On March 11, 2002, fire struck a girls’ school in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The religious police locked the schoolgirls inside the inferno rather than let them escape without their head-to-toe cloak. The firemen were prevented from entering the school for fear that the girls would be seen without their covering. Fourteen young girls were burned to death and dozens more were injured.

Is this treatment Islamic?

To answer this question, a comparison will be made between the fine treatment that the Prophet Muhammad reportedly accorded to His first wife Khadija and the treatment of women that evolved under Sharia (Islamic Law).

We are told that the Prophet’s first wife was the best born in Quraish, a successful businesswoman and, too, the richest. We are also told that Khadija employed Muhammad in her business, that she proposed marriage to him when he was 25 years old, and that she was 15 years his senior and twice a widow. For the 25 years of the Prophet’s marriage to Khadija, until her death in 620, He remained monogamous to her, that she was the one person to whom He turned for advice, and that Khadija was the first convert to Islam.

The difference between the Prophet’s treatment of Khadija and the treatment of women under Sharia Law is stark.

The Quran subordinates women to men [see, for example, Verses 2:228 (Chapter 2, Verse 228], 4:34, and 18:46). It decrees that one man is equal to two women when bearing witness in a legal setting (2:282), that a male’s share in inheritance is equal to that of two females (4:11), that a man can have up to four wives simultaneously, on condition of equitable treatment (4:3), that a husband can divorce his wife without giving reason, though the Prophet is reported to have discouraged divorce. A wife can divorce her husband only after establishing good cause such as impotence, madness, or denial of her rights.

Allowing the Muslim male to marry four wives simultaneously and divorce any one of them at will without giving cause is synonymous with unlimited polygamy.

Additionally, Shii religious scholars interpret Verses 4:4 and 4:24 as if men are allowed a temporary marriage contract (when traveling, for example), called Mut’a, for which a payment to the woman is made by the man in return for her temporary companionship with no consequent obligations.

Sunni Ulama sanction the Misyar marriage. Under Misyar the man is not responsible financially for the woman and the couple live apart; the woman relinquishes her right to housing and support money and accepts that the man visits her in her family house whenever he likes, day or night. Misyar has no date certain for divorce. Misyar has been sanctioned by the Mecca-based Islamic Jurisprudence Assembly on April 12, 2006. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and the Grand Mufti of the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Islam’s venerable thousand-year-old university, have both sanctioned Misyar too.

Misyar and Mut’a marriages represent sanctioned adultery. Misyar and/or Mut’a permit couples desirous of an illicit affair to evade being charged with adultery, a serious charge punishable under Sharia Law by stoning to death [according to the Hadith (sayings attributed to the Prophet); but not the Quran, which specifies 100 lashes instead (24:2).

The Prophetic Sunna (sayings and acts attributed to the Prophet) contains Traditions unflattering to Women as well. Sahih Al-Bukhari attributed to the Prophet saying that most of those who are in hell are women, that women’s “lack of intelligence” is the reason why a woman’s testimony in an Islamic court of law is equal to half that of the testimony of the Muslim male, and that the reason why Muslim women are prohibited from praying and fasting during menstruation is due to them being “deficient in religious belief.” Sunan Al-Nasai attributed to the Prophet saying: “People who entrust the management of their affairs to a woman will fail.”

Sharia Law is not applied uniformly in Muslim countries. In extremist Saudi Arabia, Sharia means guardianship over and responsibility by the male in the family (father, brothers, husband) over the actions of the women in their charge. It also means strict segregation of the sexes at work, schools, hospitals, shops, public parks, elevators, etc. It means banning women from driving motorcars, traveling without the guardian’s written permission, and wearing a black cloak from head to toe to conceal not only their face and hair but also the side of their shoes. Al-Bukhari’s attributions became a common popular Saudi proverb: “women are light on brains and religion.” Saudi Sharia interpretations eliminate the potential political opposition of one half of the population to the government.

By contrast, in Muslim non-Arab Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey, Sharia Law is interpreted in such a way as to give women more rights, including becoming presidents and prime ministers.

Is veiling and covering women from head to toe Islamic? Orthodox overzealous Ulama think so. Moderate Ulama disagree. The Quran demands modesty only (24:31). Similarly, the Quran has no specific demand to segregate the sexes.

The contradictions between the Prophet’s fine treatment of His first wife Khadija and the way Sharia evolved on the treatment of women need to be reconciled. Harmonizing Sharia with the Prophet’s way of life (Sunna) is all the more important because the Prophet’s Sunna has been constructed by the Ulama of the tenth century to equal the Quran as a source of Sharia Law.

A meaningful first step here was announced in June 2006. Turkey has formed a committee of thirty-five religious scholars to study the removal of all Hadith references attributed to the Prophet that encourage violence against women.

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