Islam is not the cause of poor status of women in some Muslim countries

Going only by certain coverage in the media and some movies, one may get the impression that women in Muslim populated countries are second to their male counterparts and lacking any semblance of basic human rights. These images and practices are also inescapably attributed to Islam. In reality though, Islam not only stopped the oppression of women, but also transformed their status for the better in an otherwise male-dominated society.

In 7^th Century Arabia, when the Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, rights for females were non-existent under the deeply entrenched system of patriarchy, with infanticide of the first-born female child being a common practice. The status of women in the great majority of the rest of the world was no different.

Islam elevated the status of women to such a level and gave them rights that set new levels of standards that, according to Kerry Armstrong in an interview done by amazon.com, "In the middle ages, Islam was criticised by the Christian world for giving too many rights to women." The transformation of women's status and rights was achieved in a matter of a few decades without having to go through a bitter struggle for them. Contrary to their Muslim counterparts, women in the West had to pay a heavy price in order to get their basic rights to education, work, inheritance, personal property etc, which have been achieved only in the last few hundred years.