Women's Human Rights in the Koran: An Interpretive Approach

This article discusses three different Islamic approaches towards human rights, secular, non-compatible, and reconciliatory, and proposes an interpretive approach. It argues that if the discriminatory statutory Islamic laws of Muslim states are reformed according to the suggested contextual interpretation of the Koran, greater compatibility with international human rights standards may be achieved, specifically in contentious areas such as divorce, polygamy, evidence, and inheritance. The thrust of the article is that the intention of the Koran was to raise the status of women in society, not to relegate them to subordination as is commonly believed and practiced in much of the Muslim world today.