The issue of woman in Islam was clear and never debated among Muslims. Allah (swt) created men and women and legislated general responsibilities for both, such as carrying the Daw'ah and holding the rulers accountable, in addition to designating specific responsibilities for each gender. Muslims acknowledged that sovereignty belongs to Allah, and the rules related to both men and women are Islamic rules deduced through ijtihad based upon the daleel. It was implicitly recognized among Muslims that the process of ijtihad and the concept of daleel are not sex-dependent, and thus, a ''male'' or ''female'' understanding of Islam never emerged. The only understanding that Islam produced for any concept or rule was the legal understanding based upon the daleel. As a result, all Muslims, whether man or woman, adhered to the Islamic rules in their entirety, and the Muslims with this understanding were saved from the ''sex wars'' that continue to plague the West until today.

It was this understanding that the Muslims lacked in dealing with the onslaught from the West regarding the status of women in Islam. The ideological invasion initiated by the West raised issues related to the Islamic Social System, such as why the man is allowed to marry four women and why the woman must cover her entire body except the face and hands. Even more damaging was the very concept of the status of women in Islam which the West constructed and propagated ­ a slave in a male-dominated society. The proper response to all of this would be to realize that the outlook of the West towards women stem from a specific viewpoint. The Muslims could have easily addressed this issue by presenting Islam with its intellectual basis, forcing the West to question whether the human being or Allah was fit to decide what status would be conferred to both men and women. However, the Muslims made a critical mistake by attempting to justify the status of women in Islam to accommodate the Western outlook. Some Muslims reacted to the accusations initiated by the West began by calling for Western ideas such as woman's liberation and equality between the sexes, thinking that doing so would stave off some of the attacks. As a reaction to this group, another section of Muslims went to the opposite extreme and claimed that the woman should not leave her home and are prohibited from trade, education, and politics. A third group emerged in an attempt to reconcile between the two camps, which was no more than an attempt to reconcile between Western thoughts and Islamic emotions.

The end result of these attempts to address this issue was a total disaster. As a direct outcome of these movements, the Muslim Ummah was faced with three options regarding the status of women: To adopt the Western model, which was based on a reaction to an incorrect viewpoint; or to adopt what was labeled as the ''Islamic'' model, which was a reaction to a reaction; or to adopt the model which attempted to mix Islam with the Western outlook, which was a compromise between two reactions. Further compounding the problem was the fact that the Muslims began to lose the distinction between Islam and various local cultures and traditions which did in fact discriminate heavily upon women. Many aspects of these traditions and cultures were deemed Islamic, particularly on the issue of women. This intermixing of Islam with local culture succeeded in magnifying the image among Muslims and non-Muslims that Islam is oppressive to women.

Many attempts emerged to change the situation of Muslims in the last two centuries. Although these attempts left some impact in the thinking of Muslims, they failed to achieve a comprehensive revival. None of these attempts had an intellectual basis geared towards reviving the thinking of Muslims according to Islam. They were either emotional spouts that rallied the feelings of the Muslims temporarily before diffusing but failed to exert a profound intellectual impact, or they focused on the mere compliance to some Sharii rules, and even the way the rules were addressed was incorrect. A vivid example of such an attempt was in the issue of the woman's dress code. The woman's dress code is often addressed as the central problem of the Muslim Ummah, while it is only a symptom among many other symptoms. Furthermore, the woman's dress code is part of the social system of Islam, which is rooted in certain fundamental concepts that Islam addresses regarding the outlook towards man and woman in the society, the nature of man and woman, and the nature and purpose of their relationship to one another. However, oftentimes the issue of woman's dress is discussed in isolation of any profound concepts.

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Series of Thoughts (Dhivehi)