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THE PROPHET AND WOMEN

One of the common misconceptions in the West about Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, is that he was oppressive and dominative towards women, and that he prohibited them their rights.

 They say that he used women for his own pleasure and treated them as if they were his servants.

They say the Prophet would not listen to them and would forbid them from participating in any general matter concerning the public. They say that he would not converse with them nor seek their opinion, and that he would merely order them, they would have no option but to follow his orders.

This is how the West portrays Muhammad regarding the treatment of women. Religious figures, intellectuals, the media, and even politicians have painted this picture in the minds of the average Westerner in order to drive them away from Islam and its Prophet.

 There are, however., some highly regarded intellectuals, media figures and politicians who did not succumb to their forgery; rather, continued to portray him in his proper light.

Unfortunately, the strength and control of the first group over various media outlets has drowned their voices, to the extent that they are totally disregarded.

If we truly seek to know how the Prophet treated women., we must read his biography and study his sayings in this regard. Then only will we be able to fairly judge the way he viewed women.

But first we must ask … did women actually have any rights before Islam which the Prophet is said to have abolished in his call to Islam?

The answer is quite the opposite. Women had no rights before Islam. Rather, the Arabs before Islam, in accordance with their nature, hated daughters. They considered them such a shame that some of them even buried their daughters alive. Allah says:

(And when the news of (the birth of) a female (child) is brought to any of them, his face becomes dark and he is filled with inward grief!) [Surah an-Nahl (16):58-59]

Before the dawn of Islam, if a woman lost her husband, she would be inherited by her husband’s sons or other male relatives.

If they wished, they would wed her to one of them, or if they wished they would prevent her from marrying again, imprisoning her with them until she died. Islam came and abolished all of this, and the Prophet affirmed their rights, as we will see in this discourse.

Other societies at that time were not any better than the Arabs in regards to their treatment of women.

 In the Greek Empire, women were regarded as scrap property; they were even bought and sold in the markets! Women had no civil or financial rights. Their husbands and fathers, had unrestricted authority over them, even over their money! They were unable to do anything without their permission.

In India, if a woman_lost her husband, she would lose all the incentives to carry on living, and her life would end with the death of her husband.

If we look at the condition of women in Europe in the Middle (Medieval) Ages when authority was in the hands of the Christian Church, we see that her state of affairs was even worse.

Religious figures actually debated whether women were humans or devils!

This was the condition in which women were living before the advent of Islam. Now we must ask, what status and treatment did Islam grant women? What did the Prophet  do for women? The Prophet never