Women in Islam

Five years ago, I read in the Toronto Starissue of July 3, 1990 an article 
titled Islam is not Alone in Patriarchal Doctrines, by Gwynne Dyer. The 
article described the furious reactions of the participants of a conference on 
women and power held in Montrealto the comments of the famous 
Egyptian feminist Dr. Nawal Saadawi. Her politically incorrect statements 
included : "the most restrictive elements towards women can be found first 
in Judaism in the Old Testament thenin Christianity and then in the 
Quran" "all religions are patriarchal because they stem from patriarchal 
societies" and "veiling of women is not a specifically Islamic practice but 
an ancient cultural heritage withanalogies in sister religions". The 
participants could not bear sitting around while their faiths were being 
equated with Islam. Thus, Dr. Saadawi received a barrage of criticism. 
"Dr. Saadawi's comments are unacceptable. Her answers reveal a lack of 
understanding about other people's faiths," declared Bernice Dubois of the 
World Movement of Mothers. "I must protest", said panellist Alice Shalvi 
of Israel women's network, "there is no conception of the veil in Judaism." 
The article attributed these furious protests to the strong tendency in the 
West to scapegoat Islam for practices that are just as much a part of the 
West's own cultural heritage. "Christian and Jewish feminists were not 
going to sit around being discussed in the same category as those wicked 
Muslims," wrote Gwynne Dyer. 
I was not surprised that the conference participants had held such a 
negative view of Islam, especially when women's issues were involved. In 
the West, Islam is believed to be the symbol of the subordination of 
women par excellence. In order to understand how firm this belief is, it is 
enough to mention that the Minister of Education in France, the land of 
Voltaire, has recently ordered the expulsion of all young Muslim women 
wearing the veil from French schools! 
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A young Muslim student wearing a 
headscarf is denied her right of education in France, while a Catholic 
student wearing a cross or a Jewish student wearing a skullcap is not. The 
scene of French policemen preventing young Muslim women wearing 
headscarves from entering their high schoolis unforgettable. It inspires the 
memories of another equally disgraceful scene of Governor George 
Wallace of Alabama in 1962 standing in front of a school gate trying to 
block the entrance of black students inorder to prevent the desegregation 

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of Alabama's schools. The difference between the two scenes is that the 
black students had the sympathy of so many people in the U.S. and in the 
whole world. 
President Kennedy sent the U.S. National Guard to force the entry of the 
black students. The Muslim girls, on the other hand, received no help from 
any one. Their cause seems to have very little sympathy either inside or 
outside France. The reason is the widespread misunderstanding and fear of 
anything Islamic in the world today. 
What intrigued me the most about the Montreal conference was one 
question: Were the statements made by Saadawi, or any of her critics, 
factual? In other words, do Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have the same 
conception of women? Are they different in their conceptions? Do Judaism 
and Christianity, truly, offer women a better treatment than Islam does? 
What is the Truth? 
It is not easy to search for and find answers to these difficult questions. 
The first difficulty is that one has to be fair and objective or, at least, do 
one's utmost to be so. This is what Islam teaches. The Quran has instructed 
Muslims to say the truth even if those who are very close to them do not 
like it:  Whenever you speak, speak justly, even if a near relative is 
concerned (Quran 6:152); O you who believe stand out firmly for justice, 
as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents or your 
kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor (Quran 4:135). 
The other great difficulty is the overwhelming breadth of the subject. 
Therefore, during the last few years,I have spent many hours reading the 
Bible, The Encyclopaedia of Religion, and the Encyclopaedia Judaica
searching for answers. I have alsoread several books discussing the 
position of women in different religions written by scholars, apologists, 
and critics. The material presented in the following chapters represents the 
important findings of this humble research. I don't claim to be absolutely 
objective. This is beyond my limited capacity. All I can say is that I have 
been trying, throughout this research, to approach the Quranic ideal of 
speaking justly. 
I would like to emphasize in this introduction that my purpose for this 

study is not to denigrate Judaism or Christianity.