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11 Muslim World J. Hum. Rts. 1 (2014)

handle is hein.journals/muwjhr11 and id is 1 raw text is: Research Article Dina Mansour* Women's Rights in Islamic Shari'a: Between Interpretation, Culture and Politics Abstract: This article analyses existing biases - whether due to misinterpreta- tion, culture or politics - in the application of women's rights under Islamic Shari'a law. The paper argues that though in its inception, one purpose of Islamic law may have aimed at elevating the status of women in pre-Islamic Arabia, biases in interpreting such teachings have failed to free women from discrimination and have even added divinity to their persistent subjugation. By examining two case studies - Saudi Arabia and Egypt - the article shows that interpretative biases that differ in application from one country to the other further subject women to the selective application of rights. Dictated by norms, culture and tradition rather than a unified Islamic law, the paper shows how culture and politics have contributed to such biases under the pre-text of Islamic dictate. As such, it proposes a re-examination of personal status laws across the region in light of international human rights norms. Keywords: women rights, Islam, Shari'a law, equality, human rights DOI 10.1515/mwjhr-2012-0006 Introduction Women's rights in Islamic Shari'a law have been a point of controversy both in theory and in practice. This article does not aim to examine the compatibility of the corpus of international human rights law with Islam with regard to women's rights per se, but focuses its examination on interpretative biases that are moti- vated by norms, culture and tradition as well as politics that render any intention to elevate the status of women futile. Though one intention of early Islamic jurisprudence may have been to put an end to existing practices of abhorrent abuses and discrimination against women in pre-Islamic Arabia (the Jahiliyyah *Corresponding author: Dina Mansour, Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence, Italy, E-mail: dmansour@aucegypt.edu DE GRUYTER Muslim World J. Hum. Right. 2014; 11(l): 1-24