Woman Between Islam and Western Society
5. Position of Woman in the Islamic Shari‘ah
~ 326 ~
returned even when two of her brothers came to
take her back.
94
The Quraysh considered this
refusal a violation of the pact and quickly seized
this opportunity to defame the Prophet. It is
remarkable, however, that they soon ceased to
protest on this score and, considering that they
were the Prophet’s direst enemies, it is difficult to
understand how this came about. No satisfactory
answer is to be found in the books of
Sirah
and
Commentaries on the Qur’an. Qadi Abu Bakr ibn
al-Arabi writes that the Quraysh ceased to protest
because God had miraculously silenced their
tongues.
95
There can be no doubt about it: it was
one of God’s miracles. (Although not in the usual
sense of the word).
It is perhaps easier to arrive at the truth by
examining the wording of this particular
condition of the pact. Here we quote Bukhari’ s
version, which may be taken as the most
authentic: “You will have to return any of our
men who come to you, even if they have accepted
your faith.”
96
The expression “any of our men”
(rajul)
obviously gave Muslims a loophole by
which to exclude women from the application of
