Islam and Women's Rights and Dignity

What is Islam's perspective on women? Why do critics believe that women's rights and dignity in most Muslim countries are less than those in Western countries where most citizens are Christian? Do conservative and traditional scholars believe that Islam grants fair rights to women and men according to their nature and social status? Or, as equality advocates argue, do traditional scholars only recognize rights and dignity for women that are appropriate for the present century after equality activists and women seeking improvement have collectively demanded them? How much have the efforts of reformist Muslims, known as religious intellectuals, advanced the goals of equality-seeking women and how far have they strayed from the demands of such women? I am with you on the eve of Tuesday, March 8, International Women's Day, corresponding to Esfand 18, with these questions from Hassan Yousefi Eshkouri, a religious scholar in Bonn, Germany, and Nasrin Sotoudeh, a lawyer and equality advocate in Tehran. Mr. Yousefi Eshkouri, since the discussion is about Islam and women, let’s start with you. The basis of religious teachings regarding Islam's view on women includes verses like 'Men are the protectors of women,' which is generally interpreted as men's rights and status being superior to that of women. Additionally, there are rulings that in many cases consider a daughter's inheritance or blood money and a woman's testimony to be half that of a male. How is it that in Islam, the natural differences between men and women have led to legal, social, and economic inequalities even in the 21st century? Hassan Yousefi Eshkouri: We need to separate two issues. One is the issue of human equality in the Quran and the other is the issue of legal inequality in the Quran. If we consider the Quran in terms of these verses and their apparent interpretations, we see both types of verses, which seem to contradict each other. As far as human equality is concerned, it relates to the essence of humanity and the creation of Adam; there is not a single verse in the Quran that indicates gender discrimination between men and women, but there are numerous verses that indicate the human equality of men and women. However, at the same time, in the Quran, where the so-called verses of rulings are, we see that there is legal inequality. Of course, this does not only pertain to gender inequality between men and women; there is also legal inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims, believers and non-believers, and so on. This legal inequality must be understood in the historical context of the conditions and necessities of the time because we know that rights are a formulation of the realities of the time. Ms. Sotoudeh, as a lawyer, can explain better; rights are not necessarily a matter of value. Of course, every legal system at any time should take steps toward equality and justice, and if a legal system has done this in its time, it can receive a positive score. But in legal systems and regulations, the ideal and aspiration of justice is never realized. Justice is also relative in both concept and examples. Legal inequality, including gender inequality, exists in the Quran, but the fact that you mentioned it has persisted into the 21st century is unfortunately because our scholars have continued to view these verses of rulings like other verses and interpret them as timeless, without considering the realities of the time, failing to look at the Quran historically, and consequently misunderstanding these verses. They interpret verses that were not meant to be eternal as eternal rulings today. Ms. Sotoudeh, this critique and perspective of religious intellectuals like Mr. Yousefi Eshkouri has been prevalent in Iran for over five decades, and one can even trace this historical perspective on Islamic rights back to the Constitutional Revolution. To what extent has this perspective provided the necessary religious, cultural, and value-based groundwork for equality advocates like you, and how far is it still from the critiques of those defending the equality of rights and dignity of women and men? Nasrin Sotoudeh: Although when I realized that Mr. Yousefi Eshkouri was participating in the program with his progressive and enlightened thoughts, I thought it would completely prevent any disagreement between us, I still welcome that we have once again reached the conclusion that the best way is for individuals and various social groups to understand that the priority of defending their rights lies with themselves. This includes women as well. In the solid analysis he provided regarding the difference between human equality and legal equality, I want to say that when we talk about human equality, it has an external and objective counterpart. This external and objective counterpart immediately manifests itself in laws. We can never say that we consider you equal in an abstract and mental realm, but in the real world, a large part of what occurs places us in unequal conditions as men and women or children and adults, etc. This is something that women in human society today do not accept, and of course, we are facing a major problem and challenge in Iran. While our lawmakers claim that they have enacted these laws based on Islamic Sharia, which are discriminatory in many cases, we do not have the right to enter discussions about Sharia. The reason is that the only discussion that these individuals consider specialized is related to Sharia. Although I know Mr. Yousefi does not agree with this view, I am referring to the problem we face in Iran, while we are prohibited from entering the intellectual foundation that leads to such discrimination in our society, a structure is being built on this way of thinking that is not habitable for us. Therefore, when we talk about human equality, we must certainly define the rights and their external counterparts. Secondly, we never consider rights separately from responsibilities. In all cases where the responsibilities of women and girls are discussed, not only are responsibilities assumed for them, but in many cases, their responsibilities are considered even greater. A very clear example of this is the age of criminal responsibility, where girls reach criminal responsibility at the age of 9 and boys at the age of 15. Thank you for providing a case and example. Let me pose the next question to Mr. Yousefi Eshkouri. According to Western sociologists and historians, the rights that Islam recognized for women during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad, for example, in terms of ownership, inheritance, and custody, were much more advanced than the rights that Christianity granted to Christian women until just a century and a half ago. What has happened in the past 150 years, Mr. Yousefi Eshkouri, that countries with a Christian majority have quickly surpassed Muslim countries in improving women's rights and dignity, according to equality advocates? Hassan Yousefi Eshkouri: First, let me refer to my previous point that Ms. Sotoudeh also mentioned. You see, when I spoke of human equality, I referred to a historical difference. The fact is that if you look at the last three or four thousand years, two opinions have always existed. One dominant view has been that men and women are fundamentally distinct in their human essence. Some even argued that women were not created as humans at all. Even during the Qajar era, someone like Haji Molla Hadi Sabzevari and earlier philosophers like Mulla Sadra held such views. They believed that God created women in the form of humans to be pleasing to men, and then intercourse would occur, leading to reproduction. They understood the philosophy of women's existence in this way. For this reason, I pointed out that the issue of the creation of women and men in the Quran is equal, and there is no discrimination in this regard. However, the humanity of humans, whether male or female, must be defined by social and objective determinations; there is no doubt about that. The precise point I was making is that rights and legal relationships, laws, and regulations are always temporal and spatial. They are never ideal. Right now, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes human equality in Articles 1 and 2. Twenty-eight articles also attempt to show its manifestations. This is on paper. But even now, in Europe and the West, where this declaration was written and most countries have ratified it, including the Islamic Republic, you see that in none of these countries, of course, compared to all of these, it is not at the level of ideals. Mr. Yousefi Eshkouri, for this reason, I posed the next question to you about how Western countries have advanced. Hassan Yousefi Eshkouri: Now, I will say this; I actually wanted to return to your question, which you rightly pointed out. The reality is that today, Westerners say this, and many researchers, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, who have conducted historical research show and can demonstrate with objective examples that this is not for the sake of promoting or defending Islam; as a historical researcher, I can say that it can be shown with examples that at the time of Islam, despite the legal rights and consequences of the time having no direct relation to Islam, there were laws and regulations in pre-Islamic Arabia that Islam amended and reformed, taking a step forward. Not that it was justice. It can be said that Islam made a fundamental reform regarding women's rights and issues in fourteen areas. These were times when Islamic countries were somewhat more progressive than the West. However, in the West, I believe it goes back a little to Western philosophical foundations, returning to Greek philosophy, Hellenistic culture, the age of humanism and the Renaissance, and later religious reform movements. One is this, and the other is that in the West, there is no rigid Sharia like Islamic Sharia. In Islam, Sharia does not have such power. We Muslims have also been in decline since the seventh or eighth century. They have advanced, and we have declined. Therefore, even now, in the 21st century, we Muslims are in a historical decline. In this regard, we are today further behind than in the early days of Islam. We have fallen behind since the second or third century, not only from the West. Ms. Sotoudeh, religious intellectuals believe, as you heard from Mr. Yousefi Eshkouri, that historical and social issues are involved, and this famous couplet that 'Islam itself has no faults; all faults are from our being Muslim' is emphasized by these religious intellectuals. However, to what extent does this belief facilitate the demands of those defending the equality of rights and dignity of women, and to what extent is this belief an obstacle to equality-seeking programs? Nasrin Sotoudeh: Before I say whether a way of thinking can be an obstacle to achieving women's demands, let me point out that women have demands that they have clearly articulated over the years. If civil society and the pioneers of this issue can solve these crises, that would be great. There is no problem in this regard. However, what we see are two issues. Either there is no will to resolve Sharia in favor of women's rights in a country like ours because every argument and evidence we present does not lead to changes in related laws, or we see in other societies that, while they are considered Islamic societies, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, they perform much better than Iran in many cases. I even point out our neighboring Islamic country, Afghanistan, where there is no unequal blood money between men and women. Can anyone claim that they are essentially a non-Islamic country? I don't think such a claim can be made easily. However, in this area, as Mr. Yousefi mentioned, it is a function of the conditions of time and place, and I completely agree with him. As you can see, the history of laws regarding women’s judgment in Iran shows that a law was passed in 1923 in Iran that did not consider being male as a condition for judgment. However, this law never found the opportunity for implementation until 1969. The first group of women to receive such a decree in Iran's judicial history was in 1969, and after that, many women entered the judicial arena. All of this, with the law passed in 1979, turned their judicial rank into an administrative rank. But I will flash back to the months coinciding with the Iranian Revolution. In August 1978, when the Iranian Revolution was taking shape, job advertisements for judges were published in public newspapers that, for the first time in perhaps five decades, set the condition for judges' employment as being male. After that, following the law regarding judges' conditions that occurred in 1981... I want to say that laws have very, very slowly returned to this side, bringing women back to some judicial positions. If you examine all of these over a century in Iran, alongside the beginning of the work of secular judiciary, you will see that the judgment of women has been subject to social and political conditions. Governments have recognized this whenever social movements distanced themselves from women's rights and positioned it as a kind of opposition to the government; governments have tried to recognize it in line with these demands whenever women could advance their demands and announce them everywhere.