IN THE FIELD OF ACTION

5. Muslim women ~ 95 ~ stones home on your head is harder for me to bear than that.”84 Such instances of how women toiled during their stay in Medina are numberless. At that time women worked not only in their homes, but outside as well. This was because their menfolk were so preoccupied with preaching Islam that there was little time left in which to discharge their household responsibilities. It was left to the women then to deal with both internal and external duties. They even tended the animals, did the farming and worked in the orchards. 84. Bukhari, Sahih, Kitab an-Nikah, (Fath aI-Bari, 9/264265). THE VIRTUE OF BELIEVING WOMEN When this verse was revealed in the Qur’an — “They who hoard up gold and silver and spend it not in the way of God, unto them give tidings of a painful doom”85 — then the Prophet said: “Woe to gold, woe to silver.” When the Companions of the Prophet learned of this they were upset. They began to ask one another what things they were going to