It goes without saying that women were the primary narrators of the customs related to matters pertaining to women. However, there are many instances where women narrated on general issues. One renowned Ḥadīth is narrated by al-Rubayyi’ bint Mu’awwidh in which she describes the Prophet’s wuḍhūʾ. Her knowledge on this was so accurate and detailed that various scholars travelled to great lengths to hear this Ḥadīth from her.
Umm Ad-Darda’ was held by Iyas ibn Mu`awiyah, as an important scholar of hadith of the time and a judge of undisputed ability and merit, to be superior to all the other hadith scholars of the period, including the celebrated masters of hadith like Al-Hasan Al-Basri and Ibn Sirin.
In retaliation, the patriarchy did what the patriarchy does best. It fought and rallied for the disappearance of women. Many fans of female reciters and other female Sheikhas protested against the fatwa but to no avail. Radio stations soon stopped playing Sheikha Munira and other Shiekhas’ recitations. The Sheikhs refused to rescind their fatwa even though some scholars saw it as a form of intellectual regression.
It particularly surprised non-Muslims to learn that women, living under an Islamic legal system, could be scholars, holding the authority that comes with being knowledgeable about what Islam commands, and therefore making them sought after and deferred to for their fiqh, for their fatwas, and for their tafsir.
