Exemplary Muslim Women

WOMEN FROM MUSLIM HISTORY apportion more substantial dowers. Feeling that this was an unhealthy trend, ‘Umar once addressed an assembly of his people from the pulpit, saying he did not know who had increased the dower to more than four hundred dirhams. The Prophet and his Companions handed over four hundred dirhams or even less. Nobody should fix a dower of more than four hundred dirhams. If it comes to my knowledge that anyone has exceeded this amount, I will confiscate the excess amount for the State Treasury.’ When he had had his say, a woman got up from one corner of the gathering and said, “‘O Commander of the Faithful, is the Book of God (Quran) to be followed or what you have to say?’ ‘Umar replied that it was certainly the Book of God that was to be followed. The woman then retorted, ‘You have just forbidden people to increase the amount of dower, whereas God says in His book: O believers, it is unlawful for you... to force them to give up a part of what you have given them...’”(4:20) The woman had actually misquoted the text, but ‘Umar did not choose to assert himself and simply said, ‘Everyone knows more than ‘Umar.’(Al-Bayhaqi, as-Sunan al-Kubra, Hadith No. 14336) With these words, he relented on the question of the dower. This is a telling example of a woman successfully holding forth on a religious matter at a public gathering. Another woman who made a significant contribution to the spread of religious learning in Muslim history is the daughter of Imam Abu Ja’far al-Tahawi (229-321 AH), the