The Rights of Women in Islam by Asghar Ali Engineer

That, I challenge.Ī middle class and upper middle class among Muslims is being educated fast, and challenging priests. It gives the impression that Islam is inherently orthodox. There may be readers or TV watchers who notice the media’s focus on fatwas issued by mullahs and believe that Muslim women are still as backward as they were 1,400 years ago.

Nobody can deny that there has been a lot of progress. What has your own experience working for gender equality within Indian Islam been like? We often mix culture with religious thinking, which is what many attacking Islam confuse. It talks, for example, of gender equality, but this was never accepted in practice by Muslims because of their patriarchal or feudal societies, in which gender equality was unthinkable.

So there are definitely contextual statements in the Quran, though its values are permanent. The contextual interpretations of scriptures must be subject to change. But because rituals are specific, if you want to be known as Muslim or Hindu or Christian or Buddhist or Jain, it is possible only through rituals, not through values alone. The values of the scripture, which are normative, remain constant and universal. I divide all religious scriptures into what I call contextual and normative parts. I believe we have to revise our understanding of the Quran.

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The Rights of Women in Islam by Asghar Ali Engineer