Women And The Koran: The Status Of Women In Islam

Book Summary

This controversial book exposes the origins and history of Islam's repression of women. Anwar Hekmat, a scholar who was brought up in Muslim Europe, explains how Arab tribal society degenerated from a polytheistic, pre-Islamic culture in which women enjoyed positions of relative prestige, honor, and equality, to one in which men dominate and women are little more than chattel. Hekmat analyzes the plight of women in Muslim society. He looks critically at marriage and divorce laws that give men all the advantages; the prevalence of polygamy; the use of concubines; the severe punishments imposed on women for adultery; legal acceptance of wife beating; and laws requiring women to be veiled in public or confined to the house.

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