In Kuwait, the other close US ally in the oil-rich region, women didn’t get to vote until 2006.

In the Arab world — twenty-two nations totaling 280 million people — gender equity remains elusive. According to the 2005 United Nations Arab Human Development Report, “gender inequality is one of the main obstacles to development in the Arab region. The economic activity rate of Arab women remains the lowest in the world — 33 per cent vs. the world average of 56 per cent.”5

Despite their progress, Iranian women cannot shake hands with men in public. They cannot leave the country without the permission of the male head of the family. They face legal discrimination in marriage, divorce and child custody. Of the 195 articles of the 1981 constitution, 107 deal with sexual activities, affecting women far more than men.

In Africa, the application of sharia in Nigeria has had a disproportionate impact on women. In the Muslim-majority north, where some states have adopted Islamic law, women are targeted for moral transgressions and are sometimes condemned to lashes or, in isolated cases, to death by stoning. Such measures run counter not only to the Nigerian constitution but to Islamic jurisprudence.

Sadly, misogynist interpretations of Islam are not restricted to Nigeria or Afghanistan and Pakistan. In many Muslim lands, fidelity to faith is measured in delivering the harshest judgments on women, especially poor ones. Few errant princes are ever whipped.

THE QUR’AN AND WOMEN

The Qur’an does not single out Eve for blame but depicts Adam and Eve as equally responsible for sin. Eve is not the temptress. She is not responsible for the fall of humanity. The Biblical assertion that Eve was created from Adam’s rib also has no echo in the Qur’an.

The Qur’an “explicitly forbids depicting God as a figurative father,” writes Asma Barlas, leading American Islamic feminist. “Nor does it treat fathers or fatherhood as sacred. It does not say that males embody divine attributes and that women are by nature weak.”6 In that sense, the Qur’anic sensibility is post-feminist.

“Nowhere does the Qur’an state that one gender is superior to the other,” notes Canadian Islamic scholar Jamal Badawi of St. Mary’s University, Halifax, a prolific writer on contemporary Islamic issues. “Men and women have the same religious and moral duties and responsibilities.”7

In the Qur’an, Allah often addresses both men and women, ordains similar religious duties and makes it clear that women have the same claim to Paradise as men:

For Muslim men and for Muslim women

For men who believe and for women who believe

For men who obey and for women who obey

For men who speak the truth and for women who speak the truth

For men who persevere in righteousness and for women who persevere in righteousness

For men who are humble and for women who are humble

For men who give charity and for women who give charity

For men who fast and for women who fast