Several Western scholars and experts
of sociology have acknowledged that the Qur’an teachings in regard to
women place them on an equal legal position with men and raise their social
position in the society. We
shall give here the opinions of only a few scholars of whom Mrs. Annie
Besant is the first. An
Irish woman, she was the founder of a reformative movement in India, headed
the Theosophical Society of South India and was an active worker in the
struggle for freedom of India. The
opinion expressed by her is significant since a woman scholar should
naturally feel more concerned about any thing concerning women’s rights.
She says:
“You
can find others stating that the religion (Islam) is evil because it
sanctions a limited polygamy. But you do not hear as a rule the criticism which I spoke out
one day in a London hall where I knew that the audience was entirely
uninstructed. I pointed out to
them that monogamy with a blended mass of prostitution was a hypocrisy and
more degrading than a limited polygamy.
Naturally a statement that gives offence, but has to be made, because
it must be remembered that the law of Islam in relation to women was until
lately, when parts of it have been limited in England, the most just law as
far as women are concerned, to be found in the world.
Dealing with property, dealing with rights of succession and so on,
dealing with cases of divorce, it was far beyond the law of the West, in the
respect which was paid to the rights of women.
These things are forgotten while people are hypnotized by the words
monogamy and polygamy and do not look at what lies behind it in the West –
the frightful degradation of women who are thrown into the streets when
their first protectors, weary of them, no longer give them any
assistance.”(20)
Another scholar, N.J. Coulson, writes
in A History of Islamic Law :
“Without
doubt it is the general subject of the position of women, married women in
particular, which occupies pride of place in the Qur’anic laws.
Rules on marriage and divorce are numerous and, varied and with their
general objective of improvement of women’s status, represent some of the
most radical reforms of the Arabian customary law effected in the
Qur’an… She is now endowed with the legal competence, she did not
possess before. In the laws of
divorce the supreme innovation of the Qur’an lies in the introduction of
the waiting period (idda).”(21)
Describing
the process of emancipation of women Dorner writes in the Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics.
“Certainly
the Prophet raised the status of women above that assigned to them in
ancient Arabia; in particular, the woman was no longer a mere heritable
chattel of her deceased husband’s estate, but was herself capable of
inheriting; while, again a free women could not now be forced into marriage,
and in cases of divorce, the husband was required to let the wife retain
what he gave her at marriage. Moreover,
women of upper classes might occupy themselves with poetry and science, and
even act as teachers, while those of lower rank not seldom shared the joys
and sorrows of their husbands, as mistresses of their household.
The mother likewise must be treated with respect.”(22)
