Women's Rights in Muslim Laws: A Resource Document

Women‘s Rights in Muslim Laws was created by BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights in Nigeria, whose projects against culturally-justified violence against women (CVAW) are part of the WELDD programme.

The objective of the publication of Women‘s Rights in Muslim Laws is to provide accurate information about the variety of laws in Muslim societies. These laws, despite their considerable diversity, may all claim legitimacy from Islam, from fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence or legal thinking) and thus to be Sharia (Muslim laws).

The book has been structured to lay out a range of the laws that directly affect women, their specific Quranic context and they way in which they are interpreted in various Muslim countries. For easy reference this is presented in four columns. In the first column is a brief description of the law and its Quranic context. For example one of the surahs or verse that pertains directly to the practice of polygyny, the marriage of a man to more than one woman at a time, is verse 4:3. The subsequent three columns describe the various ways in which the particular law is interpreted in different countries. The columns progress in what can be described as a decreasing level of desirability or the best option as opposed to the least.

To read the full resource, please download the pdf.