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According to Islamic law and tradition... three groups of people did not benefit from the general Muslim principle of legal and religious [equality] — unbelievers, slaves, and women. The woman was obviously in one significant respect the worst-placed of the three. The slave could be freed by his master; the unbeliever could at any time become a believer by his own choice, and thus end his inferiority. Only the woman was doomed forever ... [Both] for traditional conservatives and radical fundamentalists [the emancipation of women] is neither necesssary nor useful but noxious, a betrayal of true Islamic values. It must be kept from entering the body of Islam, and where it has already entered, it must be ruthlessly excised.[What Went Wrong? Chapter 3, Social and Cultural Barriers]
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