ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to give a synopsis of the formation of women's legal status in the Sharia Law by concentrating on some of the factors that Muslim men of letters have utilized in their analysis of women's status in the Qur'an and in the Prophet Muhammad's Tradition. The Sharia Law has contained a male-structured perspective as to what constitutes women's status at home and in society. Prior to Islam, women owned property in Arab semi-settled and tribal societies. There were women traders with financial capital in their possession. Financial capital, even then transformable into other forms of wealth including real estate and fixed property, gave these women a valued and powerful position in society. Young girls and women have been entitled to education throughout Islam's fourteen centuries of existence. A totalitarian view of Islam is especially problematic for improving women's status in many Muslim societies because its frame is that of precapitalist patriarchy with its agricultural social and legal relationships.
