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Born equal

Cloistered behind black veils and blue shuttlecock burqas, forced into marriage, genitally mutilated and denied basic rights – these are the images commonly associated with the treatment of downtrodden women under Islam. Yet Islam granted women social, economic and political rights, some of which were only gained by women in the west some 1,400 years later.

Whether in Indonesia, Yemen, Morocco, Pakistan or elsewhere in the Muslim world, a female is born into Islam as the moral and spiritual equal of a man, created from a single soul. Equality is accepted as a divinely-ordained principle, which nevertheless recognises the natural differences between men and women. According to the Prophet Muhammad, 'Men and women are the twin halves of each other'. In the West, women seek equality with men. In Islam, women seek compatibility.

A Muslim woman's status and rights are enshrined in the Quran and Sunnah tradition (traditions of the Prophet). But Muslim women's rights are also bound by local culture, traditions and customs. Practices such as forced marriage and female circumcision show how Islamic teachings (which condemn the former and do not advocate the latter) can be superseded by local influences.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, the inferior status of women began at birth when unwanted baby girls were buried alive. The Quran condemned female infanticide, declaring that a female birth should be celebrated as a blessing from God as much as a male one. The father of four daughters, Muhammad commented in various hadiths (Prophet's sayings) on the rewards in Paradise of raising many daughters as justly and equally as one's sons.

A female baby born into Islam is initiated into the world like a male newborn. The Azan (call to prayer) and Shahadah (declaration of faith) are whispered into her right ear. A piece of a chewed date is fed by a pious Muslim into her mouth. On the seventh day, the baby girl is formally named in Arabic and her hair shaved off (to symbolise new life in this world) with an equivalent weight of gold distributed to the poor.

On this day, the Aqiqah sacrifice is also performed. Some hadiths state that two animals (sheep, lamb or goat) should be sacrificed for a boy and one for a girl, with the meat eaten at a celebratory feast and distributed to the poor. Some Islamic scholars, however, believe that one sacrifice should be offered for every child, regardless of sex, in keeping with the egalitarian spirit of Islam.

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Women at prayer
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