Islam Women and Modern Society Rethinking Rights and Roles

Islam, Women, and Modernity, Rethinking Rights and Representation

The conversation about women’s rights in Muslim societies is often stuck between two loud extremes. One side defends restrictive customs that have little to do with Islam itself. The other insists that real progress means copying Western models. Somewhere in between lays a quieter truth.

The truth is that Islam already gives women dignity, equality before God, and clear rights.

However, these rights have been forgotten, twisted, or buried under layers of culture and politics.

Women’s rights and Islamic teachings

Surprisingly, in the Qur’an and the Prophet’s teachings, it is actually hard to miss how forward thinking Islam was, especially in its early days. The Qur’an directly gives women the right to inheritance (Surah An-Nisa 4:7), and financial independence and participation in public life. It tells believers that honor comes from righteousness, not gender or status. Similarly, the Prophet ﷺ insisted that seeking knowledge was a duty for every Muslim either male or female. This is not something modern feminists invented, it is built into the faith itself.
Moving back to the early Islamic history, women were not confined to the home. Khadijah (RA), the Prophet’s wife, ran her own business and was one of the most respected figures in Mecca. Aisha (RA), another of his wives, was a scholar whose knowledge shaped Islamic thought for generations. Women used to trade, taught, debate, and also advise at that time. Their presence in public life was not an exception, rather it was part of the norm.

Women’s rights with the passage of time

In contemporary era, culture started to override faith. Over time, local traditions and male dominated interpretations reshaped Islamic law to suit patriarchal interests. The line between religion and culture is blurred, and people started defending old habits as if they were divine commands. Consequently, today education is denied to girls, women are cut out of inheritance, and families are enforcing marriages that Islam itself would never approve of. It does not mean all outside criticism is wrong. So, western feminist movements have raised important points about gender inequality, even in Muslim contexts. When all those frameworks get transplanted without understanding the local culture or faith, they can backfire. For many Muslims, these ideas feel like moral colonization. It means foreign ideals imposed with little respect for the values people actually live by. Thus, they resist and real reform gets delayed even further.

What needs to be done?

Moreover, we do not need to borrow our ethics from somewhere else. Islam already has the foundation for justice and equality. What is missing is the courage to apply those principles in real life, without letting either cultural fear or Western approval dictate the terms.

• Islamic perspective on education
  Firstly, there is an aspect of education in Islam. When the Prophet (P.B.U.H.) encouraged learning for everyone, he was not making a symbolic gesture. Knowledge is what helps people tell the difference between divine law and cultural baggage. An educated woman can understand her rights, teach her children, and stand up for herself in ways that echo Islam’s original message. Legal awareness matters too. It is because many women simply do not know that Islamic law already gives them protection in marriage, inheritance, and community participation.
• Islamic perspective on modernity
  Secondly, there is also a point about what modernity means in Islam. For a lot of Muslims, modernity does not have to mean abandoning faith or copying Western lifestyles. It can mean using Islamic ethics to deal with contemporary problems like corruption, inequality, and lack of access to education without losing the moral grounding that gives life meaning. When we talk about empowering women in that context, it is not just about individual rights, rather it is about making families and societies healthier.

Practical need of the hour

Moving forward, real reform would not come from slogans or imported ideologies. It will come from Muslim thinkers, teachers, and communities who take the Qur’an seriously enough to question how it is being misused. It will come from men who stop treating women’s advancement as a threat, and from women who speak for themselves using the language of their own faith.
In the end, Islam does not need to be modernized, it needs to be understood. The Prophet’s message was never about limiting women’s roles or denying their potential. It was about justice, mercy, and balance. Somewhere along the way, that balance was lost. However,

recovering it does not mean rejecting modern ideas, but it does mean grounding change in something deeper and more authentic.

If Muslim societies can blend faith, fairness, and modern awareness together, women’s rights would not feel like a borrowed concept. But they will feel like what they truly are in Islam that is they are God given.