There is an enormous amount of information and research work on Muslim women that is confused with culture and unsubstantiated. A big part of that confusion is that we no longer know what is genuinely Islamic and what is just culture. On top of that, we are constantly being fed images from media, films, drama, social media. People absorb those images, those fictional stories, and then think this is how real life must be. It is not. So, we end up with a distorted image of women.
I want to peel back all of these later layers and go back to the original image: the Qur’anic and prophetic image. Because what many of us have inherited from our families or absorbed from the media is not an accurate reflection of how Islam really views women.
Part of that journey means we have to compare the woman of today with the woman of previous times. Not to glorify the past blindly, but to see clearly where culture has overshadowed revelation. Islam gives one thing; culture often gives something else. When those two are mixed, you get confusion and, at times, injustice and oppression.
Between the divine call and the contemporary call
When we open the Qur’an, one thing becomes immediately clear. Allah does not normally address men and women as separate spiritual categories. Again and again, the Qur’an calls out:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا
“O you who believe.”
This address includes men and women together. There is no concept in the Qur’an of a “men’s religion” and a separate “women’s religion.” Spiritually, accountability and reward are shared.
Women are addressed separately only when the ruling or example is specific, such as the wives of the Prophet ﷺ, Maryam, or the wife of Firʿawn. These are exceptions, not the rule.
By contrast, the modern framing of “women’s issues” as a separate category comes from a different historical experience. It emerges from a civilisation that struggled deeply with the oppression of women and only recently began to articulate ideas of women’s rights. That framework was later imported into Muslim discourse, even though Allah did not speak in this way.
The Qur’an only addresses women separately when the ruling is exclusive to them. For example, the verses about the wives of the Prophet ﷺ (al Ahzab 33:32–34), or the verses about Maryam (Surat Al ʿImran 3:42–47), or the wife of Firʿawn (Surat al Tahrim 66:11). These are special cases, not the general rule. The default is that men and women are spiritually equal in accountability and equal in reward. Allah says:
“Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women… Allah has prepared for them all forgiveness and a great reward” (Surat al Ahzab 33:35).
This is very clear.
The contemporary call, on the other hand, comes out of a civilisation whose history with women is very different. Europe denied women property rights up to as late as the beginning of the twentieth century and this included education, legal personhood and religious authority. Only very recently did the West begin to talk seriously about women’s rights and liberation. And even now, the struggle with discrimination has not ended – whether it is discrimination against women, or against race, or against minorities. That struggle is still going on.
Islam spoke to these questions long before modern debates gave them new labels. The challenge today is that some of our discussions are shaped, sometimes unconsciously, by frameworks we’ve picked up from contemporary intellectual climates, which can then be read back into the Qur’an and Sunnah. That can create a tension between an approach that begins from the sources and an approach that begins from imported assumptions.
Between culture and a true return to Qur’an and Sunnah
At the same time, there is another extreme. Some Muslims insist, “We are only following Qur’an and Sunnah.” But when you examine their interpretation, it is saturated with local culture, patriarchal customs and centuries of inherited attitudes. They take verses and hadith about women, read them through that cultural lens, and then present their own cultural reading as “pure Islam.”
The average Muslim is then caught in the middle. He or she hears a verse or a hadith quoted, but the way it is explained is harsh, cold, sometimes even cruel. The person cannot digest it, yet they feel they cannot reject it either, because it has been wrapped in religious language. These are what I call the “two fires”: the fire of cultural rigidity on one side, and the fire of uncritical Westernisation on the other. Even if you jump away from one, you might fall into the other. And even the “lesser” fire still burns you.
This is why women are in between fundamentalism and revivalism. By fundamentalism here, I mean going back to the fundamentals – Qur’an and Sunnah. By revivalism, I mean the renewal of the deen in the Ummah. The Prophet ﷺ said:
“Allah will send to this ummah at the head of every century someone who will revive for it its religion” (Abu Dawud).
The hadith does not specify a gender. It could be a man, a woman, an individual a group. The point is: renewal is part of the life of this Ummah. But renewal does not mean throwing away the fundamentals. Real revival is built on the fundamental principles of Islam.
Some people try to create a false clash between the two. They speak as if “fundamentalism” is rigid, and “revivalism” is flexible. In reality, a self-styled revivalist who is not rooted in the Qur’an and Sunnah is just a reformer without guidance. And this is true also of a fundamentalist who refuses to revive the spirit of the deen becomes harsh and brutal. What we actually need is revival that is deeply anchored in revelation, while being alive and intelligent in dealing with our current reality.
The gift of understanding – and our crisis of passivity
Deep understanding is a gift from Allah. The Prophet ﷺ said:
“Whomever Allah wills good for, He grants him deep understanding of the religion” (Bukhari and Muslim)
Without understanding, someone can act with sincerity, but still act wrongly. Allah says about such people:
“Those whose effort is lost in this worldly life while they think that they are doing good work” (al Kahf 18:103–104).
We’re living in an age where many Muslims have outsourced their thinking. Instead of engaging, questioning, and building, they allow others to decide what is true, what is valuable, and how their faith should be understood. We become consumers of everything — information, entertainment, technology, even ideas, while gradually losing the habit of producing, creating, and leading.
Dependence is not power. Real strength is not needing others for your most basic needs. Real strength is when others rely on you. If the systems we depend on disappeared tomorrow, how many of us would actually know how to function independently?
Part of restoring the correct image of women in Islam is also about waking up as an Ummah. We have to learn to ask the right questions, to investigate properly, to distinguish between being cautious and being rude. You do not slander scholars, but you also do not swallow everything uncritically.
Integration, identity, and how men and women interacted
Another word that confuses people is “integration.” For some, integration means you dissolve completely into the wider culture – you dress the same, eat the same, think the same, adopt the same values. You become tasteless, colourless, no identity left. That is not what Islam calls us to. The beauty of a multicultural society is precisely that there are different colours, different flavours, different identities, all contributing something good.
Integration from an Islamic perspective means: you participate, you contribute, but you do not lose your Islamic identity. You keep your values, your modesty, your beliefs intact. Some people use “integration” as an excuse to let their children roam without boundaries. Others take the opposite extreme and cut off completely, refusing even to learn the language properly. Both extremes are harmful.
The same kind of confusion exists around men–women interaction. Even the term “free mixing” has become loaded. If you look at the seerah (biography of the Prophet ﷺ ), you will see that at the time of the Prophet ﷺ, men and women did interact in public spaces: in the masjid, in the market, in lessons, in battlefields in terms of nursing and support. But it was with haya (modesty), with adab (etiquettes), with clear boundaries. Not complete isolation, and not western-style boundary-less interaction. So the real question is not “is interaction allowed?” but “how is it done, under what rules, with what intention?”
Culture wrapped as deen – and how the Prophet ﷺ dealt with it
Another big issue is that many cultural practices have been wrapped in an Islamic wrapper. They are purely cultural but they are sold to people as “This is Islam.” This happens in Arab cultures, in South Asian cultures, African cultures, everywhere. Islam does not cancel culture. It refines it. The Prophet ﷺ accepted cultural practices that were in line with Islamic values, corrected others, and rejected those that were harmful or unjust.
When we come to women’s issues, this mixing becomes very dangerous. Practices that have nothing to do with Qur’an and Sunnah are imposed on women as if they are obligatory parts of the deen. Our job is to unwrap this: to separate what Allah said and what the Prophetﷺ did and from the stories of what happened in our grandparents’ village.
Quranic role models of womanhood
If we really want to see how Islam views women, we have to look at the women Allah chose to mention in the Qur’an. These are not ordinary women. They are presented as examples for all believers, men and women.
Maryam (may Allah be pleased with her) faced isolation, accusations, and the miracle of giving birth without a husband. Yet her response was sabr (patience) and tawakkul (reliance on Allah). Asiyah, the wife of Firʿawn, lived under the rule of one of the worst tyrants in human history, but her heart was free. Her duʿaʾ is recorded for us:
“My Lord, build for me near You a house in Paradise” (Surat al Tahrim 66:11)
The mother of Musa (peace be upon him) was commanded to do something that goes against every motherly instinct: to put her baby into a river. She obeyed, and Allah says:
“So We restored him to his mother so that her eye may be cooled and she would not grieve” (Surat al Qasas 28:13)
Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba, shows us a different side: political intelligence, consultation, and humility. When the truth became clear through Sulayman (peace be upon him), she did not cling to power out of ego. She submitted to Allah (Surat al Naml 27:42–44).
Thus, when we talk about “the Muslim woman,” these are the kinds of examples the Qur’an gives us: courage, intellect, leadership, faith, sacrifice. Not weak, voiceless, decorative beings.
One root, one origin: no space for superiority narratives
A central verse for this whole discussion on women and gender is at the beginning of Surat al Nisaʾ:
“O mankind, be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a single soul (nafs wahida), and from it created its mate, and from the two spread countless men and women. And have taqwa (obedience) towards Allah.” (Surat al Nisaʾ 4:1).
This verse is foundational. It destroys any claim that one gender is inherently superior to the other. Men and women come from the same root. They are two parts of one whole.
The Prophet ﷺ echoed this when he said:
“All of you are from Adam, and Adam is from dust.” (Tirmidhi)
So what differentiates people? Allah tells us very clearly:
“Indeed, the most honourable of you in the sight of Allah is the one with the most taqwa. (Surat al Hujurat 49:13).
Not male or female. Not Arab or non, Arab. Not white or black. It is taqwa, which is obedience to God that is the distinguishing factor.
Now, one verse is often pulled out and misused:
“And men have a degree (darajah) over them” (al Baqarah 2:228).
When you snatch this half of an ayah out of its context, you can use it to claim male superiority. But the Qur’an doesn’t work like that. You have to read verses together. The scholars link this darajah (degree or level) to another verse:
“Men are qawwamun (protectors and maintainers) over women” (Surat al Nisaʾ 4:34).
What is this “degree”? It is a degree of responsibility, not a medal of superiority. It is the extra burden of financial and legal responsibility placed on men in the family structure. It is not a certificate that says, “You are better as a human being.”
If that verse meant superiority, then how do we understand the Prophet’s words:
“The best of you is the best to his family” (Tirmidhi).
Or the famous hadith where a man asks, “Who is most deserving of my good companionship?” and the Prophet ﷺ replies, “Your mother,” three times before mentioning the father once (Bukhari). Or his statement:
“Women are the twin halves (shaqa’iq) of men” (Abu Dawud).
When you put everything together – the verses, the hadith, the seerah – you see harmony and complementarity, not competition and hierarchy.
How advanced the Qur’anic vision really is
People were celebrating a few years ago when a Black American became president, as if now racism has finally been defeated. Yet 1400 years ago, on the plain of ʿArafat, the Prophet ﷺ already declared:
“No Arab is superior to a non, Arab, and no non, Arab to an Arab; no white to a black, and no black to a white – except by taqwa” (Musnad Ahmad).
Islam closed this door a long time ago. The Qur’an and Sunnah set down principles that, if we lived by them, would remove racism, tribalism, and sexism from their roots.
The confusion we have today is not because there is something wrong with Islam. The confusion is because we have drifted away from the clarity of revelation. We replaced Qur’an and Sunnah with a mixture of culture and Western ideology, and then wondered why everything feels contradictory.
When we come back to Allah’s guidance, we rediscover a vision of womanhood that is full of dignity, purpose, spiritual equality and moral responsibility. Only the Creator truly knows the nature of His creation. Only He can assign her a status that fits her reality. Islam’s view of women is not an afterthought. It is not a defensive reaction to feminism or modern politics. It is a divine view that was there from the beginning.
When we embrace that vision, we rise above the anxieties and tensions of modern debates. When we neglect it, even without intending to, we inevitably fall into confusion.
In the next article, we will look more closely at specific verses, hadith, and real historical examples that show how Islam truly honours women, and how far some of our cultures have drifted from that beautiful standard.
Based on the talk delivered by Shaykh Haytham Tamim ‘All about Eve”.