Alimas of yestercenturies

Tired of the spiel about oppressed, honor-killed, veiled Muslim women that has become wearisomely familiar?

Those that have invested time, effort, and an open mind have come to some real conclusions about who Muslim women really are.

"Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a 43-year-old Sunni alim, or religious scholar, has rediscovered a long-lost tradition of Muslim women teaching the Koran, transmitting hadith (deeds and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) and even making Islamic law as jurists," according to a New York Times article.

Akram, a scholar at the Oxford Center for Islamic studies in Britain, has found 8,000 female hadith scholars dating back 1,400 years and filling 40 volumes of his biographoical dictionary.

A particularly fascinating entry is that on Umm-Darda, a prominent jurist in seventh century Damscus. She constantly debated with male scholars in th mosque, taught hadith and fiqh there, and tutored the caliph of Damascus.

Similarly, Aiysha, the wife of Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him) is known to have transmitted over 2210 hadiths to Muslims (Dr. Khalid Mahmood Sheikh, A study of Hadith, p.17)

Muslim female scholars were already engaged in such constructive pursuits long before European women were formally admitted into high-ranking universities. Women at the University of Oxford were only admitted membership in 1920. The University of Cambridge allowed women full membership as late as 1947.

The modern counterparts of these alimas (female religious scholars) continue to study today in Al Azhar University women's college. Graduates inculde the prominent Egyptian scholars Souad Saleh (highest ranking woman in Al Azhar) and Abla Al Kahlawy.