An Introduction to Muslim Women’s Rights

By: Azizah al-Hibri, Esq.

“The topic of Muslim women’s rights is vast; Muslim jurists have been writing about it for centuries. Because jurists are partly the product of their societies and these societies were and continue to be highly patriarchal, Islamic literature has been saturated with a patriarchal perspective on women’s rights. This perspective has become so entrenched that it has been rendered invisible. For most Muslims it no longer represents the ijtihad of individuals. Instead, it has come to be viewed by them as an ‘objective’ reading of Qur’anic text.”