Women, the Hijab and Islamic Law

Few subjects divide Christians and Muslims as visibly as the place of women. For many Muslims the headscarf is an act of obedience and dignity; for many Western observers it is a symbol of control. Arguments on both sides are often loud and badly sourced. Christians who want to speak honestly need to know what the Qur’an and the hadith actually say, how Muslim scholars have read them, and where Muslims themselves disagree.

This article sets out the main texts: on covering, on a husband's authority, on testimony, inheritance and polygyny, and on the age of Aisha. It quotes traditionalist and reformist Muslim voices in their own words. It then sets beside them the teaching of Christ and His Church about women, and gives the Orthodox verdict.

In brief

The Qur’an tells believing women to cover their adornment and draw their head-coverings over their chests (24:31) and to draw their outer garments around them (33:59). Classical jurists mostly held that a free woman must cover everything except her face and hands; a minority required the face as well, and some modern scholars argue that the headscarf is not obligatory. The Qur’an makes men responsible for women and permits a husband, as a last step, to strike a rebellious wife (4:34), though translators render the verb in very different ways. It counts the testimony of two women as that of one man in debt contracts (2:282), gives a son twice a daughter's inheritance (4:11), and allows a man up to four wives (4:3). Sahih al-Bukhari reports that Aisha was married at six and the marriage consummated at nine. Muslims defend these rules as wise and protective; reformers reinterpret several of them. The Church teaches that man and woman are one flesh in a single, lifelong marriage, that husbands must love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and that a woman, the Theotokos, is honored above the angels.

Thesis: The disagreement is not finally about a piece of cloth but about revelation: Islamic law on women rests on the Qur’an and the example of Muhammad, which are not the word of God, while Christ restored marriage and the dignity of women to what God intended "from the beginning."

Covering: what the Qur’an says

Qur’an 24:31 and 33:59

The key verse is 24:31. Sahih International translates it: "And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests." Abdel Haleem renders the second part: "they should let their headscarves fall to cover their necklines."¹ The al-Hilali and Khan translation adds bracketed glosses so that the verse requires covering "bodies, faces, necks and bosoms." The range of translation already shows the range of interpretation.

Qur’an 33:59 addresses the Prophet's wives, daughters and "the women of the believers," telling them "to bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused." Another verse, 33:53, tells the men to speak to Muhammad's wives "from behind a partition"; the Arabic word there is hijab.¹

The hadith and the jurists

Sahih al-Bukhari records Aisha's report that when 24:31 was revealed, the early emigrant women "cut their waist sheets at the edges and covered their heads and faces with those cut pieces of cloth."² Sunan Abu Dawud records that Muhammad told Asma that after puberty a woman should show nothing "except this and this," pointing to his face and hands, though Abu Dawud himself noted that the chain is broken ("a mursal tradition"); the modern scholar al-Albani nevertheless graded it sahih.³

Muslim scholars read this evidence in at least three ways.

• The classical majority. Khaled Abou El Fadl, a UCLA law professor who teaches Islamic jurisprudence and himself holds a minority view, summarizes the tradition: "the clear majority of jurists conclude that the ʿawrah of a free woman is all her body except the face and hands." (ʿAwrah means what must be covered.) A minority, he adds, extended it to the face and even the voice.⁴
• The stricter view. The fatwa site IslamQA, whose answers are supervised by Shaykh Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid, answers: "The correct view regarding this matter is that it is obligatory for women to cover all of their bodies in front of men," including the face.⁵
• A reformist view. Abou El Fadl argues that the operative cause of the rule "was to protect women from harm and to avoid bringing undue attention to them," and concludes: "in my opinion, hijab in this country [the United States] is clearly not a fard and no sin is acquired for failing to wear the hijab."⁴

{{strong: Classical Sunni law mostly required a free woman to cover all but her face and hands; the face veil and the optional headscarf are minority positions at opposite ends.}} Christians should describe this range honestly and should not speak as if every Muslim woman is forced to cover or every covered woman is oppressed.

Husbands and wives: Qur’an 4:34

Qur’an 4:34 begins, in Sahih International: "Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allāh has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth." It continues: "But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance - [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them [lightly]." Translators differ sharply on the last verb. Yusuf Ali has "beat them (lightly)," Abdel Haleem simply "hit them," and Laleh Bakhtiar's The Sublime Quran (2007) renders it "go away from them."⁶

Traditional commentary limits the act without denying it. Ibn Kathir explains that a husband may "discipline the wife, without severe beating," and cites Ibn ʿAbbas and others that the verse "refers to a beating that is not violent."⁷ The site's article on whether Qur’an 4:34 permits husbands to strike their wives examines the Arabic and the debate in detail. Qur’an 2:228 adds that wives have rights "similar to what is expected of them," but "the men... have a degree over them."¹

Testimony, inheritance and polygyny

Two women as witnesses

For debt contracts, Qur’an 2:282 asks for two male witnesses, "And if there are not two men [available], then a man and two women from those whom you accept as witnesses - so that if one of them [i.e., the women] errs, then the other can remind her."¹ Ibn Kathir notes that "this requirement is only for contracts that directly or indirectly involve money," but gives the reason as "the woman's shortcomings, as the Prophet described."⁸ He then cites a saying recorded in Sahih Muslim, which Sahih al-Bukhari gives in this form: Muhammad tells a group of women, "I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you," and explains: "Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?... This is the deficiency in her intelligence," and that a woman "can neither pray nor fast during her menses... This is the deficiency in her religion."⁹ The hadith itself ties the "deficiency" to these two legal rules, but it stands in Bukhari, and Ibn Kathir uses it to explain the verse.

Inheritance

Qur’an 4:11 rules: "for the male, what is equal to the share of two females."¹ Muslim scholars rightly point out that this gave daughters a fixed share in a society that had often given them none. Ibn Kathir says the pre-Islamic Arabs "used to give the males, but not the females, a share," and explains the double share because "men need money to spend on their dependants."¹⁰ The Qur’an also requires a bridal gift paid to the wife herself (4:4) and forbids men to "inherit women by compulsion" (4:19).

Polygyny

Qur’an 4:3 permits a man to marry women "two or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just, then [marry only] one or those your right hands possess [i.e., slaves]." Qur’an 4:129 admits: "you will never be able to be equal [in feeling] between wives, even if you should strive."¹ Traditional law reads these verses as a permission with conditions. Tunisia's 1956 Personal Status Code took the opposite course: it banned polygamy outright, arguing from the two verses together that equal treatment of several wives is impossible.¹¹ Other states, such as Syria and Jordan, kept polygyny but added procedural limits, such as a judge's permission or a monogamy clause in the marriage contract.

Aisha's age

Sahih al-Bukhari reports Aisha's own words "that the Prophet (ﷺ) married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old."¹² A version in Sahih Muslim says seven at the marriage and adds that she came to his house "when she was nine, and her dolls were with her."¹³ Traditional Sunni scholarship accepted these reports. Some modern Muslim writers argue from other chronological data that she was older; their critics reply that the Sahih reports are explicit and early. The site examines that debate in Aisha's Age at Marriage: What Do the Sources Say? and the wider question of Muhammad as a moral model in Muhammad as the Moral Example?

What Christ and His Church teach

One flesh, from the beginning

When Christ was asked about divorce, He went back behind the law to creation: "He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,'... and the two shall become one flesh... Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matthew 19:4-6). The concession Moses made was "because of the hardness of your hearts... but from the beginning it was not so" (19:8).¹⁴ Christian marriage is therefore one man and one woman for life. There is no place in it for a second, third or fourth wife, or for women "your right hands possess."

St Paul does call the husband the head of the wife, and Christians should not hide that. But he begins with "submitting to one another in the fear of God," and defines the husband's headship by the Cross: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her" (Ephesians 5:21, 25). He gives husband and wife equal authority over each other's bodies (1 Corinthians 7:4), and St Peter calls husbands and wives "heirs together of the grace of life" (1 Peter 3:7).¹⁴ A husband modeled on Christ crucified serves his wife; he does not strike her. For how the Church reads Paul's harder passages on women, see Paul and Women in the Church.

Equal in Christ

"There is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). Women and men are baptized alike, receive the same Body and Blood, and are called to the same holiness. In the fourth century St Gregory the Theologian attacked the double standard of Roman law, which punished a wife's adultery but excused a husband's: "I do not accept this legislation; I do not approve this custom. They who made the Law were men, and therefore their legislation is hard on women." He goes on: "Christ saves both by His Passion... He is born of a Virgin, and this is on the Woman's side... so let the one flesh have equal honour."¹⁵ The Christian demand for chastity falls on men as heavily as on women: "whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28).

Modesty is a Christian virtue too. St Paul asks women to "adorn themselves in modest apparel" (1 Timothy 2:9) and to cover their heads at prayer (1 Corinthians 11:5), and customs of head covering in Orthodox churches vary from parish to parish (see Your First Visit to an Orthodox Church). The difference from Islamic law is not that Christians reject modesty, but that modesty serves holiness and is never made the measure of a woman's worth or the condition of her safety.

The Theotokos and the women saints

The highest of all created persons, in the Church's worship, is a woman. In the hymn "It is truly meet," the Church sings to the Mother of God: "More honorable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, without defilement you gave birth to God the Word."¹⁶ Mary Magdalene met the risen Lord at the tomb and was sent by Him to the apostles (John 20:17-18); the Church calls her "Myrrhbearer and Equal of the Apostles."¹⁷ St Nino brought the faith to Georgia, and the Orthodox Church gives her the same title, Equal-to-the-Apostles.¹⁸ {{strong: The Orthodox Church honors women among her greatest saints, including evangelists of whole nations given the title Equal-to-the-Apostles.}} Christians have not always lived up to this teaching; St Gregory's complaint shows that sinful customs survived among baptized people. But the teaching itself does not need reforming; it needs obeying.

The Orthodox verdict

Muslim women who cover out of devotion deserve courtesy, and Christians should never mock them or treat them with suspicion. Traditional commentators such as Ibn Kathir set limits on these rules, and reformers such as Abou El Fadl and Bakhtiar have sought kinder readings. But the question cannot be settled by finding the gentlest available interpretation. The rules described above, permitted polygyny and concubinage, a husband's permission to strike, testimony and inheritance weighted by sex, the marriage of a nine-year-old reported in the Sahih collections, come from the Qur’an and from the example of Muhammad. The Orthodox Church does not accept that Muhammad was a prophet of God or that the Qur’an is the word of God, and so it does not accept that these rules express God's will for women.

Christ did not give a better set of rules on the same foundation. He restored the foundation: one flesh from the beginning, a husband who lays down his life, a woman through whom God became man. The Church's call to Muslim women and men alike is the call to faith in Him and to baptism, in which there is "neither male nor female."

Objections and replies

"Islam improved the position of women in seventh-century Arabia"

In some respects it did, and honest Christians can say so: fixed shares of inheritance for daughters and a bridal gift owned by the wife were real protections. But being an improvement on a particular culture does not make a law divine. Christ's teaching, given six centuries earlier, did not adjust the custom of many wives; it went back to the beginning.

"Christianity also has male headship and head coverings"

It does. The difference lies in what headship means and what grounds it. In the Gospel headship is defined by Christ's self-sacrifice and joined to mutual submission; it carries no permission to strike, no second wife, and no halving of a woman's word.

"Reformers show the texts can be read in a way that honors women"

Reformers deserve respect. But they must argue against the reading that most of their own scholars held for centuries, and they cannot remove the verses or the hadith. The deeper question is whether those texts are God's word at all.

What we can say confidently

• Qur’an 24:31 and 33:59 command women to cover; classical jurists mostly required all but face and hands, with stricter and looser minorities.
• Qur’an 4:34 gives men authority over women and allows a husband, as a last step, to strike a rebellious wife; translators and commentators limit or reinterpret the verb in different ways.
• Qur’an 2:282 counts two women witnesses as one man in debt contracts; 4:11 gives a son twice a daughter's share; 4:3 permits up to four wives.
• Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim report Aisha's marriage at six or seven and its consummation at nine.
• Christ taught one-flesh marriage "from the beginning," and the Orthodox Church honors the Theotokos above the angels and women saints as Equal-to-the-Apostles.

What remains disputed

• Whether the headscarf, and still more the face veil, is obligatory: Muslim jurists disagree.
• The meaning of the verb in 4:34 and how far it may be applied: Muslim translators and scholars differ.
• Aisha's age: some modern Muslim writers dispute the Sahih reports, though the texts themselves are clear.
• How far modern states should codify, limit or abolish polygyny: Muslim countries take different paths.

Conclusion

Muslim law about women is often more varied and more carefully argued than its critics admit, and Christians should describe it accurately and speak to Muslim women with respect. But accuracy also requires saying plainly where it comes from and where it leads. The Church does not offer women a more fashionable rulebook. She offers Christ, who made marriage again what it was in the beginning, who was born of a woman, who after His resurrection sent a woman to the apostles with the news, and who calls every woman and man to the same holiness and the same glory. "For you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Notes

1. Qur’an 24:31; 33:53; 33:59; 4:34; 2:228; 2:282; 4:11; 4:4; 4:19; 4:3; 4:129. Sahih International, M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, A. Yusuf Ali, and al-Hilali and Khan translations, at Quran.com (e.g. https://quran.com/24/31).
2. Sahih al-Bukhari 4759 (see also 4758), https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4759.
3. Sunan Abi Dawud 4104, https://sunnah.com/abudawud:4104.
4. Khaled Abou El Fadl, "Fatwa: On Hijab (The Hair-covering of Women)," updated 31 December 2016, The Search for Beauty in Islam, https://searchforbeauty.jimdoweb.com/2016/01/02/fatwa-on-hijab-the-hair-covering-of-women/; faculty profile, UCLA School of Law, https://law.ucla.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/khaled-m-abou-el-fadl.
5. IslamQA, Question 13646, "Confused about women covering their faces," https://islamqa.info/en/answers/13646; supervision stated at https://islamqa.info/en/about.
6. Qur’an 4:34 (see note 1); Laleh Bakhtiar, The Sublime Quran (2007), 4:34 as given at https://www.sublimequran.org/translations.html.
7. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir (abridged English), on Qur’an 4:34, at Quran.com (https://quran.com/4:34/tafsirs/en-tafisr-ibn-kathir).
8. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir (abridged English), on Qur’an 2:282, at Quran.com.
9. Sahih al-Bukhari 304, https://sunnah.com/bukhari:304; compare 2658.
10. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir (abridged English), on Qur’an 4:11, at Quran.com.
11. Valentina M. Donini, "Polygamy and Family Law," Reset DOC, 17 April 2009, https://www.resetdoc.org/story/polygamy-and-family-law/.
12. Sahih al-Bukhari 5133, https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5133.
13. Sahih Muslim 1422c (see also 1422a), https://sunnah.com/muslim:1422c.
14. Bible quotations from the New King James Version: Matthew 5:28; 19:4-8; John 20:17-18; 1 Corinthians 7:4; 11:5; Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 5:21-33; 1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Peter 3:7.
15. St Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 37.6-7, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, NPNF2 vol. 7, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310237.htm.
16. "Hymn to the Theotokos," Orthodox Church in America, https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/prayers/hymn-to-the-theotokos.
17. "Myrrhbearer and Equal of the Apostles Mary Magdalene," Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, July 22.
18. "Saint Nino (Nina), Equal of the Apostles, Enlightener of Georgia," Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, January 14.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
• The Qur’an. Sahih International; M. A. S. Abdel Haleem; A. Yusuf Ali; M. T. al-Hilali and M. M. Khan. At Quran.com.
• Sahih al-Bukhari; Sahih Muslim; Sunan Abi Dawud. English translations at Sunnah.com.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• St Gregory of Nazianzus. Oration 37. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 7. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894.
• Orthodox Church in America. "Hymn to the Theotokos"; Lives of the Saints (Mary Magdalene, July 22; St Nino, January 14).

Other scholarship

• Donini, Valentina M. "Polygamy and Family Law." Reset DOC, 2009.

Islamic sources

• Ibn Kathir. Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English). Quran.com.
• Abou El Fadl, Khaled. "Fatwa: On Hijab (The Hair-covering of Women)." The Search for Beauty in Islam, 2016.
• IslamQA (supervised by Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid). Question 13646.
• Bakhtiar, Laleh, trans. The Sublime Quran. 2007.