LIMITS OF THE WOMEN’S FREEDOM: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ISLAMIC TEACHINGS AND CONTEMPORARY DEBATES

Abstract

Since ancient times, the issue of the freedom of women and the boundaries of the same has been discussed. In some societies women were treated as tools of pleasure only whereas in others they could be found in mythological accounts as concepts of God or vice versa as the victims of rituals like the Sati. They were denied even their right to life at some times in history, and in other situations their political, social, economic, and cultural rights were denied. History introduces us to an image when sometimes women crossed the boundaries set by the tradition, and sometimes they were deprived of the simplest rights. The current paper aims at discussing the notion of women freedom and its boundaries in a comparative context of Islamic teachings and modern intellectual and social discussions. Freedom of the individual, especially the freedom of women and their bodies and personal lives, has become one of the central topics in the human rights discourse in the contemporary world.

 However, this freedom is not without limits and it is bound up with the moral, social, and legal limits. The teachings of the Islamic religion award women with dignity, honour, as well as basic rights, yet it also holds specific moral and social values which are important to the well being of both the individual and the society. This study involves two different intellectual paradigms: one that, according to the current discourse in the West, sees individual sovereignty as absolute, and the other the discourse, according to the Islamic worldview, considers freedom to be responsible and within moral boundaries. The comparative discussion states that conceptualizing the freedom of women without restrictions may break the social and moral balance but the Islamic teaching creates a contact between the freedom and the responsibility. This work therefore shifts the debate on the liberation of women past the emotive catchphrases and it lays it on rational and intellectual platforms to provide a morally sound and workable standpoint on the debates today.