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Muslim Women

Gender Sexuality and Muslim Law

Equal in being unequal in role

For ages a woman in India has always been identified as a mother, a wife, a grandmother but never as a woman. Her gender has always been masked behind all the identities that she has to carry, all the people she has to be, all the roles she has to play. Why has it come to the point where she, her feminity, her identity, has been noted in our mental notebooks as one of suppression and servitude to the other gender? Why can a woman not be treated on par with a man? Can a holy book and man-made laws take away from her, her freedom to be human?

Everyday of her life brings new challenges all of which can be interpreted in accordance with either scriptures or law but her other half, often assumed to be her better half, can roam the earth however he pleases with nothing but the bare minimum of restrictions. Where then has their god gone, the god who created both man and woman equal and gave them this world to roam in? Muslim women in India have always been suppressed and given less than what they deserve, though it has been over fifty years since independence, over sixty years since a constitution that guarantees equal right to all has been in place. Muslim women in India face a threefold discrimination. Each based on an identity that they have no voice to deny or choose, first as a Muslim woman, next as a Muslim and finally as a woman.

This Research Paper is divided into four parts. Part I deals with Muslim women and Personal Laws. This includes the laws applicable to them with regard to Inheritance, Maintenance, Polygamy, Divorce, and Guardianship. Part II deals with the practice of Purdah (Hijab or headscarf). Part III of this Research Paper will be an analysis of the most referred to case in Islam, the Shah Bano case and the enactment of the Muslim Women’s Act of 1986. Part IV deals with suggestions and tentative ideas to better the status of Muslim women without interfering with community...