WOMEN IN ISLAM.

The status of women in Muslim countries is widely discussed; the role of women in Islam varies greatly according to the countries taken into consideration. The Koran defines her as an inferior figure to man, however it recognizes equal rights and duties. Islamic marriage is a contract between husband and wife. A woman is recognized as a contracting party and beneficiary of the nuptial gift that protects her from the risk of repudiation. A man cannot marry more than four wives and must behave fairly towards them. According to the Koran, women must be treated well: “it is part of its signs that you have created brides for you, so that you may rest with them, and has established love and tenderness among you”. In other respects, women are disrespected and suffer both physical and moral violence. The struggle for women’s rights must confront and clash with the prevailing idea of the traditional role of wife and mother, shared not only by religious men, but also by many women. . The present and the future of the Muslim woman are played out between fidelity to tradition and renewal, in a composition that treasures the achievements and examples of Western women. Following discussions on Saudi athletes at the Rio Olympics, Saudi Arabia has appointed a woman to the vice-presidency of the official women’s sports body. This and other similar events give hope for a further step towards still distant gender equality. Few women continue to rebel against all this. A very important example is Amani El Nasif, an Italian woman of Syrian origin who, after having lived 16 years of her life as an Italian girl, is brought back to Syria with a lie to marry an unknown cousin. All of her old life is taken away from her. Amani immediately rebels against her fate with force but her rebellion is violently silenced several times, as happens daily to women in Islamic countries, with punishments and other horrible physical violence up to an attempted murder.After Amani’s umpteenth refusal, her grieving mother takes her away from her old life in Italy. What could be the next step to overcome this discrimination against women?