About "Women in Islam" -- A Resource Page

A comprehensive collection of links on the topic of

Women in Islam

If you know of other web pages not listed here, please tell us about them so that we can add them here.

"Women in Islam", their position, their rights, polygamy, etc... are constantly hot topics on the newsgroups and personal discussions as well as academic research.

End of 1996 I did some major web search on this topic and would like to share the resources collected with all of the readership here.


A) Islamic articles and web sites

  • Women in Islam (plenty of links and articles)
  • Islam and Women's Rights
  • Idiocy of Gender Equality: The Case of the Woman Imam (by Yamin Zakaria)
  • Muslim Women's Homepage
  • Status of Women in Islam
  • Women Rights in Islam
  • Women in Islam (lots of articles)
  • The record set straight: Women in Islam have rights By Noah Ragab
  • Women in Islam [Ahmadiayya]
  • Women in Islam
  • Women in Islam
  • The Muslim Woman, Her role and Her Honor
  • Woman: Last amongst the equals
  • Status of Men And Women (Letters to Tahira)
  • Women's Liberation through Islam or the same at Women's Liberation through Islam
  • Marital Relations and Mutual Rights in Islam
  • The Muslim Family [a book commercial]
  • Women in the Qur'an and the Sunna
  • Status of Women in Islam
  • Islam from Patriarchy to Feminism
  • The Myth of Oppression: Women in Iran
  • Muslim Women's League (MWL)
  • Women in Islam
  • Why Two Women Witnesses? (an amazing rationalization!)
  • Status of Women in Islam" by Hammuda Abdul-Ati, Ph.D.: [1], [2]
  • Dr. Badawi: Gender Equity in Islam and The Status of Women in Islam
  • Fatawas Regarding Women
  • Muslim women's dress
  • Words to my Muslim Sister
  • Women in Islam
  • Women in Islam and Christianity
  • Women, Islam & Equality (Islamic, critical, mainly about Iran) and more
  • The Woman's Status in Christianity & Islam
  • Then: Just about everywhere we find:

    "Women in Islam versus Women in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition"

    The ultimate propaganda pamphlet. This was immediately recognized as extremely valuable by many Muslims and it is located on over a dozen pages. Multiplication of locations is, however, not turning false claims into true statements. This book is responded to in several articles.


    Now, we do observe the great creativity in titles... "Women in Islam" being the absolute most favorite one. :-) ... I started to wonder why I never have seen any article named "Men in Islam". Either this indicates that indeed it is only the women whose problems and place have to be solved, established and explained, because only they have to struggle with such problems. OR (?) do I detect a discrimination against men who do not receive any attention in Islam?


    B) Critical or positive evaluations of the Islamic teaching and reality

  • Polemics on Veiling Egyptian Women in the Twentieth Century
  • From Muhammad to Present: Islamic Law and Women
  • Women in Islam
  • The Limits on Women's Lives
  • Wife Beating in Islam
  • The Place of Women in Christianity & Islam
  • The Position of Women in Islam
  • The Place of Women in Pure Islam
  • The above two books seem to be the only books that deal with the many hadiths and rulings of Muslim scholars and take a deeper look at the traditional Islamic view on women. I would be interested to see a careful discussion of this material by Muslims, since this is done by non-Muslim authors. Call it biased against Islam, but what is the answer?

  • Women in Islam
  • Women in Islam: Qur'anic ideals versus Muslim realities
  • Women in the Qur'an, Traditions and Interpretations (book commercial) I did not have the opportunity to read this book yet.
  • Women, Islam & Equality
  • Bengali Studies Conference - Papers [some on women in Islam]
  • A Woman's Life in Islam
  • Islam and Feminism another book review
  • Women and Islam: Review

  • C) Related Issues

  • Female circumcision

  • The Women's Caravan and CyberHarem (General (Middle East to South East) Cultural Women's site
  • Sinai Bedouin Women
  • Polyamory - Religion and Law

  • Observation:

    Most of the Islamic pages start off to explain that the image of women in Islam is bad, and this is wrong, and then try to explain why women really have equal status etc. They do clearly have the agenda to remedy a situation that the authors do not like [understandably so]. This doesn't mean from the outset that it is all wrong and biased. But it is good to keep the agenda in mind when reading this. They ARE written to change an image. Not from a "neutral observer's" viewpoint. There are few Islamic web sites [I haven't really found any, but I might not have found all] who seem to display articles on the topic which are NOT done mainly for producing a better image but who try to give an overview of the REALITY [instead of a theoretical explanation of what it should be (according to whom?)] nor do Islamic web sites deal with the traditional view of women as in the Muslim scholarly works. That seems to be done only in non-Muslim publication(s).

    I hope this list is helpful to some at least. It was highly interesting for me to surf around and see what is there.


    Related topics:

  • Interfaith marriages between Muslims and non-Muslims

  • Women Issues
    Answering Islam Home Page