Woman Between Islam and Western Society
5. Position of Woman in the Islamic Shari‘ah
~ 314 ~
During the first era of Islam, academic activity
related mostly to work on the Hadith and
athar.
78
We find, in this age, that a number of the Prophet’s
Companions were women, and that they
contributed in large measure to the narration and
preservation of the traditions of the Prophet. The
Prophet’s wife, ‘Aishah, herself handed down to
posterity a substantial proportion of what
comprises the vast whole of Islamic knowledge. The
next generation of women in their turn handed
down the traditions which they had heard at first
hand from the Prophet or his Companions. Many of
them acquired their knowledge from religious
scholars to whom they were related, and carried on
the good work of passing it on to their successors.
ISLAM GIVES COURAGE
Tumadir bint ‘Amr ibn ath-Tharid as-Sulamiyya
(d.24
AH
), a poetess, later known as Khansa, who
was born into a noble family (her father was the
Chief of the Banu Salim tribe of Mudar), lost her
two brothers in a war fought prior to the advent of
Islam. Their deaths were a great shock to her.
Before this tragedy it had been her wont to
