Arab women left in inheritance trap by delayed reforms | Financial Times

Arab women left in inheritance trap by delayed reforms | Financial Times:

When Beji Caid Sebsi, Tunisia’s president, backed legislation to ensure equality of inheritance between men and women, he was challenging a tenet of Islamic law. The Koran spells out in detail how legacies are to be divided, dictating that brothers receive twice the share of sisters. Mr Sebsi’s law would have been the first of its kind in the Arab world to defy that dictate.

Modernisers cheered, but Muslim clerics decried an attack on Islam. Tunisia’s main conservative party, Nahda, deemed it a step too far. “There is strong opposition within the party and in Tunisian society at large,” said Said Ferjani, a senior Nahda leader. “No political party can make this gamble, particularly with elections next year.”

The passage of the law in Tunisia is now in doubt. But the debate it ignited across the Arab world continues to rage. It has underlined the difficulty of upending a centuries-old status quo that shapes the contours of power and wealth across the Arab world.