The Inheritance of Women Before and After the Advent of Islam 

The modern world today seems to be so much preoccupied with the issue of women’s rights and their assumed perfect equality with men. Prominent among them are, as Muhammad Qutb observes:  

…Those men and women who in the name of Islam are most foolishly, some mischievously, alleging that Islam has in all respects maintain a perfect equality between the sexes, while others, thanks to their ignorance of Islam, or a negligence thereof, claim that islam is an enemy of woman, for it degrades her and lowers her status holding her intellectually deficient and assigning her a position very much akin to that of animals. She is reduced to no more than a mere means of sexual gratification for men and machine for the propagation of human species, which is sufficient to show how subservient to man she is in the sight of Islam with the result that mn dominates her and enjoys an all-round superiority over her…¹ 

The undertone of these allegations can be better understood when we look back to history. By history here it is meant the history of feminism and the genesis of its emergence, what it resulted to and how it added to women’s predicament in the modern world. 

The most ancient history known to us is an indelible testimony of the fact that women under the Indian, Chinese, Greek and Roman civilizations have always been kept in subordination, and have been treated as inferior to men in rights and privileges. A further elucidation is necessary. 

Women Under The Indian Civilization

In India subjection was a cardinal principle. Day and night must women be held by their protectors in a state of dependence, says Manu. The rule of inheritance was agnatic, that is descent traced through males to the exclusion of females 2. the widows and other females have an absolute right in the estate._­^3. in religious Hindu literature by far the most effective we3apon used by the Gods to corrupt virtuous souls is a woman: the root of all evil in the misogynist, ascetic-oriented view of the orthodox Hindu. MAHABHARATA, 13:40.3-10: READS:  

I will tell you my son, how Brahma created wanton women, and for what purpose. For there is nothing more evil than women. The lord Grandfather, learning what was in the hearts of the Gods, created wanton women by a magic ritual in order to delude mankind^4.  

In Hindu scriptures, the description of a good wife is she whose mind, speech and body are dept in subjection. She will consequently acquire high renown in this world, and in the next, the same abode with her husband^5.     

The cruel rite of SATI is practiced by which the widow of a Hindu burns herself on the pyre of her husband^6. The belief is that by doing so she will attain the caliber of being an object of worship and consequently invoke on her family countless and perpetual blessings. This practice still exists in the civilized age’ as just of recent a woman in the Indian State of PHRADESH burnt herself to death along with the corpse of her husband. The entire village, in support of this barbaric practice, barred the police from reaching the pot withy and stone- throwing^7.  

Women Under Chinese Civilization  

In Chinese life the woman has always been regarded as inferior to man and she was conceded no rights whatsoever. A women was re3arded eternally a minor – her very children not properly belonging to her. A man could sell his wife as concubine. After widowhood she remained the property of her husband’s family and it was almost impossible for her to re-marry, and as late as in 1937 there were still two million girl slaves in China^8.  

This situation of women is yet to witness any change in china today, for nowadays pregnancy is officially aborted if the fetus is found to be a female. This is because they believe that boys are amore important than girls. They still retainer their age-old tradition under which women marry into the family of their husbands and are considered to have left the family of their parents. Until about a century ago, rural girls were often not even given names. Instead, they were called eldest daughter, number 2 daughter and so on. (Emphasis mine) young women feel tremendous pressure to produce male children. If they have only daughters they may be mocked and made to feel like life-long failures, particularly by their mother in laws^9.  

Women under Greek Civilization  

In Greece women faired no better. A brief look at one of the Greek mythologies will lay bare to the discerning mind the concept of a woman to the ancient Greeks.  

According to this myth, known as the ‘mysterious first woman’ Prometheus, who was one of the Gods, stole fire from the heaven and gave it to the inhabitants of the earth. This angered the greate3st god Zeus. He promised to deny the world inhabitants peace and harmony. He therefore created the first woman whose name was Pandora and sent her to the world. Epimetheus was so much attracted by her beauty that he married her.  

One day Pandora decided to open her box which later came to be called Pandora’s Box’ which was full of all kinds of evil. No sooner had she opened the box than all the evils escaped and spread to the world. Hence forward the world has never been free, even for a day from one kind of evil or the other^10.

Women therefore, according to the ancient Greeks, were an instrument of seduction and a source of all evils. They considered women a commodity to be bought and sold, inferior to men. According to Aristotle, they should be passive, obedient and silent^11.   

In Athens women were always minors. Their consent in marriage was not generally thought to be necessary. They were obliged to submit to the wishes of their parents and receive from them their husbands and their lords, even though they were strangers to them^12. 

Women Under The Roman Civilization 

The Romans treated women and regarded them as dependent slaves.¹³ In the 543 A.D and 548 A.D Rome, under the “reforms: of Emperor Justinian, a widow’s needs were ordinarily taken care of by the dowry which, given to the husband, usually by her’ family, at the time of the marriage, was to be her’s after her husband’s death. For the exceptional case of a ‘poor’ widow; i.e, a widow without dowry, a share in the estate was provided. This law still exists in the state of Louisiana in the United States of America^14.  

In Republican Rome a testator had the power to disinherit his spouse and children^15. A Roman wife was described by one historian as ‘a babe, a minor, a ward, a person incapable of doing or acting anything according to her own individual taste, a person continually under the tutelage and guardianship of her husband (Emphasis mine)^16. if a woman got married her property passed into the power of her husband. She was regarded as the purchased property of her husband acquired only for his benefit. Women could not exercise any civil or
Public office, could not be witnesses, sureties, tutors or curators. They could neither adopt nor be adopted. They could not make a will or contract^17.  

Women In Early Christianity 

The predominant religion in Europe, Christianity, did not help women either for its de-humanizing and derogatory references to women further paved the way for their subjugation and maltreatment by men.

Early Christianity regarded women as evil temptresses responsible for the fall of Adam^18.  The Bible says: 

Let a women learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men. She is to keep silent, for Adam was formed first then eve. Adam was not deceived but Eve was deceived and became a transgressor^19. 

Henry VIII forbade the reading of the Bible by women while throughout the middle Ages the Catholic Church treated women as second – class citizens.²⁰

In their book, Marriage: East and West, David and Vera mace wrote:  

Let no on suppose, either, that or Christian heritage is Free of such slighting Judgments. It would be hard to find anywhere a collection of more degrading references to the female sex than the early church fathers provide. Lackey the famous historian, speaks of ‘These fierce  incentives which form so conspicuous and so grotesque a portion of the writing of the fathers ----- women was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. He should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman she should live in continual penance on account of the curses she has brought upon the world. She should be ashamed of her dress, for it is the memorial of her fall. She should especially ashamed of her beauty, for it is the most potent instrument of the devil; one of the most scathing of these attacks on woman is that of Tertullian: ‘Do you know that you are each an Eva? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age; the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devit’s gateway: you are the first deserters of the divine law; you are she who persuades him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily god’s image, man. On account of your desert – that is death – even the son of “God had to die’. Not only did the church affirm the inferior status of woman it deprived her of legal rights she had previously enjoyed. ²¹ 

The fact was only recently admitted by Pope John Paul II in an open letter he issued worldwide to women in 1995, prior to the commencement of the UN Conference on women held in Beijing. He said he “was truly sorry” fro the church’s role in encouraging such oppression. “If objective blame, especially in particular historical contexts, has belonged to no more just a few member of the church, I am truly sorry” poor women! Throughout the history of Christian Europe they, according to the Pope, “have often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude” ²². 

The Position of Women in Europe 

Among the Scandinavian races women, whether married or unmarried, were under perpetual tutelage. As late as code of Christian V, at the end of the 7^th century, it was enacted that if a woman married without the consent of her tutor. ²²  

In France, in 587 A.D, at the council of Macon, a meeting was held to study the status of woman and to determine whether she could truly be regarded as a human being or not. ²³ 

In Scotland a husband was entitled to courtesy, a life rent out of the entire immovable property of his deceased wife while a widow was entitled to only one-third of her deceased husband’s inheritable estate. This practice came to an end in 1964. ²⁴ 

Women In The Post – industrial Europe 

The European women who have been languishing in an age – old deplorable predicament of maltreatment, subjugation and neglect had some hope in industrialization. But their dream was shattered as the industrial revolution, instead of bailing them out, subjected them further to the enslavement of males and avarice of the cruel and greedy factory owners.  

With the industrial revolution the whole of the social scene underwent a radical change in the country no less than in cities. The family life was completely ruined, and the ties holding together its members were torn asunder when women and children were, thanks to the industrial revolution, forced to go out and work in factories. The working class slowly and gradually left the country life… and came over to cities where men and women no longer bothered abou8t moral scruples… the will to marry and support a family suffered a decline. ²⁵

Consequently women found themselves on the receiving end for their honor was completely lost. Men shrank away the responsibility of supporting women but, instead, charged them to fend for themselves. The greedy factory owners saw in women and made them work for long hours at a meager pay while men were paid high sum for similar job. ²⁶ 

The First World War added more to the tragedies of women in Europe. Countless number of men were lost and factories faced the problems of damage repairs and shortage of working hands. ²⁷ It was during the same time that a kind of new virtue was moulded in the west; economic and financial virtues. Women were therefore persuaded under the guise of liberation to join the work force. ²⁸

The only benefit European women enjoyed from the industrial revolution was that they could now, as a right, own property, which they didn’t enjoy before. This is because until the last century, it was impossible for a married woman in Europe to hold property on her won, to sign a contract with other persons, or to dispose of her property without the consent of her husband. ²⁹ Will Durant writes;

The first step for the liberation of our grant – mother was the 1882 law. According to his law, woman of Great Britain from then on acquired unprecedented rights, i.e. the money they earned they could keep themselves.  

But even this right was not accorded out of mercy or tenderness towards woman. It was motivated by economic reasons because, as Will Durant said;  

“This high moral law was passed by factory owners who were members of the House of commons, in an effort to drag English women to the factories.” ³¹

It was therefore the greed of factory owners to make greater profits with cheaper labor, which explained the economic Independence of women in Europe.

In Italy a law of 1919 removed women from interdiction and in the German civil law of 1900 and the Swiss civil law of 1907 women were given legal rights like those of their husbands. But in Portuguese and French laws, married women are still considered interdicted. It was only on February 18^th, 1938 that a law was passed in France, which partially reduced the interdiction of married women. Will Durant was therefore right when he concluded that European women have to thank machines, not men for their change in status. ³²

It can therefore be understood from the foregoing that women in Europe have no right by law to inherit. Even if they do they have no specified share. They are regarded as twin halves of men and share the same source and origin for they are all descendants of Sayyiduna Adam alaihis salam.   Continued...

Part 1
Introduction

Part 2
The Inheritance of Women Before and After the Advent of Islam
Women Under The Indian Civilization
Women Under Chinese Civilization
Women under Greek Civilization
Women Under The Roman Civilization
Women In Early Christianity
The Position of Women in Europe
Women In The Post – industrial Europe

Part 3
Feminist Movement and The Tragedy of Western Women
The Inheritance of Women under Jewish Laws

Part 4
The Inheritance Of Women In the Western World past and Present
The Inheritance of Women in The Jahiliyya period