The members of the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind met for a general body meeting in the capital today to discuss the issues that need their attention and agreed that ensuring rights for women was among the priority areas.
Inheritance rights, particularly in the case of farm lands, need to be guaranteed for women, the scholars said as they also discussed the issue of reservation for women and for Dalit Muslims and Christians.
"We agreed that women's rights need to be considered as one of our main priorities, in the country in general and the Muslim community in particular. While the Muslim personal law already has provisions for inheritance rights for women, we want the Indian law too to be more pronounced on the issue," said spokesperson of the JuH Abdul Hamid Nomani.
He said the issue of neglect of women in the Muslim community in India was also of paramount importance and the meeting decided that the ulema should run a nationwide campaign to propagate on this issue.
"Though the Muslim law provides for rights for women, we still find the law not being followed in letter and spirit and there is a need to correct this," he said.
The organisation will hold an open meeting in the Ramlila Grounds tomorrow to publicly announce the decisions taken today.