A Com­par­i­son of Women in the Qur’an and the Bible

Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi

Chris­tians claim that the cur­rent equal­i­ty of women now enjoyed by Chris­t­ian women came from the Bible, and that Islam is cru­el towards women. Below are the com­par­isons of issues on women between the Bible and the Qur’an I leave it to you to decide which Book is the one which tru­ly gives free­dom to women and ele­vate their sta­tus and which Book is the hyp­o­crit­i­cal one.

1. The Bible con­victs women as the orig­i­nal sin­ners (i.e. Eve pick­ing from the for­bid­den tree) (Gen­e­sis 2:4 – 3:24)

The Qur’an clar­i­fies that it was both Adam and Eve at fault, equal­ly. For exam­ple, in Sura’ al-Baqarah, Allaah says :

fa aza­l­laHU­MAA ash-shay­Taan..” mean­ing And Satan caused them (DUAL) to err..” 

The same is found in Qur’an 7:19 – 25 where­in it says :

fa-waswasa laHU­MAA ash-shay­Taan..” mean­ing So Satan whis­pered to them (DUAL)”.

Both the man and woman were equal­ly to blame. Thus, in Islam there is equi­ty in rights as well as blame.

2. The Bible says the birth of a daugh­ter is a loss”. (Eccle­si­as­ti­cus 22:3)
The Qur’an says both are an equal bless­ing (Qur’an 42:49)

3. The Bible for­bids women from speak­ing in church (I Corinthi­ans 14:34 – 35)
The Qur’an says women can argue with the Prophet (Qur’an 58:1)

4. In the Bible, divorced Women are labeled as an adul­ter­ess, not men (Matthew 5:31 – 32)
The Qur’an does not have Bib­li­cal dou­ble stan­dards (Qur’an 30:21)

5. In the Bible, wid­ows and sis­ters do not inher­it any prop­er­ty or wealth, only men do (Num­bers 27:1 – 11)
The Qur’an abol­ished this male greed­i­ness (Qur’an 4:22) and God pro­tects all.

6. The Bible allows mul­ti­ple wives. (I Kings 11:3)
In the Qur’an God lim­its the num­ber to 4 only under cer­tain sit­u­a­tions (with the wife’s per­mis­sion) and prefers that you mar­ry only one wife (Qur’an 4:3). The Qur’an gives the woman the right to choose who to marry.

NOTE : Nowhere in the Bible does it for­bid polygamy, or says that the male must mar­ry one woman. Sin­gle mar­riage is a Gre­co-Roman tra­di­tion — one of the many influ­ences on the true teach­ings of Jesus. Jesus lived for 33 years among a nation that prac­ticed polygamy and he nev­er pro­hib­it­ed, nor even ever talked about it in his teachings.

7. If a man hap­pens to meet a vir­gin who is not pledged to be mar­ried and rapes her and they are dis­cov­ered, he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of sil­ver. He must mar­ry the girl, for he has vio­lat­ed her. He can nev­er divorce her as long as he lives” (Deuteron­o­my 22:28 – 30)

One must ask a sim­ple ques­tion here, who is real­ly pun­ished, the man who raped the woman or the woman who was raped ? Accord­ing to the Bible, you have to spend the rest of your life with the man who raped you, and there­fore had obvi­ous­ly low morals.

How­ev­er, even before the mar­riage women in Islam are giv­en right to choose their hus­band, and they can even reject if they are forced to mar­ry some­body. In a hadith nar­rat­ed by Aisha’, the Prophet said, It is essen­tial to have the con­sent of a vir­gin (for the marriage)”.

Oth­er sim­i­lar hadith are as follows :

Nar­rat­ed Abu Hurairah r.a, that the Prophet said, A divorcee can­not be forced to mar­ry before she agrees, and a vir­gin can­not be forced to mar­ry before her per­mis­sion is obtained. The Saha­ba’ asked How can we obtain her per­mis­sion?” The Prophet said, Her per­mis­sion is when she keeps qui­et.” (Mus­lim)

Ibn Abbas report­ed that a girl came to the Mes­sen­ger of Allah Muham­mad and she report­ed that her father had forced her to mar­ry with­out her con­sent. The Mes­sen­ger of Allah gave her the choice (between accept­ing the mar­riage and inval­i­dat­ing it). (Ibn Hanbal) 

Would the Chris­t­ian men read­ing this pre­fer the women they know to be Chris­t­ian or Muslim ?

8. The Bible also asks women to wear veils as in Islam (I Corinthi­ans 11:3 – 10)

9. Women were giv­en rights to vote less than a 100 years ago in the U.S. while the Qur’an gave women vot­ing rights almost 1400 years ago.

In a hadith nar­rat­ed by Abu Huraira, the Apos­tle of God said, Treat women nice­ly, for a women is cre­at­ed from a rib, and the most curved por­tion of the rib is its upper por­tion, so, if you should try to straight­en it, it will break, but if you leave it as it is, it will remain crooked. So treat women nice­ly.” (Sahih Bukhari)

And only God knows best ! A Comparison of Women in the Qur'an and the Bible 1

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