Hearing Other Voices: Christian Women And The Coming Of Islam

The effect of the coming of Islam on the condition of women has long been a subject of debate among scholars with divergent interests in the Muslim world, including Protestant missionaries, anthropologists, Muslim reformists, apologists, and feminists. The central question upon which this subject is focused has been couched in language of mutually exclusive extremes: Did Islam at its inception bring about an improvement in women's condition, or was Islam responsible for bringing about inequalities between men and women in Muslim societies? The purpose of this article is to suggest new directions for exploring the effect of Islam on women, to confront the inadequacy of the sources and methods that are presently brought to bear on the issues, and to introduce Christian sources to a debate that has been carried out within a self-contained Muslim-Arab context

[1]  Leila Ahmed.  Women and the Advent of Islam , 1986, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

[2]  A. Vööbus.  The Institution of the Benai Qeiama and Benat Qeiama in the Ancient Syrian Church , 1961, Church History.

[3]  Sidney Smith.  Events in Arabia in the 6th Century A.D. , 1954, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

[4]  A. Jeffery.  CHRISTIANITY IN SOUTH ARABIA , 1946 .

[5]  N. Abbott.  Women and the State in Early Islam , 1942, Journal of Near Eastern Studies.

[6]  N. Abbott.  Women and the State on the Eve of Islam , 1941, The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures.

[7]  P. Crone.  Roman, provincial and Islamic law: A practical guide to the study of Islamic law , 1987 .

[8]  J. Chelhod.  Du Nouveau À Propos Du «Matriarcat» Arabe , 1981 .

[9]  S. Brock.  Syriac Sources for Seventh-Century History , 1976, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies.

[10]  Josephine M. Harris,et al.  Excavations at Nessana , 1966 .