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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islam Vs. Feminism The Role of Women in Islam The most important and most emphasized role for women mentioned in Islamic sources is that of wife and mother, but the role of woman in Islam is by no means limited to this. Women may be entrepreneurs, as was Khadijah, the first wife of (S) and the first convert to Islam.

They may also take a strong political stand even leading to martyrdom, as did Fatimah, the daughter of (S), wife of Imam 'All and mother of Imams Hasan and Husayn, peace be with all of them. Some positions, however, such as leading prayers for men, are considered inappropriate for women. Westerners often assume that because social relations between men and women are restricted in Islamic societies in ways that seem strange to them, that Muslim women are not socially and politically active.

The following anecdote reported by W. Morgan Shuster regarding events in Tehran in 1911 provides some indication of how mistaken this assumption is. With the dark days when doubts came to be whispered as to whether the Mejlis would stand firm [against Russian threats], the Persian women, in their zeal for liberty and their ardent love for their country. . supplied the answer.

Out from their walled courtyards and homes marched three hundred of that weak sex, with the flush of undying determination in their cheeks. They were clad in their plain black robes with the white nets of their veils dropped over their faces. Many held pistols under their skirts or in the folds of their sleeves. Straight to the Mejlis they went, and, gathered there, demanded of the President that he admit them all.

What the grave deputies of the Land of the Lion and the Sun may have thought at this strange visitation is not recorded. The President consented to receive a delegation of them.

In his reception-hall they confronted him, and lest he and his colleagues should doubt their meaning, these cloistered Persian mothers, wives and daughters exhibited threateningly their revolvers, tore aside their veils, and confessed their decision to kill their own husbands and sons, and leave behind their own dead bodies, if the deputies wavered in their duty to uphold the liberty and dignity of the Persian people and nation.20 This is not an isolated incident.

Women in Muslim societies are and always have been active in social and political affairs, even if they have rarely taken publicly visible leadership roles.