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Women's Rights in Islam

"Women are your fields: go, then, into your fields whence you please." (Quran 2:223)

"Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other... Good women are obedient. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, forsake them in beds apart, and beat them." (Quran 4:34)

"In Saudi Arabia, the law strictly bans a woman from mixing with men unrelated to her by blood or marriage." --Raed Rafei, LA Times

We hear so much these days about the rights of women within Islam. Following is a list of the fabulous and amazing rights Muslim women possess! This list is based on the Saudi Arabian version of Islam (Wahhabism), which strictly follows the teachings of the Koran, Mohammed, etc., and which is being spread all over the world largely because of oil riches. The Arabian peninsula is where Islam arose, and the Saudis consider themselves the keepers of true Islam. Others adhering to similar "religious" female enslavement and oppression include the Iranians, Afghanis and Pakistanis.

• Muslim women have the right never to associate or even speak to a man who is not related to them by genetics or marriage.
• Muslim women have the right to be beaten if they associate with unrelated men.
• Muslim women have the right to be segregated based on their gender.
• Muslim women have the right to be enslaved by a man they don't love, forced into "arranged marriages" at a young age, against their wills.
• Muslim women have the right to call their enslaver "husband."
• Muslim women have the right to obey their enslavers/husbands.
• Muslim women have the right to endure regular beatings by their husbands.
• Muslim women have the right to reproduce continually after forced into an
  arranged marriage and raped against their wills by their "husbands."
• Muslim women have the right to be denied divorce from violent and abusive husbands.
• Muslim women have the right to lose their children if their husbands divorce
  them.
• Muslim women have the right not to marry a non-Muslim.
• Muslim women have the right to be beaten if they don't cover themselves up.
• Muslim women have the right to stay out the life-giving sunshine by being forced
  to cover up.
• Muslim women have the right to become deficient in vitamin D and develop
  osteomalacia from sunshine-deprivation.
• Muslim women have the right to dress in black so they become overheated in the
  hot desert sun of Arab countries.
• Muslim women have the right not to be educated. (Pakistan, Afghanistan)
• Muslim women have the right never to operate a car. 
• Muslim women have the right never to leave their houses without a male relative accompanying them.
• Muslim women have the right to be gang-raped if they are caught alone on the
  street.
• Muslim women have the right to be stoned or hanged for being raped.
• Muslim women have the right to be brutally murdered for "dishonoring" their families.
• Muslim women have the right to be murdered for leaving Islam.
• Muslim women have the right to have their genitals cut off.* 

Those are the Islamic women's rights! Yes, indeed, what fun to be a woman in the Muslim world!

* Although it is cited as a "cultural tradition," female genital mutilation is taught as an Islamic mandate in many Muslim areas, including rural Egypt, where nearly 100% of women and girls have had this barbaric act committed against them. Some 150 million females worldwide, most of them in Muslim countries, have likewise been assaulted and battered in this vile manner.

Sources and Recommended Reading

"Elderly woman to be lashed for mingling with men," LA Times, 3/11/09
One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law
How Saudi Women Celebrate International Women's Day
A Day in the Life of a Saudi Woman
Islam Hates Women
Thousands of girls in Britain have suffered genital mutilation
Muslim Women in U.S. Struggle with Freedom
The Koran