Woman in Islamic Shari‘ah
5. Muslim women
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5. MUSLIM WOMEN
WOMEN, throughout the history of Islam, have
played significant roles and, by their feats, have
demonstrated not only the vast arena which Islam
affords them for the performance of noble and
heroic deeds, but also the exaltedness of the
position accorded to women in Islamic society.
Within the sphere of lslam, ‘Aishah, the daughter of
Abu Bakr and wife of the Prophet, stands out as a
woman of notable intelligence, whose intellectual
gifts were fittingly utilized in the service of Islam.
Very young in comparison with the Prophet, she
survived him by almost half a century, during
which period she became a great and authentic
source of religious learning for the
ummah
(community). This was largely due to the accuracy
with which she had preserved in her memory the
speeches, conversations and sayings of the Prophet.
In all, she related about 2210 of his sayings and was
extraordinarily gifted in being able to formulate
laws from them. It is said that no less than one
quarter of the
shari’ah
injunctions have been derived
from her narrations. Her knowledge and deep
