Women in the Qur'an

The status and role of women in Muslim societies, in the last fifteen centuries, have gone through three distinct stages. The first stage was the advent of Islam when women in seventh-century Arabian society had hardly any rights and were victims of several discriminating social practices. It is in this deplorable and humiliating context that Islam came with a thunderous liberating message. Within just a quarter of a century, women had taken prominent positions in society, participating at religious, political and intellectual levels. The second stage came with the spread of Islam beyond the Arabian Peninsula and the consolidation of the Islamic social system. This period produced a mosaic of different levels and flavours of Islamisation. This process was partly driven by the new liberating role for women in society and the period saw a deluge of women who contributed to scholarship and politics.....