Woman Between Islam and Western Society
5. Position of Woman in the Islamic Shari‘ah
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When I came home, I told Zubayr the whole
story. I said that I had felt shy of sitting with
the men on the camel and that I had also
remembered his sense of honor. To this
Zubayr replied. “By God, your carrying date
stones home on your head is harder for me to
bear than that.”
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Such instances of how women toiled during their
stay in Medina are numberless. At that time women
worked not only in their homes, but outside as well.
This was because their menfolk were so
preoccupied with preaching Islam that there was
little time left in which to discharge their household
responsibilities. It was left to the women then to
deal with both internal and external duties. They
even tended the animals, did the farming and
worked in the orchards.
THE VIRTUE OF BELIEVING WOMEN
When this verse was revealed in the Qur’an —
“They
who hoard up gold and silver and spend it not in the-
way of God, unto them give tidings of a painful
doom”
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—
then the Prophet said: “Woe to gold, woe
to silver.” When the Companions of the Prophet
