The position of woman in Arab Islamic societies in contrast with her position and role in Arabic literature

Abstract

This dissertation, which is divided into two sections, intends to contest the popular belief that the woman in Islam is considered as an inferior being to the man. With this view in mind, it intends to draw a contrast between the woman's status as textualized in the Holy Qur'an, and the social reality as elicited through social and anthropological research works. Finally, it intends to draw a contest between the social position of the Arab woman as recorded by Western scholars and the depiction of the Arab woman through contemporary Arabic literature, mainly Arabic genre of fiction, the novel and the short story, in order to assess the veracity of the women's inferior position in the world.