Madam, - Tony Allwright (March 6th) may be right to say that today's Islamic world has at least its fair share of gender discrimination, but to attribute that phenomenon to Islam and the Koran is much too simple.
Prof Bernard Lewis, arguably the most distinguished present-day Western scholar of Islam, makes it clear in his book The Middle East (page 210 in my edition) that the coming of Islam brought an enormous improvement to the position of women in Arabia.
Not only did they gain a degree of protection from ill-treatment by their husbands or owners, but the killing of female infants, sanctioned by custom in pre-Islamic Arabia, was outlawed. Women also gained property and other rights which had not previously existed.
The position of women subsequently worsened when the original message of Islam lost its power and was changed under the influence of pre-existing attitudes. - Yours, etc,
ALAN BARWISE, Dalkey, Co Dublin.