Women in Islam
WOMEN IN ISLAMIC SOCIETY DURING THE MIDDLE AGES
The rise and expansion of Islam, after the foundation by Mohammed, is an amazing story. Ultimately, the Muslims, as the believers of Islam are called, started a world-wide faith that today makes up the world’s second largest religious group after Christians. The role and status of women within Islam is one of essential contribution to its origins and continuation, but ever-changing roles. Mohammed could not have founded Islam alone. Marriage to his employer, the wealthy widow Khadija, allowed him the leisure and financial backing to pursue his new religious journey. Born in Mecca, Mohammed was raised by his grandfather and uncle when his parents died. At the age of twenty-five he married Khadija. Mecca was an important trading center for caravan trade between Medina, the Near East and India. An integral part of this caravan and commercial trade was raiding, and the Arabs were excellent warriors. These characteristics facilitated Islam to spread via the Muslim’s holy war or Jihad within a few decades beyond the Arabian Peninsula, first to the Near East, and then Northern Africa and parts of southern Europe, including Spain. As Islam came in contact with other societies, both monotheistic and polytheistic, there was much cultural integration. Consequentially, there was room for confusion and conflict as to the expectations and responsibilities of women’s lives. As in Christianity and the Bible, so too in Islam and the Koran (the Muslims’ holy book), the interpretation of the written versus the exegesis explanations of succeeding centuries confounded the historical record and oral transmissions. Mohammed’s marriage to Khadija took place when he was twenty-five and she was forty. As his employer, Khadija hired Mohammed to oversee her caravan trade between Mecca and Syria. She then proposed to him, and she was his only wife until her death about twenty-five years later. After about fifteen years of marriage to
The rise and expansion of Islam, after the foundation by Mohammed, is an amazing story. Ultimately, the Muslims, as the believers of Islam are called, started a world-wide faith that today makes up the world’s second largest religious group after Christians. The role and status of women within Islam is one of essential contribution to its origins and continuation, but ever-changing roles. Mohammed could not have founded Islam alone. Marriage to his employer, the wealthy widow Khadija, allowed him the leisure and financial backing to pursue his new religious journey. Born in Mecca, Mohammed was raised by his grandfather and uncle when his parents died. At the age of twenty-five he married Khadija. Mecca was an important trading center for caravan trade between Medina, the Near East and India. An integral part of this caravan and commercial trade was raiding, and the Arabs were excellent warriors. These characteristics facilitated Islam to spread via the Muslim’s holy war or Jihad within a few decades beyond the Arabian Peninsula, first to the Near East, and then Northern Africa and parts of southern Europe, including Spain. As Islam came in contact with other societies, both monotheistic and polytheistic, there was much cultural integration. Consequentially, there was room for confusion and conflict as to the expectations and responsibilities of women’s lives. As in Christianity and the Bible, so too in Islam and the Koran (the Muslims’ holy book), the interpretation of the written versus the exegesis explanations of succeeding centuries confounded the historical record and oral transmissions. Mohammed’s marriage to Khadija took place when he was twenty-five and she was forty. As his employer, Khadija hired Mohammed to oversee her caravan trade between Mecca and Syria. She then proposed to him, and she was his only wife until her death about twenty-five years later. After about fifteen years of marriage to