Women and Islam investigates the debate on the subject and illustrates the ways in which Islamic perceptions of women tend to undergo significant change in communities. This book offers a new perspective on women's lives in modern Muslim world to reveal that equal personal and democratic rights of men and women reflect the true spirit of the Qur'an. The status of women in Pre-Islamic period in which the Arab Adaat-guided customs are contrasted with the role of women in the Islamic period to identify how policies of marriage, divorce, inheritance, custody of children, property rights and polygamy were affected by the introduction of Islam. The importance of religious traditions and contemporary social realities are balanced in this progressive call to reevaluate Muslim personal law and the common civil code.