Gender equality or gender justice?

When people argue about women and religion, a great deal depends on what “equality” means. In much modern policy language, and in a liberal tradition running from John Stuart Mill to Susan Moller Okin and Martha Nussbaum, equality means sameness: men and women should have identical rights and roles, and any rule that treats them differently is presumed unfair. Many Muslim scholars prefer another vocabulary, justice (ʿadl) and equity (qist), meaning giving each person what is due to them, which is not always the same thing.

The paper separates equal worth from identical function. On worth, it argues, the Qur'an is explicit: men and women come “from one soul” (4:1), “you are of one another” (3:195), believing men and women are promised the same forgiveness and reward (33:35), and the measure of honour is taqwa, or God-consciousness, not gender (49:13). A hadith calls women “the counterparts (twin halves) of men”. Where the law does treat them differently, mainly in the family, the authors argue the differences are tied to responsibility, not superiority, and should be read through the maqasid al-shari'ah, the higher aims of Islamic law such as protecting life, family and dignity. On that reading, any practice that leads to coercion or harm goes against the law's own purposes.

Two case studies carry the argument. On inheritance, the paper notes that the “two to one” rule of 4:11 applies only in certain family situations; citing Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, it says women sometimes inherit equally, sometimes more, and sometimes when a comparable male relative receives nothing. A woman's inheritance stays her own, while a man must pay dower and support his wife, children and, when needed, his parents. On qiwamah, the role of men as “maintainers/protectors” in 4:34, the authors read the verse alongside the Qur'an's description of marriage as affection and mercy (30:21) and the command to “live with them in kindness” (4:19). They describe it as responsibility-based leadership tied to providing for the family, within a wider web of care from father to husband to son, and point to the hadith that names the mother first as most deserving of good companionship. Engaging Muslim feminist writers such as Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas and Fatima Mernissi, they too separate revelation from patriarchal cultural practice.

The authors conclude that Islamic ethics can give strong protection to women's dignity and rights without adopting a “sameness” model, provided men's responsibilities are actually enforced and harmful applications are rejected.