Women’s Rights in Historical Perspective: A Comparative Study of Islam and the West
Abstract
In the nineteenth-century West, married women were considered legally nonentities and denied fundamental rights, including property ownership, voting, education, and participation in professional roles. The common law doctrine of coverture subsumed a wife’s legal identity under her husband’s authority, granting him control over her property, labor, and body. Reform came gradually through the Married Women’s Property Acts and the suffrage movements. In contrast, Islamic scripture and tradition recognized women’s legal and social rights more than a millennium earlier. The Qur’an established women’s entitlement to inheritance, property ownership, and independent earnings, while emphasizing moral and spiritual equality between men and women. Prophetic traditions reinforced women’s rights to education, consent in marriage, and recourse to divorce, underscoring their dignity and agency within society. This paper presents a qualitative historical analysis comparing women’s rights in the pre-suffrage West with those articulated in Islam. Drawing upon legal documents, religious texts, and scholarly interpretations, it argues that Islam codified principles of gender justice long before similar reforms emerged in the West. However, the study also acknowledges disparities between scriptural ideals and cultural practice, emphasizing the need to distinguish authentic religious doctrine from historical and social distortions.
Keywords: Women’s Rights; Comparative History; Islam; Suffrage; Gender Law; Qur’An; Hadith.
