Mostly...

Mostly, I focused my attention on Qur’anic verses, traditions of the Prophet, and some ambiguous Shari’a rulings (code of law based on the Qur’an) that related to women. Some of my findings on Muslim women were either unfounded or misrepresented, or needed an analytical explanation.

I began to discover that simply reading the Qur’anic verses or shari’an laws at face value was an incomplete evaluation of their intended purpose, and that many of the injunctions were collocated by other related rulings. For example, in the law of Hodud and Qesas (the law of talion and physical punishment) a woman is valued half of a man in terms of her death dues. The law apparently signifies a woman’s life is worth less than that of a man’s.

But, one must recognize the law was based and dependent on the gender that was financially responsible for the livelihood of the family. If a woman were murdered and she had been the responsible party in sustaining her family then her death due would be based according to a man’s caliber. Islamic writings that are misleading or taken out of context continue to characterize the image that shadows Muslim women. In my research, I began unfolding many of the misconceptions I had accumulated.

Islam was not only a reverence about God, but also an institutionalized system that governed a community, both men and women alike, to function concordantly as a unit. Yet, there remained many issues that needed defining and many rulings that needed to be discussed. I, an average Muslim woman was unaware of all the Islamic rights that pertained to Muslim women. Muslim women had substantial political, social, and economic rights.

The subject of women in Islam needed to be discussed, explained, and written about. Throughout my independent studying, I tallied numerous inquiries and commentaries on the subject of women in Islam. I was fortunate to come across a scholar whose knowledge on Islam was not only profound, but also contemporary. I had known Sayyid Moustafa Al-Qazwini three years prior to my proposed offer to write a book on women’s rights in Islam.

I had attended his lectures, attentively listened to his interpretative views on Islam, and discussed Islamic matters with him. Sayyid Moustafa is a talented orator, but above all, he has a unique ability to discursively reason Islamic doctrines. He is a scholar with insight and sees beyond the technicalities of practicing Islamic rituals.