What the Qur'an gives women, and the women it names
The Qur'an addresses women directly, and it names them. Maryam is the only woman in the book called by her own name, one of its chapters carries that name, and other women appear with their speech kept intact: a queen weighing what to do about a letter from Sulayman, the wife of Pharaoh asking for a house near you in the garden, a woman who brought a complaint about her husband and whose answer opens the chapter named for her arguing.
Much of what the book says about women it says in pairs. A promise is made to the man and the woman inside one sentence, with the same condition attached and the same reward at the end, and the pairing repeats often enough to read as deliberate. The reward verses turn on what a person does and what they believe, so a woman's standing before God rests on her own account of herself. One of them puts it about as plainly as it can be put: you are of one another.
Some of it is concrete in a way that was legally new at the time. Women are given a named portion of what parents and relatives leave behind, and the text calls it a share ordained, which places it outside a family's discretion. What a woman earns is hers, in the same clause that says what a man earns is his. And the instruction to a husband who has gone cold on his wife is Live with them in kindness, with the warning that what he dislikes may have good in it he cannot see.
Some of the material is hard. The Qur'an legislates inside a seventh-century society, and readers who arrive at those passages with modern questions find real difficulty and centuries of scholarly disagreement about scope and application. Those are questions of law and interpretation, and this page does not settle them. The verses gathered here are the ground that argument stands on: a shared origin, a shared moral account, portions that belong to a woman by name, and women whose words God records and answers.
They are ordered to be read straight through: origin first, then reward, then the rights, then the women the Qur'an names. Verses about a marriage itself are gathered on marriage, and those about mothers and fathers on parents.
4:1 — O humankind, be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a single soul, and from it created its mate, and from the two of them spread out many men and women. Be mindful of God, in whose name you make claims upon one another, and of the wombs that bore you. Indeed, God is ever watchful over you.
3:195 — And their Lord answered them: I will never let the work of any worker among you be lost, male or female — you are of one another. So those who emigrated, and were driven from their homes, and were harmed in my path, and fought, and were killed — I will surely wipe away their wrongs from them, and I will surely admit them into gardens through which rivers flow, a reward from God. And with God is the finest of rewards.
33:35 — Indeed, the men who surrender and the women who surrender, the believing men and believing women, the devout men and devout women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their private parts and the women who guard theirs, and the men who remember God often and the women who remember — for them God has prepared forgiveness and a great reward.
4:7 — Men have a share of what parents and close relatives leave behind, and women have a share of what parents and close relatives leave behind — whether little or much — a share ordained.
4:32 — Do not long for that by which God has favored some of you over others. To men a share of what they have earned, and to women a share of what they have earned. Ask God of his bounty. God has full knowledge of all things.
4:19 — You who believe, it is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will, nor to pressure them so as to take back part of what you have given them — unless they commit a clear indecency. Live with them in kindness; for if you dislike them, it may be that you dislike something in which God has placed much good.
58:1 — God has heard the words of the woman who pleads with you about her husband and brings her complaint to God. God hears the exchange between you both. Indeed, God is all-hearing, all-seeing.
3:42 — And when the angels said, "Maryam, God has chosen you and purified you, and chosen you above the women of all worlds."
66:11 — And God sets forth an example for those who believe: the wife of Pharaoh, when she said, "My Lord, build for me a house near you in the garden, and deliver me from Pharaoh and his deeds, and deliver me from the wrongdoing people."
27:23 — I found a woman ruling over them, granted a share of every good thing, and she has a magnificent throne.