Gender equality is an outcome of modern times which is progressively gaining social, political and legal significance, and is now assuming new dimensions. Are men and women equal? Who is superior: man or woman? Is woman an inferior being? These and many other questions are being constantly debated in the public domain. While they may seem to be diverse, these questions converge around a common theme: the issue of gender equality. Though secular law recognizes and protects the rights of women, yet the issue of gender justice continues to dominate legal thought and attract the attention of organizations working for the empowerment of women. Attempts are now being made to elevate their status by recognizing their rights. In fact, one can say with some confidence that in contemporary times, there hardly seems any law which favors men at the cost of women, while the reverse may be a possibility, viz., Article 15 (3) of the Constitution. Similarly, the Islamic legal system has also been sensitive towards gender-balanced reforms. However, it is now being labeled as a system which does not understand the position of women adequately, and consequently a Muslim woman’s condition is often portrayed as pathetic. Classical interpretations of Islamic law are seen as antiquated and unable to fulfil the needs of modern Muslim women. Slogans that Islam infringes on the rights of women and blocks all their ways towards liberation has become an accepted normative. The present paper is an attempt to analyze this normative understanding and in the process offer a more nuanced interpretation of Islamic legal system, especially on the gender question.

Islam lays great emphasis on the concept of equality. The Quran, which speaks of universal brotherhood, has promulgated the concept of equality in its own unique fashion. It says:

O mankind! reverence your Guardian-Lord,
who created you from a single person,
created, of like nature, His mate,
and from them twain scattered
(like seeds) countless men and women;
Reverence God, through whom
Ye demand your mutual (rights),
And (reverence) the wombs
(That bore you): for God
Ever watches over you.¹

The Quran, in clear terms, speaks that the Creator has created human beings from a single element and consequently they stand on equal footing. This negates inequalities in terms of caste, color, gender, nationality, tribe, status, etc. Besides this, the Creator commands to respect women. The mother that bears and the wife through whom one enters into parentage must always be revered. Sex, which governs so much of physical life and has so much influence on emotional and higher, deserves not fear or contempt or amused indulgence but reverence in the highest sense of the term.² The Quran teaches universal brotherhood. A corollary of brotherhood is equality.³

Law Review Journal, Judiciary, Gender Equality, Islam, Muslim women, Classical interpretations, Islamic law, Guardian-Lord, color, race, sex, nationality, tribe, status, Gender-balanced reforms, Gender Equality, Islam.