Woman in Islamic Shari‘ah
Foreword
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Let us suppose that a doctor tells his patient that his
eye is a very delicate organ of the body, to be
treated gently and with great care, unlike his
fingernails, which can be cut and filed, if necessary.
The doctor’s instruction does not mean that he is
degrading the eye vis-à-vis the nail. He is only
pointing out the difference between the nail and the
eye.
If all the laws relating to men and women in Islam
are based on this fundamental reality that men and
women are of two different sexes, it is because
distinctive differences between man and woman are
established biological facts.
This being so, male and female spheres of activity
cannot be one and the same, whether in family or in
social life. There must necessarily be differences in
the kind of work that they do, and also in their
places of work.
All the revealed scriptures have held the same
concept of woman, and thousands of years have
passed without its ever having been doubted. It is
only in Modern times that it has been challenged by
the women’s liberation movement, which holds that
