WOMAN AND HER RIGHTS IN ISLAM pdf download

Woman And Her Rights in Islam Murtadha Mutahhari

WOMAN AND HER RIGHTS IN ISLAM

For certain reasons, to which we will refer later, it has been presumed that in this age the basic question in this field is that of woman’s liberty and the equality of her rights with those of man, all other questions being the by-products of this main question.

 However, according to our view, the most fundamental question, or at least one of the most fundamental questions, in respect of family rights, is whether the domestic system is independent of all other social systems and has its own special criteria and logic, or it is just one out of many social systems and the same criteria and philosophy apply to it as are applied to all other social systems.

The basis of the doubt is that, on the one hand, in this system the main parties concerned belong to two opposite sexes, and on the other, it involves the propagation and procreation of the progeny.

Nature has made the physical characteristics as well as the reproductive organs of the two parties dissimilar.

 Domestic society is semi-natural and semi-contractual.

It is a middle way between an instinctive society like that of bees or termites, whose rights and duties are pre-determined by nature, with no possibility of breaking any rules, and a contractual society like a civic society of human beings, which has a natural or instinctive aspect.

As we know, the ancient philosophers regarded family life as an independent branch of practical wisdom, and believed in a separate standard for this part of human life. Plato, in his book, The Republic, Aristotle in his book,

The Politics, and Abu Ali ibn Sina (Avicenna), in his book, Al-Shifa have also dealt with this subject from this very angle as well.

It is a controversial question whether the natural and innate rights of man and woman are similar or dissimilar;

in other words, whether the rights, accorded by nature to human beings, are mono-sexual or bi-sexual, and whether male or female sexuality in any way, affects, or does not affect, human rights and obligations.