Reconstructing Women's Rights in Islamic Marriage Law through Contemporary Legal Thought

Abstract

The construction of women's rights in Islamic marriage law remains a contested scholarly issue, particularly regarding the relationship between classical jurisprudential interpretations, historically embedded patriarchal assumptions, and the evolving demands of gender justice in contemporary Muslim societies. This study aims to critically examine the historical and epistemological foundations of women's marital rights in classical Islamic jurisprudence and to develop a coherent conceptual framework for their reconstruction through contemporary Islamic legal thought. Employing qualitative normative legal research with historical-conceptual analysis and contextual hermeneutics, the study examines classical jurisprudential discourses alongside contemporary approaches to maqāṣid al-sharīʿah, gender-just legal reasoning, and Islamic legal reform. The conceptual analysis identifies a fundamental distinction between the ethical principles of Islamic law and historically contingent jurisprudential formulations that have shaped gender-based marital authority, reciprocal obligations, economic rights, and access to divorce. It further proposes an integrative reconstruction framework that combines normative legitimacy, contextual interpretation, and substantive justice to reassess women's rights within marriage. Rather than rejecting classical jurisprudence, the proposed framework critically reinterprets its legal reasoning in light of justice, human dignity, mutual responsibility, and contemporary social realities. This study contributes to Islamic family law scholarship by advancing a theoretically grounded model of legal reconstruction that bridges jurisprudential continuity and transformative legal reform, offering conceptual implications for developing more equitable and contextually responsive Islamic marriage laws.