Recently, most of my free time is spent reading and writing about women in Islam. Alhamdulillah, the more research I do, the more I love Islam and the way it has honored women from the very beginning. The following piece is an excerpt from the book, Human Rights in Islam. It is only a glimpse of what Islam does to protect and honor women:

A woman’s chastity has to be respected and protected under all circumstances, whether she belongs to our own nation or to the nation of an enemy, whether we find her in the wild forest or in a conquered city; whether she is our co-religionist or belongs to some other religion or has no religion at all. A Muslim cannot outrage her under any circumstances. All promiscuous relation- ship has been forbidden to him, irrespective of the status or position of the woman, whether the woman is a willing or an unwilling partner to the act. The words of the Holy Qur’an in this respect are: 

“Do not approach (the bounds of) adultery” (17:32).

Heavy punishment has been prescribed for this crime, and no mitigating circumstances are indicated. Since the violation of the chastity of a woman is forbidden in Islam, a Muslim who perpetrates this crime cannot escape punishment-whether he receives it in this world or in the Hereafter.

 

This concept of the sanctity of chastity and the protection of women can be found nowhere else except in Islam. The armies of the Western powers need the daughters of their own nations to satisfy their carnal appetites even in their own countries, and if they happen to occupy another county, the fate of its womenfolk can better be imagined than described.

But the history of the Muslim, apart from individual lapses, has been free from this crime against womanhood. It has never happened that after the conquest of a foreign country the Muslim army has gone about raping the women of the conquered people, or, in their own country, the government has arranged to provide prostitutes for them.