Women and the Advent of Islam

Abstract

Probably 'Aisha rather than Khadija should be counted the first woman of Islam. Khadija, the wealthy widow who employed Mohamad to oversee her caravan (trading between Mecca and Syria) and proposed to and married him when she was forty and he twenty-five, was already in her fifties when Mohamad received his first revelation and began to preach Islam. 'Aisha, on the other hand, was born to Muslim parents and betrothed to Mohamad when she was a child and he in his fifties and already launched on his prophetic career. Khadija rightly occupies a place of first importance in the story of Islam itself because of her importance to Mohamad's life: it was her wealth that freed him from the need to earn a living and enabled him to lead the life of contemplation that was the prelude to his prophethood; and her support and confidence were crucial in his venturing to preach Islam. To place Khadija at the beginning of the story of women in Islamwhere she is regularly placed-is, however, misleading. She was after all for most of her life a Jahilia (pre-Islamic) woman, shaped by Jahilia ways, and her life and outlook exemplified Jahilia-not Islamic-attitudes and