Women in pre-Islamic Arabia



What was life like for women in Arabia before Islam?

Did Islam improve the status of women as Muslim apologists claim?

Or, were women worse off after Islam! To find out we need to look at historical sources, which describe life during the time of Mohammad.

When Islamists refer to the time before the advent of Islam, they describe that time as the Jahiliya which means time of ignorance. There is not a lot known about pre-Islamic Arabs since most of their lore was oral and they did not put much into writing, except for their poetry which survived Islam. They did however abide by traditional laws, which were enforced by public opinion. Bravery in battle, loyalty and generosity were the most prized qualities amongst pagan Arabs. In some tribes women would accompany their men into battle.

The many tribes that inhabited Arabia had diverse customs and cultures, in some, women had low status and were not much better than livestock, in others women enjoyed much freedom and independence which was curbed by the imposition of Islamic laws. At one time most Arab tribes would have been matrilineal, an incident in the “Sirat” sheds some light: two men questioned about their identity say to the Muslims:  “we do not follow our mother’s line and disown our father.” This indicates that even in the time of Mohammad there would have existed  matrilineal tribes.

Another incident in the “Sirat” (Pg. 59 ) tells us of a woman  by the name of Salma d. ‘Amr. On account of the high position she held among her people she would marry on condition that she should retain control of her own affairs. If she disliked a man, she left him. She had a son with Hashim -Hashim was Mohammad's great-grandfather -  and Hashim left him with Salma while he was a little boy. It seems that at least some women did have control of their own affairs which included the right to divorce.

Amir B. Zarib is asked to preside as a judge in a case involving a hermaphrodite (pgs 51-52).  He is unable to reach a decision and finally he asks his slave girl Sukhayla: “Am I to make him a man or a woman? ”    Sukhayla replies:  “Good God, merely follow the  course of the urinatory process.”  Gender was important because a male received double the share  of  a female. Clearly it was a case involving inheritance. This case was before Mohammad established Islamic laws and it indicates that in some tribes women did receive half the amount of inheritance of males before Islam and not zero inheritance as some Islamists claim, therefore Islam would not have made any improvements in the area of inheritance for women.

A woman proposes marriage to Abdullah (pg.68): “If you will take me you can have as many camels as were sacrificed in your stead”. If pre-Islamic women were mere chattels with no rights they would not have owned camels nor would they have been allowed to propose marriage. In most Islamic countries today, women cannot get married without permission from their male guardian. Khadijah, Mohammad’s first wife, was a wealthy merchant woman who hired men to work for her. Mohammad started out as Khadija’s employee and eventually Khadijah proposed marriage to Mohammad. It’s worth noting that during his marriage to Khadijah, Mohammad did not take other  wives, it is possible that Khadijah stipulated in the marriage contract that Mohammad would not marry other women while married to her. On pg.313 we are told that before revelation, Mohammad never opposed Khadijah. Khadijah doesn’t sound like a downtrodden or worthless woman to me! In fact when Islamists want to impress western feminists they always mention Khadijah– what they keep quiet about is the fact that  she lived most of her life before Islamic laws were imposed.

Islamists like to point out to the custom of some tribes –notably the Tammin tribe – of burying alive unwanted female infants. In cases of severe hardship such as famine, pagan Arabs would practice infanticide regardless of the gender of the infant. When Mohammad conquers the Meccans he exhorts the women not to kill their children, one woman, Hind d. Utba replies:  I brought them up when they were little and you killed them on the day of Badr when they were grown up, so you are the one to know about them.”

 Abdul Muttalib knew that death  was at hand and summoned his six daughters  and said to them: “Compose elegies over me so that I may hear what you are going to say before I die” [pg. 73]. If daughters were so despised in those times why would this man allow them all to live and then ask them to compose eulogies for his death? Today most Muslim women are not permitted to attend funerals, let alone give eulogies in public. On pg 446, we have a man with seven daughters. Surely, if daughters had so little value, these men would not have allowed so many of them to live!

Once two men had a dispute [pg 196]…over a hundred camels, and they appointed an Arab woman diviner arbitrator and she gave judgment in his favor... It sounds that this woman was a judge, yet in the year 2005 Islamists insist that women are not fit to be judges and their testimony is worth half of that of a man’s. Before Islam women were fit to be judges, after Islam a woman’s testimony became half of that of a man’s. See the following article on this Islamic site:   http://www.thetruereligion.org/witnesses.htm  The excuse is a “scientific explanation”  about psychological differences. The Victorians used similar excuses to prevent women from studying medicine, a well known 1848 obstetrical text stated: “She [woman] has a head almost too small for intellect but just big enough for love.”  Victorians  also believed that intellectual activity had harmful effects on the female reproductive system!

Mohammad sends one of his men - Mu'adh - to the Yaman and instructs him to: "Deal gently and not harshly; announce good news and do not repel people...". Mu'adh arrives to the Yaman and a woman approaches him and asks: "O' companion of God's apostle, what rights has a husband over his wife?"    He said:   "Woe to you a woman can never fulfil her husband's rights, so do your utmost to fulfil his claims as best as you can."  The woman says:  By God, if you are the companion of God's apostle you must know what rights a husband has over his wife!"  Mu'adh replies:  "If you were to go back and find him with his nostrils running with pus and blood and sucked until you got rid of them you would not have fulfilled your obligation." [pg. 644]  

Mohammad sends Zaid with forces to attack the B.Fazara tribe. Zaid kills some of them and captures others as prisoners, amongst them a very old woman by the name of Umm Qurfa, he orders one of his men, Zaid to kill her and he does so in a very cruel manner: he ties her legs to two camels and drives them apart so that the unfortunate woman is rent in two. We are told that this woman held a position o honour among her people and the people used to say: "Had you been more powerful than Umm Qirfa you could have done no more." [pg.665]    Why did Zaid felt so much threatened by an old woman that he had to have her execute her in such a cruel manner? Was is because she was highly regarded by her people and he wanted to make an examble of her, lest Muslim women get the idea of demanding status and respect?

Abu Sufyan surrenders Mecca to Mohammad without a fight - had he resisted his people would have been massacred by Mohammad’s forces - and the men and women of  the Quraysh come to pay homage to Mohammad. Then Mohammad exhorts the women to not commit adultery, one of the women Hind d.Utba, wife of Abu Sufyan, replies: “Does a free woman commit adultery?” (pg.553) It would appear that before Islam the Arabs did not lose much sleep over adultery. It was Mohammad that reinstated the stoning law amongst the Jews which later became enshrined into Islamic law. Stoning does not appear in the Qur’an but it is found in the hadith which are part of Islamic law. Umar, the second caliph proclaimed in his sermon: “The apostle (Mohammad) stoned (adulterers) and we stoned them after him.”  On pg 186, Mohammad tells of what he saw when he ascended to heaven: "Then I saw women hanging from their breasts. There were those who fathered bastards on their husbands".

There were other  women who opposed Mohammad, Fartana  and Asma would compose satiric verses against him and both were killed by Mohammad's men. Asma was killed after condemning the assassination of Abu Afak, an old poet, . After her murder Mohammad said: " Two goats won’t butt their heads about her.

The following is from Mohammad's sermon, the paragraph pertaining to women [pg.651]: "You have rights over your wives and they have rights over you. You have a right that they should not defile your bed and that they should not behave in open unseemliness. If they do, God allows you to put them in separate rooms and to beat them but not with severity. If they refrain from  these things they have a right to their food and clothing with kindness. Lay injunctions on women kindly, for they are prisoners with you having no control of their persons."

Today's Muslims do not bury their daughters alive in the physical sense; they bury them alive in the social and intellectual sense. Parents prefer boys, girls receive less education and women are restricted in every aspect of their lives.

However, despite religious and cultural obstacles, in some Islamic countries women have made tremendous achievements, notable in the area of education.

Source: “Sirat Rasul Allah” by  Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad b. Yasr

For Qur’anic verses and hadith relating to women see:

ISLAM  AND  WOMEN

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