Women in Islam: Texts and Interpretations

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Deen · Contested questions

Few subjects produce as much heat, and as little patience for the actual texts, as women in Islam. One side quotes a verse about striking wives and stops there. The other quotes a verse about spiritual equality and stops there. This page tries not to stop. It sets out the handful of verses and hadith that every argument keeps coming back to, then shows how the classical commentators read them, how traditional scholars read them today, and how reformist scholars read them, with the sources for each so you can check.

I have tried to be fair in both directions. That means saying plainly where the classical tradition assumed a hierarchy between men and women (it usually did), and saying just as plainly where modern readers have found more room in the texts than their critics allow. It also means showing where the Sunni schools and the Twelver Shia (Jaʿfarī) school differ, because on marriage, inheritance and dress they sometimes do. Arabic terms are explained where they first appear, and there is a glossary at the end.

Contents

1. Who reads, and how
2. Nine verses: a verse explorer
3. The hadith, with their gradings
4. Women in the Prophet's time
5. Women as scholars
6. Marriage
7. Divorce and khulʿ
8. Inheritance
9. Testimony
10. Dress
11. Leadership and the mosque
12. Australian law
13. Where the disagreement really lies
14. Glossary
15. Sources

Who reads, and how

Before the texts, a word about the readers. Almost everything written on this subject can be sorted, roughly, into three groups, and it helps to know which one you are listening to.

The first is the classical commentators and jurists: al-Ṭabarī (d. 923), al-Zamakhsharī, al-Rāzī, al-Qurṭubī, Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373) and the founders and later masters of the law schools. Karen Bauer's study of how they read the key gender verses, from the ninth century to the fifteenth, finds that they took a hierarchy between men and women as a given of creation and society, and read the verses in that light; they disagreed about details, sometimes sharply, but rarely about the frame.¹ It is worth adding that the same writers also placed limits on male power that were real in their own world, as later sections show.

The second is traditional scholars writing today: the muftis of al-Azhar and Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, Saudi and Gulf scholars, the seminaries of Qom and Najaf, and imams trained in any of them. They generally keep the classical rulings, but many have changed the reasons given for them. Where a medieval author explained unequal inheritance by women's weaker reason, a modern mufti is more likely to explain it by the husband's duty to support the family. Bauer interviewed scholars of this kind in Iran and Syria and found exactly this pattern: the rulings kept, the justification moved.¹

The third is reformist and feminist scholars, many of them Muslim women writing in English from Western universities: Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas, Kecia Ali, Ayesha Chaudhry, and in an earlier generation Fatima Mernissi. Their approaches differ. Wadud and Barlas argue that the Qur'an, read as a whole and in light of God's justice, does not support patriarchy, and that the patriarchy came from its readers.²³ Ali and Chaudhry are more willing to say that some texts are hard and that honest reading has to admit it.⁴⁵

These labels are loose. A traditional scholar may hold a position reformists welcome, and a reformist may cite al-Ṭabarī against later jurists. I use them only so that the explorer below can show three readings of each verse side by side.

Nine verses: a verse explorer

These are the verses that nearly every discussion turns on. Open any one to see a short extract of the text, the classical reading, and the modern readings, with sources. The buttons filter by subject, and "Focus on one reading" dims the others so you can read, say, all nine classical readings in a row. Without JavaScript the panels still open and close; the buttons simply do not appear.

The hadith, with their gradings

The hadith matter as much as the verses, and here the question is usually not whether a report is authentic but what it means. Reports in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections of al-Bukhārī and Muslim are accepted by Sunni scholarship as authentic; the gradings shown for other books are the ones sunnah.com displays, with the scholar who made them. If "ḥasan" and "mursal" are unfamiliar, How a Hadith Is Judged explains them.

Three of these carry most of the argument.

"Deficient in reason and religion." Classical scholars took it at face value as describing female nature, and used it to explain 2:282. Traditional scholars today often note its setting: the Prophet ﷺ was speaking to women on a festival day, the "deficiency" in religion is explained within the hadith itself as the exemption from prayer and fasting during menstruation, for which there is no sin, and the report opens by exhorting women to give charity. Reformists such as Kecia Ali accept that the report is in al-Bukhārī and argue that it has to be weighed against the Qur'an's picture of women as full moral agents rather than allowed to override it.⁴

The woman ruler. Almost every classical jurist cited this to exclude women from the caliphate, and most extended it to judgeships.⁵¹ Fatima Mernissi attacked the narrator, Abū Bakra, arguing that he remembered the saying only after the Battle of the Camel, when ʿĀʾisha had lost and remembering it was convenient.⁵² Traditional scholars reject that line of attack, since it would undermine a Companion's reliability on political grounds. Egypt's Dar al-Ifta takes a different route: it accepts the report and reads it as a comment on the collapsing Persian state, not a general law, and concludes that a woman may head a modern state.⁵³ Khaled Abou El Fadl argues more broadly that reports of this kind should face a higher bar before they are used to restrict half the community.⁵⁴

The face-and-hands report. Here the dispute is about the chain itself. Abū Dāwūd, who recorded it, flagged it as broken; al-Albānī accepted it because other weak chains support it. Scholars who hold that the face need not be covered rely on it alongside the Ibn ʿAbbās reading of 24:31. Those who require the face veil point to the break.⁴⁹³⁵

Women in the Prophet's time

Any honest account has to start with the women who were actually there. Their lives are told in more detail, with sources, in The People Around Muhammad ﷺ; what follows is a sketch.

Khadīja bint Khuwaylid was a Meccan merchant who employed the young Muhammad ﷺ to take her goods to Syria and then proposed marriage to him. She was the first person to believe in his mission.⁵⁵ Whatever one concludes about later law, the first Muslim was a businesswoman who chose her own husband.

ʿĀʾisha bint Abī Bakr became one of the great authorities of Medina, consulted by senior Companions on law and hadith, and among the most prolific narrators of all. Umm Salama is remembered for her judgement, especially at al-Ḥudaybiya, and for the question about women and the emigration that preceded 3:195.¹⁰ Al-Shifāʾ bint ʿAbd Allāh could write, and taught Ḥafṣa, one of the Prophet's wives; the report in Abū Dāwūd is graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.⁵⁶ A later story that ʿUmar put her in charge of the market has a weak chain and should be treated with caution; the companions page gives the sources.

Nusayba bint Kaʿb (Umm ʿUmāra) fought at Uḥud in defence of the Prophet ﷺ. Rufayda treated the wounded, and when Saʿd was wounded at the Trench he was moved to her house to be cared for.⁵⁷ The women of Medina asked the Prophet ﷺ for a day of their own because the men were taking all his time, and he gave them one.⁵⁸ A woman whose husband had repudiated her by an old pagan formula brought her case to him and argued it, and the opening of sūrat al-Mujādila, "The Pleading Woman", records that God heard her.⁵⁹ And when Fāṭima bint Qays had two suitors, she asked the Prophet ﷺ for advice; he gave it frankly and she made her own choice.⁶⁰

The Qur'an also tells the story of a woman ruler, the Queen of Sheba, who consults her counsellors, weighs her options and, at the end, submits "along with Solomon to God, the Lord of all worlds". Dar al-Ifta cites her as evidence that the Qur'an does not treat female rule as illegitimate in itself; other scholars note that she is praised for her submission, not for ruling.⁶¹⁵³

Women as scholars

The claim that women were shut out of Islamic learning does not survive a look at the sources. Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a scholar trained at Nadwat al-ʿUlamāʾ in Lucknow and now dean of Cambridge Islamic College, spent years collecting the biographies of women who transmitted hadith. His English book al-Muḥaddithāt (2007) was written as the introduction to that dictionary.⁶² The full Arabic work, published in 2021, runs to 43 volumes and records about ten thousand women.⁶³

Nadwi's material shows women teaching men as well as women, granting licences (ijāzas), and appearing in the chains of the most respected books. Among the transmitters of al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ, for example, was Karīma al-Marwaziyya of Mecca in the eleventh century, whose copy was highly regarded.⁶² Asma Sayeed's history of the subject adds an important qualification: women's participation was not steady. It was high among the Companions, fell away sharply in the second and third Islamic centuries as hadith study became a professional, travelling discipline, and revived from the fourth century when collecting short chains from any reliable holder, including women and children, became prized.⁶⁴

Both authors note the same limit. Women narrated and taught; they very rarely held judgeships or wrote the major legal manuals. Fadel's observation about testimony applies here too: the law accepted a woman's report of what the Prophet ﷺ said on the same terms as a man's, while halving her testimony about a debt.²⁹

Marriage

Consent and the guardian

A woman's consent is required. The Prophet ﷺ said a previously married woman must be consulted and a virgin's permission sought, and when Khansāʾ bint Khidhām complained that her father had married her against her wishes, he annulled the marriage; both reports are in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.⁴²⁴³ What the schools dispute is the role of the guardian (walī). The Mālikī, Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī schools require him to conclude the contract, relying on "there is no marriage without a guardian", graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.⁴⁴ The Ḥanafī school allows a sane adult woman to contract her own marriage. In the Jaʿfarī school, Sistani requires a mature virgin to have her father's or paternal grandfather's consent as an obligatory precaution, with exceptions if he blocks every suitable match or cannot be reached; a woman previously married does not need it.⁶⁵ The practical consequences for a mixed couple in Australia are discussed in Following a Madhhab.

The dower and the contract

The dower (mahr) is to be given "graciously" and belongs to the wife; she may waive part of it if she chooses, but her husband has no claim on it.⁶⁶ A marriage contract can carry conditions, and many modern scholars encourage women to use them: a promise not to take a second wife, a right to work or study, or a delegated right to divorce herself (ṭalāq al-tafwīḍ). Anisa Buckley found the last of these largely unknown in Australia.⁶⁷⁴

Obligations and 4:34 in practice

Classically the husband owes maintenance (nafaqa): food, clothing and housing, as the Farewell Sermon puts it, "in a fitting manner".¹⁶ The wife owed obedience in a defined set of matters, above all sexual availability and not admitting people her husband disliked. Kecia Ali's study of the formative texts shows how tightly the jurists tied these two things together, maintenance in exchange for availability, and how far that model sits from the language of "compassion and mercy" in 30:21 that most couples would recognise.⁴⁶⁸ The Qur'an also forbids "inheriting" women against their will or holding them in marriage to take back what was given, and tells men: "Treat them fairly."⁶⁹ Where a marriage is breaking down, 4:35 prescribes an arbiter from each family.

On physical discipline, the range of views is set out in the explorer above. Whatever the reading, no school permits a blow that injures, and the Prophet's own conduct, in the report that he never struck a woman, is invoked by nearly every modern scholar. Australian criminal and family law applies regardless of any religious reading.

Polygamy

The verse and its readings are in the explorer. The narrower practical point for Australia is that the Marriage Act 1961 makes it an offence for a married person to "go through a form or ceremony of marriage with any person", with a penalty of five years' imprisonment.⁴⁰ A second nikāḥ has no standing as a marriage in Australian law, and a woman in such a union has fewer protections than a wife. If you are thinking about this, speak to a lawyer, not only an imam.

Temporary marriage (mutʿa)

Here the Sunni and Jaʿfarī schools part company completely. A mutʿa is a marriage contracted for a fixed period with a fixed dower. The Sunni schools hold that the Prophet ﷺ permitted it early on and then forbade it for good: in Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ he says God "has forbidden it until the Day of Resurrection", and in al-Bukhārī's ʿAlī reports that it was forbidden at Khaybar.⁸⁵⁸⁶ Jordan's official Iftāʾ Department, for example, treats such a contract as forbidden and void.⁹⁰ Twelver scholars read the verb istamtaʿtum in 4:24, "those of them whom you enjoy" in Sachiko Murata's rendering (Khattab's translation on quran.com, following the Sunni reading, has "those you have consummated marriage with"), as referring to it, and argue that the ban came from the caliph ʿUmar, who is reported as saying that two mutʿas were practised in the Prophet's time and that he forbade them.⁸⁸⁹⁷⁸⁹ Sistani's rulings treat it as valid, with the period and dower stated in the contract; the temporary wife has no claim to maintenance, the spouses do not inherit from each other, and she keeps a waiting period when it ends.⁸⁷ The anthropologist Shahla Haeri, who interviewed women in temporary marriages in Iran, found most of them had come out of failed first marriages and hoped the arrangement would become permanent, and she describes a practice pulled between religious law, custom and traditional morality.⁹¹ In Australia a mutʿa is not a marriage at all: the Marriage Act defines marriage as a union "voluntarily entered into for life", so a woman in one has none of a wife's legal protections.⁹⁶

Divorce and khulʿ

Islamic law knows several ways out of a marriage, and who can use them is where gender matters most. The husband may divorce by pronouncement (ṭalāq). The wife may ask to be released in return for giving back the dower or some other property (khulʿ), on the basis of 2:229: "there is no blame if the wife compensates the husband to obtain divorce."⁷⁰ The model case is in al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ: the wife of Thābit b. Qays told the Prophet ﷺ she had nothing against her husband's character or religion but could not bear to stay with him; he asked her whether she would return the garden Thābit had given her as dower, she said yes, and he told Thābit to accept it and divorce her.⁴⁵ A wife may also ask a judge to dissolve the marriage for cause, such as harm, desertion or failure to maintain (faskh or tafrīq).⁶⁷

The schools differ on how much the husband's agreement matters in khulʿ. The classical majority treated it as a contract he had to accept. Egypt's Law No. 1 of 2000 allowed a court to grant it without his consent if the wife returns the dower and forgoes her financial claims, reasoning directly from the Thābit case.⁷¹ In the Jaʿfarī school, Sistani defines khulʿ as the divorce of a wife who "has an aversion to" her husband and gives him her dower or other property so that he divorces her, and requires the aversion to be serious.⁷² The Jaʿfarī school also requires two just male witnesses to be present at any divorce, which the Sunni schools do not.

After divorce comes the waiting period of 2:228, in which the husband must house and maintain her if the divorce is revocable.¹³ The schools disagree on counting three pronouncements in one sitting; that and the Jaʿfarī witness rule are set out in Following a Madhhab.

Inheritance

The Qur'an gave women fixed shares in a society where, by most accounts, many had inherited nothing, and it fixed them in unusual detail. The best-known rule, a son takes twice a daughter's share, sits beside others where men and women are equal, and beside the maintenance duty that most scholars use to explain it.²⁴

The Sunni and Jaʿfarī systems apply the same verses but reach different results, and the difference is large for daughters. In the Sunni schools, a sole daughter takes half the estate and the rest goes to male relatives on the father's side, even distant ones; Britannica's example has a daughter's son excluded while a distant male cousin takes three quarters. In the Jaʿfarī school, children belong to the first class of heirs and exclude brothers, sisters and cousins entirely, so a sole daughter takes the whole estate, half as her share and the rest by "return" (radd).²⁵⁷³ In the other direction, Sistani holds that a widow inherits a quarter or an eighth, as in the Sunni schools, but does not inherit from land itself, only from the value of buildings and trees on it.⁷⁴

Islamic law allows a bequest of up to a third of the estate outside the fixed shares, in Sunni law not to someone who already inherits.²⁵ In Australia a will is where these choices are made; Australian succession law does not apply Islamic shares on its own, so a Muslim who wants them followed needs a valid will drawn up with that in mind.

Testimony

The explorer covers 2:282 in detail. Two observations are worth repeating. First, the verse itself is about recording a loan, and gives its reason: "so that if one of the women forgets the other may remind her".²⁷ Second, the legal tradition applied it unevenly. Fadel shows that women's testimony was accepted alone where only women were usually present, excluded in the ḥudūd, and halved in commerce, while women's hadith narration, arguably the more consequential kind of witness, was treated exactly like men's.²⁹ Bauer found that the modern clerics she interviewed kept the rule but explained it in terms of women's experience or temperament rather than a lack of reason.¹

In an Australian court, of course, a witness is a witness. The question arises only in religious settings, such as arbitration or a nikāḥ.

Dress

The dress verses are in the explorer. The positions of the schools, stated as their own authorities state them, are these.

Two points are often missed. The first command in 24:30 is to men: lower your gaze. And both verses are phrased as instructions to believers, not to rulers; the question of whether the state should enforce dress, as some do, is separate, and the texts themselves say nothing about it. Wives of the Prophet ﷺ are addressed separately in 33:32–33, "you are not like any other women", which is why some rules about them, such as speaking from behind a screen, were not generally applied to all women.⁷⁵

Leadership and the mosque

Public office

The classical majority excluded women from the caliphate and from judgeships, relying on the Abū Bakra report and 4:34. The Ḥanafī school allowed a woman's judgment in matters other than ḥudūd and retaliation, and al-Ṭabarī, more unusually, allowed her to judge in everything, a view al-Māwardī rejected as against consensus.⁵¹ Egypt's Dar al-Ifta now permits women as heads of a modern state, distinguishing it from the caliphate, and cites the same classical minority.⁵³ Several Muslim-majority countries have elected women as heads of government, beginning with Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan in 1988, and many appoint women judges.

Leading prayer

Umm Waraqa's appointment to lead her household, graded ḥasan by al-Albānī, is the main text.⁵⁰ The schools read it narrowly, as a household or a congregation of women, and a woman leading a mixed congregation remains outside the positions of the four Sunni schools and the Jaʿfarī school. A few early jurists dissented: ʿAlī Jumʿa, a former Grand Mufti of Egypt, records that Abū Thawr, al-Muzanī and al-Ṭabarī held men's prayer behind a woman valid, even in the obligatory prayers, calls the view isolated (shādhdh), and says he mentions it for scholarly honesty, not as something to follow.¹⁰⁵ When Amina Wadud led a mixed Friday prayer in New York in March 2005, about a hundred people attended and the Shaykh of al-Azhar objected publicly; Khaled Abou El Fadl defended her.⁷⁶

The mosque

On attendance, the texts pull in two directions. "Do not stop God's female servants from going to God's mosques" is in both Ṣaḥīḥs, and one of ʿUmar's own wives prayed the dawn and night prayers in the mosque despite knowing he disliked it.⁴⁶⁴⁷ Abū Dāwūd adds "but their houses are better for them" (ṣaḥīḥ, al-Albānī), and ʿĀʾisha is recorded as saying that if the Prophet ﷺ had seen what women had started doing, he would have stopped them.⁴⁸⁷⁷ Later Ḥanafī scholars used this to discourage young women from attending; many modern scholars argue that the prohibition on preventing women is the clearer command.

In Australia the question is practical. Nafiseh Ghafournia's interviews with Australian Muslim women found most mosques segregated, with women's spaces often small and poorly kept, and most of her participants had heard sermons they considered misogynist.⁷⁸ In a second study, 85 per cent of her participants knew of no woman on their mosque committee.⁷⁹ These are small qualitative samples, not a survey, but they match what many women describe.

Australian law

For most Australian Muslims the hardest questions are not about exegesis but about the two legal systems they live under at once.

Religious and civil divorce

Australia has one ground for divorce: the marriage has broken down irretrievably, shown by twelve months' separation. It is "no fault": the court does not ask why.⁸⁰ Only a court can grant it. A ṭalāq, khulʿ or faskh from an imam or a council has no effect in Australian law, and a civil divorce order is not, in the eyes of many imams, an Islamic divorce. The result is the "limping marriage": a woman free under Australian law but still married religiously because her husband will not pronounce a ṭalāq and no imam will dissolve the marriage without him. Anisa Buckley, writing in 2020, describes the routes women use: khulʿ, a judicial dissolution by an imam or council, a divorce obtained overseas, or the view, taken by the European Council for Fatwa and Research in 2002, that a civil divorce can count religiously.⁶⁷ Ghena Krayem's study of Islamic family law in Australia remains the fullest treatment of how the two systems interact and whether the state should recognise any of it.⁸¹

For guidance, the Australian National Imams Council established the Australian Fatwa Council in 2019.⁸² Which body a couple approaches, and which school it follows, can change the outcome; the schools' differences on divorce are in Following a Madhhab.

Dower and contract

Australian courts will enforce an agreed mahr as a contract. In Mohamed v Mohamed [2012] NSWSC 852, a wife recovered a deferred dower of $50,000, and the court found nothing contrary to public policy in enforcing it.⁸³ Writing the mahr and any conditions clearly into the marriage contract therefore matters.

Forced marriage and bigamy

Forced marriage, where a person marries without "freely and fully" consenting because of coercion, threat or deception, is a crime under the Commonwealth Criminal Code, with penalties of up to seven years, nine if aggravated, and up to 25 where a child is taken overseas.⁸⁴ This is consistent with the Islamic rule, which also requires the woman's consent. Bigamy is an offence under the Marriage Act, as noted above.⁴⁰ Help is available from the Australian Federal Police on 131 237 and from 1800RESPECT.⁸⁴

Female genital cutting

This is rarely raised in a mosque, but a careful reader will ask. The classical schools differed. Al-Nawawī gives the Shāfiʿī position that circumcision is obligatory for men and women alike, reports Mālik and Abū Ḥanīfa as holding it a sunna, and limits what is cut from a woman to a small piece of the skin above the urinary opening, quoting "do not cut severely";⁹⁸ Ibn Qudāma gives the Ḥanbalī position that it is obligatory for men and "an honour" (makruma) for women, not an obligation;⁹⁹ in Twelver law as Sistani's office states it, circumcision is obligatory for males,¹⁰³ while cutting a girl is no religious sunna.¹⁰² The main hadith, in which the Prophet ﷺ tells a woman in Medina "do not cut severely", is in Abū Dāwūd, who says himself that it is not strong, that its narrator Muḥammad b. Ḥassān is unknown and that the hadith is weak.⁹² Al-Bayhaqī repeats that verdict;¹⁰⁰ Ibn Ḥajar goes through the other routes, finds a defect in each, and quotes Ibn al-Mundhir that there is no report on circumcision to rely on.⁹³ Al-Albānī, on the other hand, graded the Abū Dāwūd report ṣaḥīḥ.⁹² Today Egypt's Dar al-Ifta says the practice "is today forbidden in Islam" because of the harm it does, al-Azhar's Supreme Council of Islamic Research ruled in 2007 that it has no basis in Islamic law,⁹⁴¹⁰¹ and Sistani's office answers that it is forbidden where it harms the girl and that cutting the organ itself is "certainly a crime against the girl".¹⁰² In Australia it is a serious criminal offence. In a case from the Dawoodi Bohra community in Sydney, the High Court held on 16 October 2019 that the words "otherwise mutilates" in the New South Wales Crimes Act cover even cutting or nicking.⁹⁵

Where the disagreement really lies

After all the texts, the disagreement turns out to rest on three questions, and it helps to see them separately.

The first is whether the Qur'an's specific rules on gender are the goal or a step towards one. Classical and most traditional scholars read them as the goal, fixed for all time; reformists read them as a seventh-century improvement pointing in a direction. Both can quote the text. The second is how much weight to give the tradition of interpretation. Chaudhry's challenge is the sharpest here: reformers who claim the tradition was on their side are, she argues, often wrong, and should defend their break with it openly.⁵ Traditional scholars draw the opposite lesson from the same history: where the tradition agreed, the agreement (ijmāʿ) is itself evidence, which is why Egypt's Dar al-Ifta rests its ruling on the headscarf partly on there never having been a disagreement about it.³³ The third is authority: who gets to read. It is not an accident that the reformist readings have been written mostly by women, or that the classical ones were written almost entirely by men, a point Abou El Fadl makes about the tradition itself.⁵⁴

None of this is settled, and a page like this should not pretend otherwise. What can be said is that the texts are fewer, and the range of respectable readings wider, than either the loudest critics of Islam or its most defensive apologists usually admit.

Glossary

faskh / tafrīq

Dissolution of a marriage by a judge, usually on the wife's application, for a recognised cause such as harm or desertion.

farāʾiḍ

The fixed inheritance shares set out in 4:11–12 and 4:176, and the science of calculating them.

ḥudūd

Offences with penalties fixed by revealed text.

ʿidda

The waiting period after divorce or a husband's death before a woman may remarry.

ijāza

A teacher's licence to transmit a text or body of hadith.

jilbāb

An outer cloak or wrap (33:59).

khimār

A head covering (24:31).

khulʿ

Divorce at the wife's initiative in return for giving back the dower or other property.

mahr

The dower a husband gives his wife, which is her own property.

mursal

A hadith whose chain is missing a link at the Companion level; usually counted weak unless supported.

nafaqa

Maintenance a husband owes his wife: food, clothing, housing.

nushūz

Ill-conduct or defiance in a marriage; in 4:34 of a wife, in 4:128 of a husband.

qawwāmūn

In 4:34, men as "maintainers", "caretakers" or "in charge of" women; the translation is itself part of the debate.

radd

In inheritance, the "return" of a surplus to the fixed-share heirs, used widely in the Jaʿfarī school.

ṭalāq

Divorce by the husband's pronouncement.

walī

A guardian, in marriage usually the father.

This is a research article, not a fatwa. Where it reports rulings, gradings or disputed readings, it reports what scholars have said and where they said it; it does not decide between them. For a question about your own marriage, divorce, inheritance or practice, please ask a qualified scholar you trust, and for anything touching Australian law, a lawyer. If you are in danger at home, call 000; 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is the national domestic and family violence counselling line.

Sources

Sources are listed in the order they are first cited, except 85 onwards, which were added when the page was checked again on 1 and 2 October 2026. Qur'an references link to quran.com; translations quoted in the text are Mustafa Khattab's The Clear Quran as shown there, sometimes shortened and with "Allah" rendered "God". Hadith references link to sunnah.com. Reports in al-Bukhārī's and Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ are accepted as authentic by Sunni scholarship and sunnah.com shows no separate grade for them; for other collections I give the grade shown on sunnah.com and who made it.

1. Karen Bauer, Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾān: Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), on 4:1, 2:228, 4:34 and 2:282 in the commentaries and in interviews with contemporary Iranian and Syrian scholars; review in BSOAS: cambridge.org
2. Amina Wadud, Qurʾan and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); library copy: archive.org
3. Asma Barlas, "Believing Women" in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qurʾan (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002; revised edition 2019): utpress.utexas.edu
4. Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qurʾan, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006; expanded and revised edition 2016): oneworld-publications.com
5. Ayesha S. Chaudhry, Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition: Ethics, Law, and the Muslim Discourse on Gender (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013): global.oup.com
6. Qur'an 4:1 ("created you from a single soul, and from it created its mate"): quran.com/4/1
7. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3331: Abū Hurayra, "treat women kindly, for woman was created from a rib…". sunnah.com/bukhari:3331. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
8. Qur'an 33:35 ("the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women…"): quran.com/33/35
9. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3211: Umm ʿUmāra al-Anṣāriyya, "I see that everything is for the men"; 33:35 revealed. sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3211. Graded ḥasan by Darussalam.
10. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3023: Umm Salama, "I do not hear God mention women in the emigration"; 3:195 revealed. sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3023. Graded ḥasan by Darussalam.
11. Qur'an 3:195 ("I will never deny any of you, male or female, the reward of your deeds"): quran.com/3/195
12. Qur'an 9:71 ("the believing men and believing women are guardians of one another"): quran.com/9/71
13. Qur'an 2:228 (the waiting period after divorce; "women have rights similar to those of men… men have a degree"): quran.com/2/228
14. Qur'an 4:34 (qawwāmūn; nushūz; the three steps): quran.com/4/34
15. Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm, on 4:34 (English abridgement on quran.com): quran.com/4:34/tafsirs/en-tafisr-ibn-kathir
16. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1218a: Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh, the Farewell Sermon: "fear God concerning women…", including "strike them, but not severely (ghayr mubarriḥ)". sunnah.com/muslim:1218a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
17. Jonathan A. C. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy (London: Oneworld, 2014), including his discussion of 4:34, al-Shāfiʿī's "not hitting is preferable" and the legal limits jurists set: oneworld-publications.com
18. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2328a: ʿĀʾisha, the Prophet never struck a woman or a servant with his hand. sunnah.com/muslim:2328a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
19. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2146: Iyās b. ʿAbd Allāh, "do not beat God's handmaidens". sunnah.com/abudawud:2146. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.
20. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 1162: Abū Hurayra, "the best of you are those who are best to their women". sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1162. Al-Tirmidhī: ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ; Darussalam: ḥasan.
21. Andrea Useem, "Does the Qur'an Tolerate Domestic Abuse?", interviews with Laleh Bakhtiar and Hadia Mubarak on 4:34, Beliefnet, 18 July 2007: beliefnet.com
22. Neil MacFarquhar, "New Translation Prompts Debate on Islamic Verse", The New York Times, 25 March 2007 (with comments from Khaled Abou El Fadl, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Ingrid Mattson), reprinted by Campus Watch: meforum.org
23. Amina Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006), where she says "no" to the literal instruction of 4:34; summarised with references in "An-Nisa, 34", Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org
24. Qur'an 4:11–12 (the inheritance shares): quran.com/4/11-12
25. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Sharia: Law of succession" (Sunni and Shiʿi inheritance compared): britannica.com
26. George Sadek, "Tunisia: Cabinet Approves Bill Requiring Equal Inheritance Shares for Men and Women", Global Legal Monitor, Law Library of Congress, 4 December 2018: loc.gov
27. Qur'an 2:282 (the debt contract and its witnesses): quran.com/2/282
28. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 304: Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, the ʿĪd address to women ("deficient in reason and religion"). sunnah.com/bukhari:304. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
29. Mohammad Fadel, "Two Women, One Man: Knowledge, Power, and Gender in Medieval Sunni Legal Thought", International Journal of Middle East Studies 29.2 (1997): 185–204: ssrn.com
30. Qur'an 24:30–31 (lowering the gaze; the khimār): quran.com/24/30-31
31. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4758: ʿĀʾisha, the early Emigrant women tore their wraps and covered themselves when 24:31 came down. sunnah.com/bukhari:4758. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
32. Dar al-Iftaʾ al-Misriyyah, "What is the Islamic ruling for women covering their faces (niqab)?", fatwa 4865 (the majority of the Ḥanafī, Mālikī and Shāfiʿī schools against obligation; the Ḥanbalī view that the face is covered): dar-alifta.org
33. Dar al-Iftaʾ al-Misriyyah, "The ruling on hijab in Islam", fatwa 23911: dar-alifta.org
34. Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, Islamic Laws, "Looking at non-maḥram", ruling 2453 (hair and body covered; face and hands may be left uncovered): sistani.org
35. IslamQA, "Is covering the face obligatory?", answer 11774 (argues that it is, citing 24:31, 33:59 and a report from Ibn ʿAbbās): islamqa.info
36. Qur'an 33:59 (the jilbāb, "so that they will be recognised and not harassed"): quran.com/33/59
37. Qur'an 4:3 ("two, three or four… but if you fear you will not be just, then one"): quran.com/4/3
38. Qur'an 4:129 ("you will never be able to maintain ˹emotional˺ justice between your wives"): quran.com/4/129
39. "Penafsiran Muhammad ʿAbduh terhadap Alquran Surat al-Nisāʾ Ayat 3 dan 129 tentang Poligami", Al-ʿAdalah 14.1 (2017): 25–46 (ʿAbduh's restrictive reading of the polygamy verses in Tafsīr al-Manār): ejournal.radenintan.ac.id
40. Marriage Act 1961 (Cth), s 94 "Bigamy" (penalty: imprisonment for five years), AustLII: austlii.edu.au
41. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4425: Abū Bakra, "a people who make a woman their ruler will never prosper", on hearing the Persians had crowned Khusraw's daughter. sunnah.com/bukhari:4425. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
42. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5136: Abū Hurayra, a previously married woman is consulted and a virgin's permission sought. sunnah.com/bukhari:5136. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
43. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5138: Khansāʾ bint Khidhām, married by her father against her wishes; the Prophet annulled the marriage. sunnah.com/bukhari:5138. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
44. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2085: Abū Mūsā, "there is no marriage without a guardian". sunnah.com/abudawud:2085. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.
45. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5273: Ibn ʿAbbās, the wife of Thābit b. Qays returns her garden and is released. sunnah.com/bukhari:5273. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
46. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 900: Ibn ʿUmar, "do not stop God's female servants from going to God's mosques". sunnah.com/bukhari:900. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
47. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 442a: Ibn ʿUmar, "when women ask permission to go to the mosque, do not prevent them". sunnah.com/muslim:442a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
48. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 567: Ibn ʿUmar, "do not prevent your women from the mosques, but their houses are better for them". sunnah.com/abudawud:567. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.
49. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 4104: ʿĀʾisha, Asmāʾ and "this and this" (face and hands); Abū Dāwūd notes the chain is mursal because Khālid b. Durayk did not meet ʿĀʾisha. sunnah.com/abudawud:4104. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī (on the strength of supporting chains).
50. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 592: Umm Waraqa, appointed to lead the people of her house in prayer. sunnah.com/abudawud:592. Graded ḥasan by al-Albānī.
51. Islamweb, "Ruling on giving women access to positions of state leadership and judiciary posts", fatwa 3935 (the majority view, the Ḥanafī exception and al-Ṭabarī's view as rejected by al-Māwardī): islamweb.net
52. Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam, tr. Mary Jo Lakeland (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1991), with her critique of the Abū Bakra report; library copy: archive.org
53. Dar al-Iftaʾ al-Misriyyah, "Women as heads of state" (reads the Abū Bakra report as tied to the Persian case; cites al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Ḥazm and a report from Mālik on women judges): dar-alifta.org
54. Khaled Abou El Fadl, Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001): nes.princeton.edu
55. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Khadījah": britannica.com/biography/Khadijah
56. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 3887: al-Shifāʾ bint ʿAbd Allāh, who had taught Ḥafṣa to write. sunnah.com/abudawud:3887. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.
57. al-Bukhārī, al-Adab al-mufrad 1129: Saʿd, wounded at the Trench, is moved to the house of Rufayda, "who used to treat the wounded". sunnah.com/adab:1129. I could not find a grade displayed for this report on sunnah.com.
58. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 101: Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, women ask for a day of their own to be taught. sunnah.com/bukhari:101. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
59. Qur'an 58:1 ("the one who pleads with you concerning her husband"): quran.com/58/1
60. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1480a: Fāṭima bint Qays asks the Prophet about two suitors and is advised to marry Usāma. sunnah.com/muslim:1480a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
61. Qur'an 27:23–44 (the Queen of Sheba): quran.com/27/23-44
62. Mohammad Akram Nadwi, al-Muḥaddithāt: The Women Scholars in Islam (Oxford: Interface Publications, 2007); PDF hosted at islamicstudies.info
63. "Akram Nadwi", Wikipedia (the Arabic biographical dictionary of which al-Muḥaddithāt is the preface, about 10,000 women in 43 volumes, published by Dār al-Minhāj, 2021; accessed 29 September 2026): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akram_Nadwi
64. Asma Sayeed, Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): islamicstudies.ucla.edu
65. Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, Islamic Laws, "Conditions of a marriage contract", rulings 2395–2396 (a mature virgin needs her father's or paternal grandfather's consent, as an obligatory precaution, with exceptions): sistani.org
66. Qur'an 4:4 ("Give women ˹you wed˺ their due dowries graciously"): quran.com/4/4
67. Anisa Buckley, "What are Muslim women's options in religious divorce?", ABC Religion & Ethics, 6 March 2020: abc.net.au
68. Qur'an 30:21 ("He has placed between you compassion and mercy"): quran.com/30/21
69. Qur'an 4:19 ("it is not permissible for you to inherit women against their will… Treat them fairly"): quran.com/4/19
70. Qur'an 2:229 (divorce twice; "there is no blame if the wife compensates the husband to obtain divorce"): quran.com/2/229
71. Jasmine Moussa, "The Reform of Sharīʿa-derived Divorce Legislation in Egypt", Human Rights Law Centre, University of Nottingham, HRLC Commentary 2005 (on Article 20 of Law No. 1 of 2000, judicial khulʿ): nottingham.ac.uk
72. Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, Islamic Laws, "Khulʿ divorce", rulings 2546–2548: sistani.org
73. Muḥammad Jawād Mughniyya, Inheritance According to the Five Schools of Islamic Law, "The Inheritance of Children and Grandchildren", Al-Islam.org: al-islam.org
74. Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, Islamic Laws, "Inheritance of Husband and Wife", ruling 2782 (the wife's quarter or eighth; she does not inherit from land but from the value of buildings and trees): sistani.org
75. Qur'an 33:32–33 (addressed to the wives of the Prophet): quran.com/33/32-33
76. "Woman leads controversial US prayer", Al Jazeera, 19 March 2005 (Amina Wadud leads a mixed congregation in New York; Shaykh al-Azhar Sayyid Ṭanṭāwī's objection): aljazeera.com
77. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 869: ʿĀʾisha, "had the Messenger of God seen what the women are doing, he would have prevented them from the mosque". sunnah.com/bukhari:869. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
78. Nafiseh Ghafournia, "Negotiating Gendered Religious Space: Australian Muslim Women and the Mosque", Religions 11.12 (2020): 686: mdpi.com
79. Nafiseh Ghafournia, "Muslim Women's Religious Leadership: The Case of Australian Mosques", Religions 13.6 (2022): 534: mdpi.com
80. Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, "Divorce: Overview" (irretrievable breakdown, twelve months' separation, no-fault divorce; accessed 29 September 2026): fcfcoa.gov.au
81. Ghena Krayem, Islamic Family Law in Australia: To Recognise or Not to Recognise (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2014), National Library of Australia catalogue: catalogue.nla.gov.au
82. Australian National Imams Council, "Australian Fatwa Council" (established 2019): anic.org.au
83. Margaret Beazley, "The intersection of the Australian law and the Islamic faith: a selection of cases", Judicial Commission of New South Wales (updated 2021), discussing Mohamed v Mohamed [2012] NSWSC 852 on an agreed mahr of $50,000: judcom.nsw.gov.au
84. Attorney-General's Department, "Forced marriage" (offences under the Criminal Code Act 1995; penalties; help lines; accessed 29 September 2026): ag.gov.au
85. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1406d: Sabra al-Juhanī, "God has forbidden it until the Day of Resurrection" (mutʿa). sunnah.com/muslim:1406d. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
86. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5115: ʿAlī to Ibn ʿAbbās, the Prophet forbade mutʿa at Khaybar. sunnah.com/bukhari:5115. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
87. Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, Islamic Laws, "Laws of Temporary Marriage (Mutʿah)", rulings 2439–2450 (no maintenance, no mutual inheritance, period and dower specified, ʿidda): sistani.org
88. Sachiko Murata, Mutʿa: Temporary Marriage in Islamic Law, "The Legitimacy of Mutʿa" (4:24 and ʿUmar's statement in the Shia argument), Al-Islam.org: al-islam.org
89. Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Mutʿah" (Sunni view that it was abrogated; Twelver Shia view that it remains valid and that the ban was ʿUmar's): britannica.com
90. General Iftaa' Department, Jordan, "Islamic Ruling on Temporary Marriage (Mutʿa)", fatwa 420, 23 December 2009: aliftaa.jo
91. Shahla Haeri, Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shiʿi Iran (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1989; revised edition 2014); summary and reviews in "Haeri, Shahla", Contemporary Authors, via Encyclopedia.com: encyclopedia.com
92. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 5271: Umm ʿAṭiyya al-Anṣāriyya, "do not cut severely". Abū Dāwūd: the chain is not strong and the report is mursal. sunnah.com/abudawud:5271. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī.
93. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Talkhīṣ al-ḥabīr (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya), vol. 4, pp. 224–226, Kitāb al-khitān, no. 1807: Abū Dāwūd faulted the Umm ʿAṭiyya report through Muḥammad b. Ḥassān, "unknown, weak", followed by Ibn ʿAdī and al-Bayhaqī; the Ibn ʿUmar routes contain Mindal b. ʿAlī and Khālid b. ʿAmr; Ibn al-Mundhir: "there is no report on circumcision to be relied on, nor a chain to be followed": shamela.ws/book/1581/2146
94. Dar al-Iftaʾ al-Misriyyah, "The Islamic view of female circumcision" ("the practice of FGM is today forbidden in Islam"): dar-alifta.org
95. "High court rules genital mutilation illegal, earlier convictions will stand", SBS News, 16 October 2019 (The Queen v A2 [2019] HCA 35; "otherwise mutilates" includes cutting or nicking): sbs.com.au
96. Marriage Act 1961 (Cth), s 5(1), definition of "marriage": "the union of 2 people to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life" (compilation of 14 October 2024), Federal Register of Legislation: legislation.gov.au
97. Qur'an 4:24 ("Give those you have consummated marriage with their due dowries"): quran.com/4/24
98. al-Nawawī, al-Majmūʿ sharḥ al-Muhadhdhab (Cairo: al-Munīriyya edition), vol. 1, pp. 300–302, Bāb al-siwāk: circumcision "obligatory for men and women according to us"; Mālik and Abū Ḥanīfa: a sunna; for a woman, the skin above the urinary opening, with the advice to cut little: shamela.ws/book/2186/299 and /301 (Arabic).
99. Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qāhira, 1968), vol. 1, p. 64, Fuṣūl fī al-fiṭra: "circumcision is obligatory for men, an honour for women, and not obligatory for them": shamela.ws/book/8463/62 (Arabic).
100. al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-kubrā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya), vol. 8, pp. 561–563, Kitāb al-ashriba, Bāb al-sulṭān yukrih ʿalā l-ikhtitān, nos. 17559–17567: repeats Abū Dāwūd's verdict on the Umm ʿAṭiyya report ("Muḥammad b. Ḥassān is unknown and this hadith is weak") and calls the chains of "circumcision is a sunna for men, an honour for women" weak or broken: shamela.ws/book/7861/19987
101. UNICEF, "Fresh progress toward the elimination of female genital mutilation and cutting in Egypt", press release, 2 July 2007 (al-Azhar Supreme Council of Islamic Research: FGM/C "has no basis in core Islamic law or any of its partial provisions"): unicef.org
102. Office of Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, Questions and answers: Circumcision (Persian), question 24940 on circumcising girls ("not a religious sunna", forbidden if it harms the girl; cutting the organ or part of it is "certainly a crime against the girl"): sistani.org/persian/qa/0896
103. Office of Sayyid ʿAlī al-Sīstānī, Questions and answers: Circumcision (Arabic), question 20332 ("circumcision is obligatory in itself, and a condition for the validity of ṭawāf"; the related answers concern boys): sistani.org/arabic/qa/0461
104. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Fatḥ al-bārī, vol. 8, p. 490, on al-Bukhārī 4758: "fa-ikhtamarna, that is, they covered their faces", quoted with the reference in Islam Question & Answer (Arabic), no. 120392, which argues for the face veil: islamqa.info/ar/120392
105. ʿAlī Jumʿa, "Imāmat al-marʾa fī al-ṣalāt" (Arabic), on his official website: Abū Thawr, al-Muzanī and Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī held men's prayer behind a woman valid in the obligatory prayers; the view is called shādhdh and recorded for scholarly integrity, not practice: draligomaa.com