5. Women Were Not Created of Inferior Celestial Material
6. Eve Is Not Blamed for the Fall from Eden, Nor Are Women Guilty by Association
7. Women Are Not a Constant Source of Social Discord– Nor Naturally Conniving!
8. Women Were Created with the Exact Same Spiritual and Intellectual Capacity as Men, So of Course They Can Lead
9. When Men Deprive Women of Their Free Will, They Are Not Protecting Anyone: They Are Obstructing God’s Plan
10. God Does Not Prefer Sons Over Daughters (!)
AT A GLANCE: The Nature of Women
Part III The Rights of Women
11. Women Were Not Meant to Be Subordinate to Men
12. Inheritance: No, Women Did Not Get the Short End of the Stick
13. Nuptials: Women Do Have the Right to Choose Their Own Spouse, and How the Qur’anic Nuptial Agreement Advocates for the Bride
14. Marriage: A Sublime Institution, Not Mere Social Contract
15. Divorce: Men Do Not Hold all the Cards – The Qur’an Actually Levels the Playing Field Through Mandated Process and Etiquette
AT A GLANCE: The Rights of Women
Part IV Some Inconvenient Truths
16. Clothing: There Is No Dress Code for Women Beyond Covering their Private Parts, as with Men
17. Segregation: There Is No Restriction on Men and Women Mingling
18. Witnesses: A Woman’s Testimony Is Worth the Same as a Man’s, Except in Two Cases Where It May Count for More or Less
AT A GLANCE: Some Inconvenient Truths
Part V Carnal Matters
19. Sexual Misconduct: What the Qur’an Tells Us About Pre-Marital vs Extra-Marital Sex
20. Domestic Violence: The Qur’an Does Not Instruct Husbands to Hit Their Wives for “Disobedience” or Anything Else
21. Virgins: There Are No 72 Virgins Waiting for Anyone in Paradise
AT A GLANCE: Carnal Matters
Leena El-Ali is an international affairs, development, and investment professional with three decades of experience in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, entrepreneurship, and emerging market finance.
In this comprehensive open access book, written for readers from any or no religious background, Leena El-Ali does something remarkable. Never before has anyone taken on every last claim relating to Islam and women and countered it not just with Qur’anic evidence to the contrary, but with easy-to-use tools available to all. How can a woman’s testimony be worth half of a man’s? How can men divorce their wives unilaterally by uttering three words? And what’s with the obsession with virgins in Paradise? Find the chapter on any of the seventeen topics in this book, and you will quickly learn a) where the myth came from and b) how to bust it.
The methodology pursued is simple. First, the Qur’an is given priority over all other literary or “scriptural” sources. Second, the meaning of its verses in the original Arabic is highlighted, in contrast to English translations and/or widespread misunderstanding or misinterpretation.