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Synopsis The controversial subject of women’s rights has assumed great importance in the Islamic world and is a burning issue today. The author of the book, Qur’an, Women and Modern Society, feels that the orthodox Shari’ah Laws have been extremely slow to respond to the needs of Muslim women who wish to keep pace with the modern world. These emancipated women are far more assertive about their rights than their mothers and grandmothers were, and often excel in fields once considered the sole prerogative of men. Hence, there is a crying need to usher in radical changes without disrupting the equilibrium of Qur’anic norms and values. Dr Asghar Ali Engineer, a noted Islamic scholar with an in-depth knowledge of Shri’ah laws, deals in great detail with those pertaining to women. He maintains that Shari’ah Laws are a product of socio-cultural influences on the thinking of jurists, who interpreted various Qur’anic verses in accordance with their own time and milieu which have no relevance in our modern times. The author of another book on the same subject, The Rights of Women in Islam, he advocates the imperative necessity and urgency for ijtihad (creative reinterpretation) and reform of Shari’ah Laws, to breach the vast chasm that exists between them and the needs of modern Muslim women.