How did the rise of Islam change the lives of women?
View the slideshow of photos from the student responses.
Some things to consider (as well as the notes from today on this question LINK):
• The Quran included a mix of rights, restrictions, and protections for women.
• In practice, as the Arab Empire grew in size,
the position of women became more limited. Women started to pray at home
instead of in the mosque, and veiling and seclusion of women became standard
practice among the upper and ruling classes, with special areas within the home
becoming the only place where women could appear unveiled. Such seclusion was
less practicable for lower-class women. These new practices derived far more
from established traditions of Middle Eastern cultures than from the Quran, but
they soon gained a religious rationale in the writings of Muslim thinkers.
• Other signs of tightening patriarchy derived from
local cultures, with no sanction in the Quran or Islamic law. But where they
were practiced, such customs often came to be seen as Islamic.
• Negative views of women, presenting them
variously as weak, deficient, and a sexually charged threat to men and social
stability, emerged in the hadiths, traditions about the sayings or actions of
Muhammad, which became an important source of Islamic law.
• Islam also offered new outlets for women in
religious life. The Sufi practice of mystical union with God allowed a greater
role for women than did mainstream Islam. Some Sufi orders had parallel groups
for women, and a few welcomed women as equal members.
• In Shia Islam, women teachers of the faith
were termed mullahs, the same as their male counterparts.
• Islamic education, either in the home or in
Quranic schools, allowed some women to become literate and a few to achieve
higher levels of learning.
• Visits
to the tombs of major Islamic figures as well as the ritual of the public bath
provided some opportunity for women to interact with other women beyond their
own family circle.
