5. MUSLIM WOMEN

5. Muslim women ~ 72 ~ 5. MUSLIM WOMEN WOMEN, throughout the history of Islam, have played significant roles and, by their feats, have demonstrated not only the vast arena which Islam affords them for the performance of noble and heroic deeds, but also the exaltedness of the position accorded to women in Islamic society. Within the sphere of lslam, ‘Aishah, the daughter of Abu Bakr and wife of the Prophet, stands out as a woman of notable intelligence, whose intellectual gifts were fittingly utilized in the service of Islam. Very young in comparison with the Prophet, she survived him by almost half a century, during which period she became a great and authentic source of religious learning for the ummah (community). This was largely due to the accuracy with which she had preserved in her memory the speeches, conversations and sayings of the Prophet. In all, she related about 2210 of his sayings and was extraordinarily gifted in being able to formulate laws from them. It is said that no less than one quarter of the shari’ah injunctions have been derived from her narrations. Her knowledge and deep