WOMEN IN ISLAM: SELF-PORTRAIT AND THE VIEW WITHOUT
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.71105/Keywords:
Islam, Muslim woman, Quran, Hadiths, Woman’s rightsAbstract
This article is a rejoinder to Uko’s perception of the Muslim woman as presented in her Inaugural Lecture entitled The Feminine Ontology and the African Reality: Changing Dynamics in an Evolving Society. Through textual analysis, the article draws facts from the Holy Quran, the Hadiths of Prophet Muhammad, and essays by Muslim men and women to refute Uko’s onesided view of the Muslim woman, and to also present her position as islamically baseless. The article also argues that there is a difference between the manmade laws, as we obtain in our secular systems today, and God’s laws as laid down in His Books (The Bible and the Quran). Individual misconduct cannot be blamed on God or His Prophets, like in El Saadawi’s God dies by the Nile, which Uko quotes often in her work. Men and women have equal rights and duties in Islam, as shown in the Quran, the Hadiths of Prophet Muhammad, and attested by educated Muslim men and women. Ignorance of one’s rights necessarily leads to victimization.
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