Chiefly because it permits a plurality of wives, the West has accused Islam of degrading women. If we approach the question historically, comparing the status of Arabian women before and after Prophet Mohammed, The charge is patently false. In the pre-Islamic days of ignorance, marriage arrangements were so loose as to be scarcely recognizable. Women were regarded as little more than chattel, to be done with as fathers or husbands pleased. Daughters had no inheritance rights and were often buried alive in their infancy.

Addressing conditions in which the very birth of a daughter was regarded as a calamity, the kuranic reforms improved womans status incalculably. They forbade infanticide. They required that daughters be included in inheritance-not equally, it is true, but to half the proportion of sons, which seems just, in view of the fact that unlike sons, daughters would not assume financial responsibility for their households. In her rights as citizen-education, suffrage, and vocation- the Koran leaves open the possibility of womans full equality with man, an equality that is being approximated as the customs of Muslim nations become modernized. If in another century women under Islam do not attain the social position of their Western sisters, a position to which the latter have been brought by industrialism and democracy rather than religion, it will then be time, Muslims say, to hold Islam accountable.

It was in the institution of marriage, however, that Islam made its greatest contribution to women. It sanctified marriage, first, by making it the sole lawful locus of the sexual act.

To the adherents of a religion in which the punishment for adultery is death by stoning and social dancing is proscribed, Western indictments of Islam as a lascivious religion sound ill-directed. Second, the koran requires that a woman gives her free consent before she may be wed; not even a sultan may marry without his brides express approval. Third, Islam tightened the wedding bond enormously. Though prophet Mohammed did not forbid divorce, he countenanced it only as a last resort. Asserting repeatedly that nothing displeased Allah more than the disruption of marital vows, he instituted legal provisions to keep marriages intact. At the time of marriage husbands are required to provide the wife with a sum on which both agree and which she retains in its entirety should a divorce ensue. Divorce proceedings call for three distinct and separate periods, in each of which arbiters drawn from both families try to reconcile the two parties. Though such devices are intended to keep divorces to a minimum , wives no less than husbands are permitted t instigate them.

There remain, however, the issue of polygamy, or more precisely polygyny. It is true that the Koran permits a man to have up to four wives simultaneously, but there is a growing consensus that a careful reading of its regulations of the matter point toward monogamy as the ideal. Supporting this view is the Korans statement that if you cannot deal equitably and justly with [more than one wife], you shall marry only one. Other passages make it clear that equality here refers not only to material perquisites but to lobe and esteem. In physical arrangements each wife must have private quarters, and this in itself is a limiting factor. It is the second proviso, though-equity of lobe and esteem- that leads jurists to argue that the Koran virtually enjoins monogamy, for it is almost impossible to distribute affection and regard with exact equality. This interpretation has been in the Muslim picture since the third century of the Higrah, and it is gaining increasing acceptance. To avoid any possible misunderstanding, many Muslims now insert in the marriage deed a clause by which the husband formally renounces his supposed right to a second concurrence spouse, or the lady may mention her opposition to this fact and take the right away from the husband, and in point of fact- with the exception of African tribes where polygyny is customary- multiple wives are seldom found in Islam today.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that the Koran does permit polygyny: You may marry two, three, or four wives, but no more. And what are we to make of prophet Mohammeds own multiple marriages? Muslims take both items as instances of Islams versatility in addressing diverse circumstances.

There are circumstances in the imperfect condition we know as human existence when polygyny is morally preferable to its alternative. Individually, such a condition might arise if, early in marriage, the wife were to contract to contract paralysis or another disability that would prevent sexual union. Collectively, a war that decimated the male population could provide an example, forcing (as this would) the option between polygyny and depriving a large proportion of women of motherhood and a nuclear family of any sort. Idealists may call for the exercise of heroic continence in such circumstances, but heroism is never a mass option. The actual choice is between a legalized polygyny in which sex is tightly joined to responsibility, and alternatively monogamy, which, being unrealistic, fosters prostitution, where men disclaim responsibility for their sexual partners and their progeny. Pressing their case, Muslims point out that multiple marriages are at least a s common in the West; the difference is that s that they are successive. Is serial polygyny, the Western version, self-evidently superior to its coeval form, when women have the right to opt out of the arrangement (through divorce) if they want to? Finally, Muslims, Muslims though they have spoken frankly from the first of female sexual fulfillment as a martial right , do not skirt the volatile question of whether the male sexual drive is stronger than the females. Hoggledy higamous, men are polygamous; /Higgledy hogamus, women monogamous, Dorothy Parker wrote flippantly. If there is biological truth in her limerick, rather than allowing this sensuality in the male to run riot, obeying nothing but its own impulses, the Law of Islam sets down a polygynous framework that provides a modicum of control. [It] confers a conscious mold on the formless instinct of man in order to keep him within the structures of religion.

As for the veiling of women and their seclusion generally, the Koranic injunctions restrained, It says only to Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks closely round them (when they go abroad). That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not annoyed (33:59). Extremes that have evolved from this ruling are matters of local custom and are not religiously binding.

Somewhere in this section on social issues the subject of penalties should be mentioned, for the impression is widespread that Islamic law imposes ones that are excessively harsh. This is a reasonable place to address this issue, for one of the most frequently cited examples in the punishment for adultery, which repeats the Jewish law of death by stoning- two others that are typically mentioned are severance of the thiefs hand, and flogging for a number of offenses. These stipulations are indeed severe. but as Muslims see matters this is to make the point that the injuries that occasion these penalties are likewise severed will not be tolerated. once this juridical point is in place, mercy moves in to temper the decrees. Avert penalties by doubt, prophet Mohammed told his people, and Islamic jurisprudence legitimizes any stratagem that averts the penalty without outright impugning the Law. Stoning to adultery is made almost impossible by the proviso that four unimpeachable witnesses must have observed the act in detail. Flogging can be technically fulfilled by using a light sandal or even the hem of a garment, and thieves may retain their hands if the theft was from genuine need.

Hope that this short article may clarify some misunderstanding of Western people regarding Islam.

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