Islam provides counteracting rules on women's economic rights. In order to understand the effect of the opposing rules in Islamic doctrine on women's economic rights at the state level, I test the relationship, along with a set of competing hypotheses. Using data from 1990 to 2014 on the population of Muslim-majority states, I employ a multilevel mixed-effects linear regression model. I find that at the state level, Islam is not a major influence on women's economic rights. However, other cultural and economic factors are strong predictors. To better understand the causal mechanisms linking the predictors to women's economic rights, I employ a most similar systems case study, comparing Jordan and Morocco. These cases are selected because they share many similarities, yet have contrasting records on women's economic rights. The case study reveals that Arab states that can overcome the dominance of patriarchal interests in the policymaking process are better positioned to advance women's economic rights.
