Huqooq al-Mara fi Dawa al-Sunna al-Nabawiyya
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- Dar Al-Hadara Lil-Nashr Wa Al-Tawzi'
Huqooq al-Mara fi Dawa al-Sunna al-Nabawiyya (Women’s Rights in Light of the Prophetic Sunnah) is a specialized contemporary legal and hadith study by Nawal al-Eid, dedicated to examining the status and rights of women in Islamic law through the evidence of the Prophetic Sunnah .
Purpose and Scope
The author wrote the work to establish a rigorous legal and scriptural grounding for women's rights derived from the Quran and authentic Prophetic traditions, seeking to distinguish authentic Islamic teachings from both Westernizing discourses and rigid cultural customs . The study aims to educate Muslim women about their rights, provide practical mechanisms for securing them, examine contemporary issues with evidence-based legal weighting (tarjih), and dismantle common misconceptions raised regarding women's status in Islam while critiquing the condition of women in Western society .
Structure and Contents
The book consists of an introduction, a preliminary study (tamhid), four major parts (abwab), a conclusion, and analytical indices :
- Preliminary Section: Covers the historical status of women in ancient civilizations (such as China, India, and Persia), the position of Arab women during the pre-Islamic Jahiliyyah (including female infanticide, marriage, divorce, and financial rights), and a conceptual grounding of rights and the differentiation of duties between men and women .
- Part One: Religious and Legal Rights: Contains seven chapters addressing women’s full legal capacity (ahliyyat al-taklif) and equality in criminal penalties (hudud) and otherworldly reward; rights in acts of worship including purification, congregational prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage; the right to migration (hijrah); the right to education; the authority to issue legal opinions (fatwa); participation in preaching (da'wah); and refutations of misinterpretations surrounding specific Quranic verses and hadiths .
- Part Two: Political Rights: Comprises seven chapters discussing the pledge of allegiance (bay'ah) and its forms; holding authorities accountable (ihtisab); granting asylum and protection (ijarah); women’s involvement in warfare (jihad); judicial authority; assumption of public office (al-wilayat al-'ammah); and membership in consultative councils (majlis al-shura) .
- Part Three: Financial Rights: Covers six chapters detailing the marital gift (mahr or sadaq); mandatory financial maintenance (nafaqah) for relatives and spouses under various circumstances; inheritance and responses to doubts concerning female shares; financial contracts; shares in war spoils (ghanimah); and compensation for injury (diyah) .
- Part Four: Social Rights: Contains five chapters examining rights as mothers, daughters, and wives (including marital intimacy, protection against unlawful marriage arrangements, and child custody); regulations governing female employment outside the domestic sphere; and responses to polemics surrounding marital guardianship (qiwamah), disciplinary measures, polygyny, and divorce .
The book closes with general conclusions, practical recommendations, and indices for verses, hadiths, bibliography, and detailed subjects .
Methodological Approach
The author adopted specific conventions to structure her legal analysis: chapters detailing universally acknowledged entitlements are titled "The Woman's Right to..." (Haqq al-mar'ah fi...), whereas disputed legal matters are phrased as "Woman and..." (Al-mar'ah wa...) . The work systematically documents textual evidence alongside interpretations from classical Quranic commentators and hadith scholars, presents divergent juristic opinions with their proofs, and determines the preferred opinion with explicit justifications, paying particular attention to rulings that incorporate leniency (takhfif) for women .
In hadith criticism, the author avoids relying on weak (da'if) reports unless cited to analyze a specific jurist's argument, explicitly noting the weakness in such cases . Traditions recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim are referenced directly, whereas narrations from other compendia undergo systematic chain evaluation (takhrij), verification of narrators, and documentation of early authorities' judgments . Misconceptions are grouped and tackled either directly following relevant rights or at the end of parts, frequently incorporating statistical data and quotations from Western authors .
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