Notable
Women

You know,

in the 14th century, in a large mosque in Cairo,

crowded with a mixed gathering of men and women,

after the call to prayer the preacher that climbed the mimbar to give the sermon was not a man,

but was Umm Zaynab Fatima bint Abbas al-Baghdadiyya,

a religious leader, scholar and Hanbali jurist.

She had studied with Ibn Taymiyya,

who had praised her intelligence and knowledge.

But sitting in the mosque that day

he found her self-assured actions so wrong

that he was severely distressed

and wanted to forbid her.

Later that day, however,

he fell asleep and had a dream

in which the Messenger appeared to him to put his mind at ease

and reassure him

that her behaviour was acceptable.

Now Ibn Taymiyya may have been wrong on many things in his life,

but this time it was important enough for the Messenger to correct him.

So we have to ask why?

Why would he think it shockingly improper

for a woman to be passing knowledge on to men

from a minbar in a mosque,

and why is it that the situation

seems to be even worse today?

How did it get to this

from the way that women were around the Messenger,

women whose company was one of his three favourite things,

along with prayer and sweet smells.

It's a cruel world,

and ever since the fall from the Garden

humankind has had to live with jealousy, and greed,

and the urge to take whatever they want by the use of force.

If you wanted to keep what you had,

it was usually necessary to be prepared to fight for it,

and in a world where power relies largely on physical strength,

that inevitably means that one sex tends to have the upper hand.

When power comes down to muscles,

it is men that will be doing the fighting,

and men that are ultimately going to take control.

So the men who lose are killed or enslaved,

and women are seen as part of the goods and chattels that are fought for,

an attitude that is then endemic throughout society

in all relationships between the sexes, no matter how intimate,

with women being reliant on their male protectors in their family or clan.

In the jahiliyya society

into which the Messenger was born,

this state of affairs was seen as the absolute and undeniable reality of the world,

and the exercise of physical power

was not seen as something to be condemned,

but rather to be glorified.

Not being seen as a physical threat,

women are therefore mostly seen as lesser mortals,

not to be killed, but treated more like those enslaved, and used for service,

physical pleasure,

and of course the procreation of the species,

for as well as muscle

there is also strength in numbers.

Men killed in battle need to be replaced,

and the weakness of age needs an infusion of youthful strength to stay vigorous.

And in a world with no pensions or sickness benefits,

your children are the ones who provide such care when necessary.

So children are seen as wealth,

and women as birthgivers are the providers of that wealth.

Which is another reason that women don't make such good warriors,

as it tends to be incompatible with the needs of pregnancy,

and breast feeding,

and the nurture of the next generation of combatants.

Which also gives women their protected status,

as one surviving man with a hundred women

can have a hundred children in a year,

whereas one woman with a hundred men

will usually only have one child.

This was the world into which the Qur'an was revealed,

echoes of which can be seen in the world today,

with men praised for displaying their strength

and women for showing their beauty.

But of course, in times of peace

these roles are not quite as brutally distinguished as in jahiliyya,

and when other powers like perception,

intelligence, and charisma

are given the opportunity to rise above brute force,

women also can be seen to take more of a leading role,

not perhaps as warriors,

but as scholars, teachers and political leaders.

And so it has proved in the history of Islam,

in ways that nowadays can sometimes seem surprising.

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