What Islam Says About Women #3: Other Muslim Rules About Wives

Steve Morrison, Ph.D, director of research for Christian Answers. Steve is webmaster of our 3 websites: http://www.MUSLIMHOPE.COM, http://www.BIBLEQUERY.ORG & http://www.HISTORYCART.COM; has written 4 books on Islam: "Reliability of the Bible & Christianity vs. the Qur'an & Islam," "Answering Muslim Objections to Christianity," "Letting Islam Destroy Itself in a Muslim's Mind," & "Christian Dialoging with Muslims."

The religion of Islam makes very clear and definitive statements about women and their roles. While Muslim men are allowed to have up to 4 wives, Muslim women are not allowed to have 4 husbands but only one. Muslim scholar al-Ghazali (1058-1111 AD) cataloged a list of ways women are inferior to men in Islam, here are a few of them: women get lesser inheritance, women get liability to divorce & inability to divorce, the wife must stay secluded at home, a woman must keep her head covered inside the house, a woman's court testimony is only counted as half of a man's, a woman cannot leave the house unless accompanied by a near relative, only men can take part in Friday and feast day prayers & funerals, a woman cannot be a ruler or a judge, if a woman or a dog passes by while a Muslim is praying it makes the prayer invalid (Bukhari vol 1, no 486, p 289; Abu Dawud vol 1 no 702, 703, p 181; Ibn-i-Mejah vol 2, no 949-953, pp78-80), etc. Muhammad also thought that the majority of the dwellers of hell were women which had an impact on his teachings concerning them. This episode reveals how Islam allows Muslim husbands to beat their wives "like camels" to force wives into submission. Show #3 in a 3 part series.