CONCERNING WOMEN

of the cultures in ancient and medieval societies, women remained indoors and played their role within the confines of their own homes. That is why we know so little about the contribution of women in this arena. The most prominent name of a woman within the Sufi tradition is that of Rabia Basri (713801). She was born in 713 CE. into a poor family in Basra, Iraq. She devoted her life to worshipping God and serving others. She lived a life of extreme asceticism, and a large number of disciples gathered around her. Her mystical sayings have become proverbial. In Rabia Basri’s times, Muslim society was rent with great religious differences. But her strong spiritual personality exerted such a powerful influence that people eventually forgot their doctrinal differences and rallied around her. She laid emphasis on pure divine love, which alone could minimize all these differences. “Men and women are two equal halves of a single unit.” The above teaching of the Prophet and many more teachings to this effect in the Quran and Hadith ushered in a new age of gender equality. With this new-found freedom, women were able to play a great role in society, particularly women who belonged to royal families. They were highly educated by the standards of their times, and, in royal circles, with greater social exposure, they had better opportunities to exert their influence. One such woman was Maryam Makani, the mother of Akbar, the Mughal emperor of India. Once, Mullah Abdun Nabi, Akbar’s teacher, insulted the emperor before the entire court. Akbar was enraged and wanted to punish him. This could have meant even the death sentence for the offender. But Akbar’s mother intervened and successfully managed to calm him down. She told him that his pardon would go down in history, that history would remember that ‘an emperor, having all the power at his disposal, forgave an offender’. Such incidents abound in history, but because the central figures were usually either a mother, like Maryam Makani, or a daughter or wife of an emperor—women who were already famous because of their royal Women have been specially gifted by nature with such qualities as fit them for the role of bringing about peace and harmony in society in times of conflict.