WOMEN IN EVERY FIELD

knows their faith. If you find them true believers, do not return them to the infidels.93 Many incidents have been recorded of women managing to free themselves from the clutches of the Quraysh, coming to Medina, and then not being returned to the Quraysh in spite of the latter invoking the terms of the peace treaty. For example, when Umm Kulthum bint ‘Uqbah ibn Abu Mu’ayt escaped to Medina, she was not returned even when two of her brothers came to take her back.94 The Quraysh considered this refusal a violation of the pact and quickly seized this opportunity to defame the Prophet. It is remarkable, however, that they soon ceased to protest on this score and, considering that they were the Prophet’s direst enemies, it is difficult to understand how this came about. No satisfactory answer is to be found in the books of Sirah and Commentaries on the Qur’an. Qadi Abu Bakr ibn al-- Arabi writes that the Quraysh ceased to protest because God had miraculously silenced their tongues.95 There can be no doubt about it: it was one of God’s miracles. (Although not in the usual sense of the word). It is perhaps easier to arrive at the truth by examining the wording of this particular condition of the pact. Here we quote Bukhari’ s version, which may be taken as the most authentic: “You will have to return any of our men who come to you, even if they have accepted your faith.”96 The expression “any of our men” (rajul) obviously gave Muslims a loophole by which to exclude women from the application of this condition. This condition of the pact had not been put forward by them, but by the Meccans, and the actual wording had been dictated by the delegates of the Quraysh. It seems that when one of them, called Suhayl ibn ‘Amr, was dictating, he was thinking of both men and women, but that the actual word he chose in order to convey “any person” (inclusive of both men and women) was rajul, which in Arabic is actually used only for men. Most probably this was why the Prophet could legitimately refuse — according to Imam Zuhri — ­to hand over Umm Kulthum bint ‘Uqbah to her brothers when they came to him to demand her return. Razi is another annalist who records the Prophet on this occasion as having explained that “the condition applied to men and not to women.”97 Thus God, by means of a single word, saved virtuous Muslim women from the humiliation of being returned to their oppressors. WORKING OUTDOORS According to ‘Abdullah ibn Mas’ud, when Abu ad-Dahdah, one of the Prophet’s Companions, heard the revelation of this Qur’anic verse: “Who will give a generous loan to God? He will pay him back two­fold and he shall receive a rich reward,”98 he asked the Prophet, “O Messenger of God, does God want a loan from us?” When the Prophet replied in the affirmative, Abu ad-Dahdah took him by the hand, and said, “I hereby lend my orchard to God.” Abu ad-Dahdah’s orchard was a sizeable one with six hundred date palms and, at the time