Toward the Full Inclusion of Muslim Women in the Ummah

Abstract

This paper outlines some of the challenges that prevent Muslim women from becoming full members of the Ummah. Although we often hear of the rights of"women in ]slam'' in the abstract,1 we must know the specifics to improve the lives of Muslim women in reality. This paper tries to provide those specifics. It does not analyze the items, since the issues covered are many and disparate; rather, it simply highlights some concerns so that qual­ified practitioners can discuss and debate remedies. The bulk of this paper's main concern is to address some of the obstacles that hamper efforts to alleviate these challenges. The first section presents the list of challenges, while the second sec­tion discusses these obstacles. The paper concludes with a series of proposals intended to assuage the listed problems. Therefore, its focus is on more broad-based remedies rather than a specific remedy for a specific problem. The paper's underlying assump­tions are that women should be fully included in the Ummah and that this is not the case now. To make this clear, a definition of "full inclusion in the Ummah" is given before the paper proceeds to listing the challenges ...