Demystifying Controversial Questions On Gender & Understanding Women Rights In Islam

In an age where questions about Islam and gender dominate public discourse — from social media debates to university classrooms — Muslims deserve rigorous, evidence-based, and compassionate scholarship on these issues.

This 16-week course is designed to equip students with the intellectual tools and theological grounding to engage confidently with the most frequently raised and often misunderstood questions about women and gender in Islam. Rather than shying away from difficulty, we face each controversy head-on — with the Quran, authentic Sunnah, classical scholarship, and contemporary scholarship as our guides.

The course moves in five carefully structured arcs:

1. Establishing the Foundation — Understanding the elevated spiritual and social status of women in Islam through primary sources, before tackling any controversy.
2. Family Law & Personal Rights — A deep-dive into inheritance, testimony, divorce, polygamy, mehr, halala, travel, and other legal matters frequently challenged in modern discourse.
3. Roles, Authority & Society — Women's leadership, financial independence, education, imamat, and the hadith literature that is most often cited in gender debates.
4. Bodily Autonomy, Ethics & Dress Code— Addressing slavery, marital ethics, dress & abortion. 
5. The marriages of the Prophet ﷺ in full historical and scholarly context.

Each session is interactive, drawing on classical tafsir, fiqh, hadith sciences, usul al-fiqh, and contemporary scholarship. Students will leave every class not only with answers, but with a methodology — a way of thinking that they can apply to future questions on their own.

Course Instructor: Arsalan Ahmed

• CEO, Co-Founder Naseeha Institute
• Assistant Professor at Beaconhouse National University
• BSc in Accounting & Finance, LUMS (2010)
• MSc in Economics, LUMS (2011)
• Commonwealth Scholar: MSc in International Political Economy, University of Warwick
• Islamic Finance Qualification (CISI, UK)
• Completed 7‑year Dars‑e‑Nizami ‘Alimiyyah program

Course Dates: Sunday, May 24, 2026 - Sunday, September 6, 2026
Duration: 16 Weeks
No. of Sessions: 16
Time: Every Monday, 11 AM - 12:15 PM PKT Time
Mode of Conduct: Online via Zoom
Guided materials: Lecture Slides + Reading Material + Assignments + Quizzes
Registration: Online through Naseeha’s Website [ 12,000 PKR - per month]

Open to Men and Women.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Articulate the Quranic and Sunnah-based foundations for understanding the status of women in Islam, beyond cultural assumptions.
• Engage critically and confidently with common objections to Islamic law regarding gender — including inheritance, testimony, divorce, and polygamy.
• Understand the scholarly reasoning behind seemingly difficult hadith relating to women, and distinguish between hadith of varying authenticity and context.
• Apply usul al-fiqh principles to distinguish between timeless Islamic principles and historically contextualised rulings.
• Evaluate modern scholarly perspectives alongside classical positions, forming a well-rounded and evidence-based understanding.
• Discuss the marriages of the Prophet ﷺ in their full historical, social, and theological context without confusion or defensiveness.
• Navigate sensitive contemporary issues — including marital ethics, bodily autonomy, and dress — through an informed Islamic lens.
• Identify the difference between cultural practices and authentic Islamic teaching when engaging with Muslim communities and wider society.