Woman between Islam and Western Society

his head. When the people saw what he had done, they immediately began to follow suit. Their anguish was so great that it seemed they would cut one another’s heads as they began to shave them after the sacrifice. The reason that Khadijah and Umm Salmah were able to arrive at a correct judgment in such delicate situations was that they were detached from them and, therefore, in a position to offer objective opinions. If they too had been seriously involved, they might have been too subjective in their thinking. WOMAN-—AS A SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE There is a famous saying of the Prophet that the acquisition of knowledge is the duty of all Muslims.77 In this saying, the word muslim is in the masculine form, muslimah being the feminine form, but the work of scholars carried out on the traditions makes it clear that muslimah may be legitimately inferred. That means that the acquisition of knowledge is likewise the duty of Muslim women. In the biographies of the narrators of Hadith literature, mention is made of the academic services of women, which is a clear indication that during the first era of Islam, there was a strong tendency among women to acquire knowledge. The benefits ensuing from their efforts were far-reaching. For example Imam Bukhari, whose al-Jami’ as­-Sahih is by far the most authentic source of Hadith learning, set off, when he was 14 years of age, to acquire knowledge from far distant scholars: if he was in a position to appreciate the lessons given by the great teachers of the time, it was because his mother and sister had given him a sound educational background at home. It is said that Imam ibn Jauzi, the famous religious scholar, received his primary education from his aunt. Ibn Abi Asiba’s sister and daughter were experts in medicine — the lady doctors of their time. And among the Hadith teachers of Imam ibn Asakir, several women teachers are mentioned. During the first era of Islam, academic activity related mostly to work on the Hadith and athar.78 We find, in this age, that a number of the Prophet’s Companions were women, and that they contributed in large measure to the narration and preservation of the traditions of the Prophet. The Prophet’s wife, ‘Aishah, herself handed down to posterity a substantial proportion of what comprises the vast whole of Islamic knowledge. The next generation of women in their turn handed down the traditions which they had heard at first hand from the Prophet or his Companions. Many of them acquired their knowledge from religious scholars to whom they were related, and carried on the good work of passing it on to their successors. ISLAM GIVES COURAGE Tumadir bint ‘Amr ibn ath-Tharid as-Sulamiyya (d.24 AH), a poetess, later known as Khansa, who was born into a noble family (her father was the Chief of the Banu Salim tribe of