Women's Rights in Islam

3115 Words13 Pages
1. Introduction Nowadays in our modern and democratic society, in which: “All persons shall be equal before the law.”, “Men and women shall have equal rights.” And “No person shall be favored or disfavored because of sex, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith, or religious or political opinions.” (Deutsches Grundgesetz, Artikel 3) We still have an ongoing debate on Muslim women. There are thousands of Muslim women in Europe and especially in Germany wearing a headscarf, which is mostly seen as a oppression of women and a restriction of their freedom and rights in our democratic society. There are even some Politicians who argue that this should not be allowed in our European modern society and that Muslim women have to integrate themselves to the country they live in. For them integration means clothing in a European style, hence not wearing a headscarf. Therefore there is a general belief in Europe that women in Islam are not as free as women in other religions or the notion that women in Islam are less valuable than men and that they, as a consequence, don’t have same rights. Thus I chose to write my paper about the topic “Marriage and women’s rights in Islam” in order to work out which position and rights Muslim women have; with the aim to show, if women in Islam are really oppressed and restricted in their rights or not. I want to work out this question by using Islamic sources, especially the Quran and Hadiths (words) of the prophet Mohammed, hence I will focus on women’s position at times of the prophet Mohammed, who was born in 570 AD. In this paper I will not go into nowadays social position and rights of women in some Islamic countries, which is strongly influenced by traditions, conventions and customs and differ from country to country. First of all I want to begin with Islam’s general perception of women, second I will go on with
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