EXEMPLARY MUSLIM WOMEN
Just as men function on different planes of religiosity, so do women have their separate spheres of religious effectiveness.
What are the traits of exemplary Muslim women? Let us first consider their everyday level of existence on which adherence to their religion broadly means paying the dues of God and men in purely personal matters. In particular, it means true belief in God and the carrying out of His commandments; strict adherence to justice in all worldly transactions; withstanding the temptations of the self as instigated by Satan; paying what is due to God in terms of one’s wealth and life; giving the Hereafter priority over the present world; being guided by Islamic ethics in dealing with one’s family, relatives and friends; in effect, invariably dealing with all matters in the manner approved of by Islam.
Next in importance to these feminine duties is the training and nurturing of children. Most women become mothers, and the relationship between mother and child is of the utmost importance because the mother’s influence can be used for ends that may be good or evil, depending upon the mother’s proclivities. As a Muslim, of course, she clearly must use her maternal influence to bring her children up as moral beings. If they have deviated from moral rectitude, she must reform them. Everything that she does should be for their ethical and intellectual betterment.
On a higher plane, talented women can further the cause of religion when the right opportunity presents itself. There are innumerable examples in Islamic history of such work having been successfully carried out by women.
A notable example is that of Aisha, a brilliant woman who was one of the Prophet’s wives. Being much younger than he was, she survived him by about fifty years and, with her excellent, and almost photographic memory, she continued to communicate in great detail everything she had learned from him during their close companionship. So, she could fulfill a highly informative role for about half a century. In short, she became a living cassette recorder for the ummah. Abdullah ibn al-’Abbas, a Companion of great stature and one of the Quran’s best commentators, was one of Aisha’s pupils. The more significant part of his knowledge of religion was learned from her. Similarly, many other Sahaba (Companions of the Prophet) and Tabi’un (companions of the Sahaba) acquired their religious knowledge from her. So here we have the excellent example of a Muslim woman imparting to others the religious knowledge she had imbibed directly from the Prophet.
There were other examples of the role of Muslims in the early period of Islam in religious matters, one of which occurred in the time of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Caliph. It concerned the amount of money or goods that had to be given as a dower (given by the husband to the wife at the time of marriage as a token that he would meet all her expenses in the future). In the Prophet’s lifetime, this had been a nominal amount, but with the increase in resources after the conquest of other countries, people had begun to 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.’(AI-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 famous Traditionist whose book, Sharh Ma’ ani al-Athar, is regularly included in the syllabus of Islamic seminaries. He dictated his book of traditions to his daughter, and as he read out the Hadith, he would explain its finer points to her, and then she would write it all down. The whole book was prepared in this way. This is one of the finest examples of a woman helping her family members in matters of religion.
The above examples show the nature and extent of the contribution that can be made by believing Muslim women to the cause of Islam.
