Some words on the popular slogan "ISLAM GAVE WOMEN RIGHTS BEFORE FEMINISM" used as a means to "women empowerment":
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
To say "Islam gave rights before feminism" as a slogan to impress feminists or make Islam seem "progressive" for its time or as an appeal to "women empowerment" is useless to a feminist because unlike feminism, the rights we actually affirm to be rights given to man/woman are rooted in divine revelation.
We are both coming from completely different paradigms; feminism which is rooted in the assumption that the more freedom there is, the better it is, whereas Islam is rooted in submission to Allāh and the Legislation and there's no underlying assumption that more freedom there is, the better/more justice there is. We don't accept such an idea in the first place.
Our rights return back to Allāh who gives us rights whilst their conception of rights return back to man himself. So, essentially, our paradigm can never satisfy those from a secular feminist framework as our "rights" are grounded and restricted to a certain degree.
Whereas for them, their understanding of rights which is rooted in their godless secular "moral" framework, allows for them to give as many rights to (in this case) women as for them, the more rights/more freedom there is, the more just it is.
This shows we have completely different definitions of "justice" on account of our "belief systems". So for example, the feminist could come tomorrow and say, that women are allowed to marry more than one man, whilst to them, there would be nothing to restrict such a hideous right, but to us, this is disbelief and in complete contradiction to our understanding of rights.
This means we as Muslims shouldn't appeal to post modern concepts that can't even assert themselves to be objectively true such as "feminism" & "equality" in order to validate the religion and neither must we accept these presuppositions e.g. more freedom/more rights = more justice (that people have simply accepted as common sense/truth).
As soon as a Muslim accepts such presuppositions beforehand and then try to argue for Islam through such foreign frameworks, you are already fighting a losing battle and will never satisfy the secular feminist, for Islam simply doesn't accommodate such modern concepts.
So we must stop peddling such silly slogans that have been propagated for many years in order to make Islam seem more appealing when in reality, it just backfires. We argue for Islam based on its call to truth and this is submission to the One True Lord, the One who Legislates.
In conclusion:
No doubt, in the sense, that what was revealed to the Messenger ﷺ at the time, Allāh did give divinely legislated rights to women, which other various societies did not have, but we don't say this with the intention of saying "oooh wow look how progressive Islam is", because we know, that there would have been other societies that would give women other "rights" that the Qur'ān & Sunna restricted.
So simply, whether Allāh gives more rights to women in certain aspects, or restricts other rights in certain aspects for women when compared (even though as mentioned before this comparison from our foundational levels is something we should avoid) to modern society, we don't use this fact with the intention that this "women empowerment", but rather it simply is, what it is i.e. this is what Allāh legislated and we don't need to take these commands and use them for our agendas trying to prove "women empowerment".
