ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Fatima az-Zahra’, The World's most outstanding Lady The Painful Fate of Women throughout History قال رسول الله(صلى الله عليه وآله): كانت مريم سيدة نساء زمانها، أمّا ابنتي فاطمة فهي سيدة نساء العالمين من الاولين الاخرين The Holy Prophet (S) said: “Maryam was the Lady of the women of her time, but my daughter Fatimah is the lady of the whole worlds’ women, from the first to the last.” Throughout history women have had a very painful story.

Their physical weakness in contrast to the opposite sex- man being the reason why the bullies and despots throughout history endeavoured to trample their human identity. What crimes they committed to this end! Especially in Arabia during “The Age of Ignorance”[^1], (even though at that time the whole world had sunk into ignorance), the identity of woman was more than anywhere else trodden upon; to such an extent that a woman was exchanged like a piece of merchandise.

A share in the inheritance of men was not granted to them. They saw the birth of a girl as a disgrace. And, as we know, buried newborn baby-girls alive. They even ignored the laws of nature saying that the children of our daughters are not our children. our children are only those of our sons.

This Poem has remained from that age for us as a reminder of this very belief of theirs: بنونا بنو أبنائنا و بناتنا \*\*\* بنوهن أبناء الرجال الأباعد The offspring of our sons are our progeny -and on the other hand the offspring of our daughters are the off springs of alien men . But when Islam came into the ring to revive human and godly values, it began fighting this ignorant belief, and it rose to restore the lost identity of woman.

It did this by preaching cultural counsel and education; by creating laws for women’s benefit and allowing them participation in various activities and, finally, with severe action against those who were not willing to surrender to these realities. In another tradition, we read that: Assma bint Omays, the wife of Jafar bin Abi Talib returned with her husband from Habasha ^2 and came to see the Prophet’s wives.

One of the first Questions she asked was: “Have any of the verses of the Quran been revealed in regard to women?” They (the wives of the Holy Prophet) claimed to have no Knowledge of this! Assma came to see the Holy Prophet (S) and said: “O Prophet of God! Is the female sex caught with loss and detriment?