Why are there many differences between how Islamic Countries treat their female citizens?

Answer 1

Answer 1

It is not the case. Women are treated in Islam with kindness, equality, and assured all her human rights. While Women in Europe got their human rights just last century, Islam since the 7th century assured women rights in free choice, property, having her own business and properties, education, and other rights. Refer to question below.

Answer 2

It entirely depends on the country. In places like Morocco, while there are differences between expectations of what a woman should do and what a man should do, a woman has all of the rights that a man has. As concerns countries that are more conservative like Saudi Arabia, women have few rights that men have and are denied the ability to drive cars or show their faces in public (should they wish). The reason for this difference in treatment is that unlike Europe, the Islamic World never went through a Reformation or other Religious Traumas that would weaken the central faith and allow for individuals to seek rights from a non-religious state. Currently, in the midst of Arab Spring, many countries are becoming more conservative in the short term, but in the long term, freedom at the ballot may result in additional freedoms for the citizens.

Answer 2

The truth is, we do not know very much about pre-Islamic Arabia, because there were so few written records.

The pre-Islamic Arabs would kill babies whom they could not afford to feed, and they killed more girls than boys. Islam forbade this practice, which was a definite plus for women's rights.

Islam specified that a girl could not be married against her will. However, the law was designed in such a way (silence implying consent) that a girl with an overbearing father had no realistic legal redress. In practice, therefore, Islam has permitted forced marriage. It was probably much the same before Islam, but we don't really know.

Islamic law was much more specific than previously about financial rights in marriage, e.g. whether a woman should be paid a dower and how much. This made life better for the wives of mean men. However, the Islamic provisions were not particularly generous, so they probably did not make much difference to the life of the average woman.

Islam encouraged minor wife-beating but discouraged major domestic violence. This was designed to make life better for the wives of cruel men but more orderly for strong-willed women married to easygoing men. In practice, however, there was no penalty for a man who beat his wife "too hard" - he was not even to be asked why he had done it. It was on a par with a man who starved his horse: decent men agreed that it was a wrong thing to do, but the bottom line was that the horse was the man's own property. So the net effect of Islamic law was to encourage wife-beating, and some remarks made by Ayesha suggest that Muslim husbands overall were crueller than their pagan neighbours.

Pre-Islamic Arabia permitted some forms of polyandry as well as polygyny, with the result that female adultery was taken less seriously and probably did not attract the death penalty. Islam forbade polyandry and killed adulteresses. However, a man was only considered an adulterer if he stole the wife of another Muslim; he was permitted to marry up to four wives at a time, and to sleep with as many non-Muslim women as he could capture in a war or buy on the slave market. In practice, not many people of either sex were executed for adultery (although more women than men) because it was so difficult to prove. But everyday jealousy would have been a major problem, as a woman could not even speak socially to other men, whereas a man could have sexual relationships with multiple women. While polyandry and prostitution are not particularly beneficial to women, they are not as bad for women as the Islamic system that replaced them.

Pre-Islamic Arab women were able to move freely about the town. For example, Mohammed's first wife Khadija was a merchant. Islam ordered a woman not to leave the house without her guardian's permission. While this might have protected women in a time of war and disorder, it greatly restricted their right to move even in periods of safety. It did not occur to the Muslims to preserve women's freedom AND safety by making rules that restricted men from harassing women. This was definitely one way in which Islam restricted women's rights.

Islam does not specifically forbid a woman to have a career. Three of Mohammed's wives were tanners, and they continued to work from home after marrying him. His wife Ayesha was a teacher. She hung a light curtain over her classroom door, and men sat outside the room to listen to her teaching, hearing her quite well although they could not see her. However, the rules about not leaving the house and not speaking to men definitely made it much more difficult than formerly for women to have careers. This limited both their financial independence and the interesting activity in their lives.

Women who were the mothers of sons and who lived to be old were treated with great honour in both pre-Islamic Arabia and under Islam. Probably not much changed there.

Answer 3

Some of the Muslim countries stick to the teachings of Islam in letter and spirit or in the literal sense of the word. Some other countries have brought certain changes (as a result of Ijtihaad) keeping in view the demands of modern age. That is the cause of different kind of treatment with women.

Answer 4

There are three types of laws that function in parallel in Islamic Societies: Western Law, Islamic Law, and Tribal Law. The interaction at different levels between these three sources of law leads to different outcomes in terms of functioning laws and treatments on a variety of issues (not just women's rights). Western Law primarily comes from the Imperialist Period and is the modern set of laws that generally promote human rights. Islamic Law is the law derived from Islamic Scriptures, e.g. the Shari'a, as interpreted and applied in daily life and often in family situations. Tribal Law is the law between neighboring clans for millennia and often tracks back to a time long before Islam. These laws are more prevalent in use where the national governments are far weaker (like in rural areas).

Now, these different types of laws give different rights and responsibilities to men and women. As a result, if you have an Islamic Country like Saudi Arabia, which has almost exclusively Islamic and Tribal Law, you will see far fewer rights for women than an Islamic Country like Turkey, which has almost exclusively Western Law.