Islam gives unprecedented rights to women: scholars

Scholar says women are allowed to work and run business to earn money

LAHORE: Renowned scholar Dr Raghib Hussain Naeemi has said there was no sanction on women if they wanted to do job or business to earn money through fair means. Moreover, a man could not claim right on the money being earned by the women while women had right over the money earned by men.

He was addressing a seminar on Seerat and the status of women jointly organised by Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and PU Department of Gender Studies at Al Raazi Hall on Tuesday.

Dr Naeemi said that Islam has given unprecedented rights to the women and gave respect to them at the time in Arab society when girls were being buried alive. He said that in Islam, women were the shareholder in the wealth of both parents and husband and she had the right to choose her life partner. Hence, he said, we could see how much respect and rights had been given to women in Islam. He said that men were responsible to provide food, cloth etc to women but women were not responsible to feed men.

He said that the institution of the mosque was not performing the task which it should. "If the institution of mosque functions in an appropriate manner, most of our social problems would be solved."

Institute of Islamic Studies Director Dr Saad Siddiqui, former dean Dr Tahira Basharat, Dr Shahida Parveen, Department of Gender Studies Incharge Dr Raana Malik, faculty members and a large number of students attended the seminar.