimes even faints, and she cannot even watch the incident."



During a 2012 talk show on an Egyptian television channel, a cleric slammed Christianity - in part for teaching gender equality: “the Christian religion does not differentiate between women and men, but it confirms their perfect equality: it gives them an equal share in inheritance, it bans divorce, and it bans polygamy.”



In 2014, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasized that men and women are not equal: "Our religion has defined a position for women (in society): motherhood."



Linda Sarsour, a hijab-clad Sharia proponent who also bills herself as a 'feminist' said of a real feminist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, that she should have her vagina removed for opposing Islam. The remarks were particularly insidious given that Hirsi Ali is a survivor of female genital mutilation.



Umm Jamaal ud-Din, a female preacher in Australia, cited Muhammad's own words from the Hadith regarding "insufficiency of intelligence" in questioning a woman's fitness for holding important positions: "Due to a woman being more sensitive and delicate in her nature, her ability to accurately recall information may be affected in situations where she's required to bear witness for cases involving conflicting parties, since such situations usually involve fairly high levels of stress and pressure."



The many opportunities denied women under Islamic law, from equal testimony in court to the simple right to exclude other wives from their marital bed, is very clear proof that women are of lesser value then men in Islam. Muslim women are not even free to marry outside the faith - and some pay with their lives for doing so.



Islamic law also specifies that when a woman is murdered by a man, her family is owed only half as much "blood money" (diya) as they would be if she had been a man. (The life of a non-Muslim is generally assessed at one-third).



Although a man retains custody of his children in the event of his wife's death, a non-Muslim woman will automatically lose custody of her children in the event of her husband's death unless she converts to Islam or marries a male relative within his family.



Contemporary Muslims like to counter that Arabs treated women as camels prior to Muhammad. This is somewhat questionable, given that Muhammad's first wife was a wealthy woman who owned property and ran a successful business prior to ever meeting him. She was even his boss... (although that may have changed after the marriage). Still, it is somewhat telling that Islam's treatment of women can only be defended by contrasting it to an extremely primitive environment in which women were said to be non-entities.



Homa Darabi was a talented physician who took her own life by setting herself on fire in a public protest against the oppression of women in Islamic Iran. She did this after a 16-year-old girl was shot to death for wearing lipstick. In the book, Why We Left Islam , her sister includes a direct quote from one of the country's leading clerics:



"The specific task of women in this society is to marry and bear children. They will be discouraged from entering legislative, judicial, or whatever careers which may require decision-making, as women lack the intellectual ability and discerning judgment required for these careers."



In 2020, an imam in South Africa informed the faithful that a wife is "cute when she is mute," and encouraged men to pursue multiple wives like "cocks" collecting "hens."



Modern day cleric Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini has called for a return of the slave markets, where Muslim men can order concubines. In this man's ideal world, "when I want a sex-slave, I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her."



At best, Islam "elevates" the status of a woman to somewhere between that of a camel and a man. Muhammad captured women in war and treated them as a tradable commodity. The "immutable, ever-relevant" Quran explicitly permits women to be kept as sex slaves. These are hardly things in which Muslims can take pride.



See also:

Muhammad's Hatred of Women

Myth: Muhammad would Never Approve of Rape

Three Quran Verse Every Woman Should Know (Video)

The Islamic Doctrine of Islam (CSPI)

Female Genital Mutilation and Denial

Top 10 Reasons Muhammad was Not a Feminist (David Wood)

Islamic Norms and FGM (Paul Sutliff)

