A Theoretical Introduction to Islam's Capacities for Women's Empowerment in Islamic Countries with Emphasis on Qur'anic Verses1

The problem of gender discrimination against women over the world, has made finding a solution a necessity; thus, the concept of women's empowerment entered the development discourse. The poor situation of women in Muslim countries compared to other developing and developed countries has raised many questions, which some have attributed it to Islamic beliefs common in these societies. The lack of a research dealing directly with the relationship between Islamic teachings and women's empowerment and the importance of the topic in the dominant discourse of development in today world necessitates the need for research on this topic. Therefore, this question is raised, what capacities does Islam has for empowering women? The hypothesis of the research is that Respecting women, accepting the right to education and securing their economic rights are among the most important capacities of Islam for empowering women. In line with qualitative research method, for data collection, the existing scientific theoretical works such as the authoritative articles and books were used, and for data analysis, to describe the research problem and introduce the empowerment theory, descriptive method and to evaluate the compatibility of Islamic rulings and teachings with empowerment theory, analytical-comparative method was used. The findings of the article confirm the hypothesis and show that Islamic principles derived from Quran have the necessary capacity to empower Muslim women and eliminate discrimination, injustice and inequality against them.