Woman Between Islam and Western Society
5. Position of Woman in the Islamic Shari‘ah
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The Prophet did exactly as she had suggested. He
went out, sacrificed his animal and shaved his head.
When the people saw what he had done, they
immediately began to follow suit.
Their anguish was so great that it seemed they
would cut one another’s heads as they began to
shave them after the sacrifice.
The reason that Khadijah and Umm Salmah were
able to arrive at a correct judgment in such delicate
situations was that they were detached from them
and, therefore, in a position to offer objective
opinions. If they too had been seriously involved,
they might have been too subjective in their
thinking.
WOMAN — AS A SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE
There is a famous saying of the Prophet that the
acquisition of knowledge is the duty of all
Muslims.
77
In this saying, the word
muslim
is in the
masculine form,
muslimah
being the feminine form,
but the work of scholars carried out on the
traditions makes it clear that
muslimah
may be
legitimately inferred. That means that the
