Among the rights given to women in Islam, the greatest right is that of “education”. In Islam, men and women have equal rights and duties to learn and teach. The very beginning of the divine word is “Iqra”. The Messenger of Allah was prayed to gain knowledge, then according to the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), “Whoever takes a path to gain knowledge, Allah Almighty makes easy for him the path to Paradise.” (Tirmidhi 2646) Under Islam, acquiring knowledge has been made obligatory on both men and women.
Education not only makes a woman conscious but also empowers her. The entire fourteen hundred year history of Islamic history is full of these Muslim women scholars. Who were teaching knowledge not only to women but also to men. According to a study by the Cambridge Islamic College, from the Prophet of Islam to the present day, there are biographies of more than 9000 women scholars who have made valuable contributions to various fields of religion.
In the early days of Islam, five women were educated: Umm Kulthum, Aisha bint Saad, Maryam bint Miqdad, Shifa bint Abdullah, and Aisha bint Abi Abkar. Hazrat Aisha, the daughter of Hazrat Abu Bakr and wife of the Prophet, narrated 2,210 hadiths for mankind. Hazrat Aisha was also a scholar of hadith and jurisprudence, a teacher, a preacher, and a great interpreter of the Quran. Women of her time would always go to her with their questions. She was an intelligent person with a good memory. It is said that Aisha had a sharp mind and her judgment was very good. After the death of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, she continued to teach and had more than 200 students. At that time, despite the presence of many men in Medina, other male companions would also go to learn from her. She was the first expert in Islam. Ummul Momineen Hazrat Umm Salamah, the wife of the Prophet, was a reference for the companions due to her jurisprudence.
Umrah was one of the greatest scholars of the generation that followed the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. She was a student of Umm al-Mu’minin Aisha bint Abi Bakr. She became known as an Islamic edict (fatwa) and hadith expert. Umm al-Darda was one of the leading Muslim scholars of the second generation after the Prophet Muhammad. She was a prominent hadith scholar, translator, teacher, jurist, and Quranic scholar. She met and narrated hadiths from Umm al-Mu’minin Aisha and other companions, including Salman al-Farsi and Abu Hurayrah. After spending most of her life in Medina, she moved to Damascus, where she taught in the men’s section. She taught hundreds of students, both male and female, and many of them became respected scholars in their own right. One of her students was Abdul Malik bin Marwan.
Aisha bint Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Qadim was one of the most learned scholars of the late 10th century. She produced many copies of the Quran. Fatima Muhammad al-Fihri (d. 880 CE) is particularly remembered as the founder of the world’s first degree-granting institution of higher learning. The university she founded is still in operation today as the University of Qarawiyyin. The original institution was a mosque that was converted into an educational institution. According to UNESCO, it is the oldest degree-granting institution, and thus the first and oldest university.
Zainab bint Ahmad (d. 1339 CE) was a prominent Islamic scholar in the 14th century. She belonged to the Hanbali school of jurisprudence and lived in Damascus. She held many degrees in various fields, but especially in the sciences of hadith. She taught books such as Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Malik ibn Anas’ Muwatta, and Sunan al-Tirmidhi. The North African traveler Ibn Battuta (d. 1369 CE) was one of her students.
Fatima bint Ibrahim ibn Jawhar (14th century CE) taught the entire Bukhari collection of hadith and was so famous that whenever she went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, scholars from all over the Muslim world would be invited to join her study groups. She taught Imam Dhahabi and Imam Sabbi. Fatima was often requested to teach at the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina.
Fatima was also known as Sheikha al-Fadliyah and was a famous jurist and hadith scholar. Born in Arabia, she studied and mastered calligraphy and other Islamic sciences, but she was particularly interested in hadith. She studied hadith with many teachers and eventually began teaching and narrating to her students. When she settled in Mecca, she founded a public library, and her lectures were attended by many prominent male scholars, including Omar al-Hanafi and Muhammad Salih.
In the 21st century, Ustad Maryam Amir Naban actively hosts women memorizing the Quran from all over the world, and she is the creator of Qaria, an app that includes female Quran reciters from all over the world.
In addition to them, countless Muslim scholars have been involved in the service of Islam and are still involved today. But in recent years, Muslim women scholars have not been as active as they used to be. Why is this so? The Islamic temperament of our women has been lost somewhere, especially in Pakistani society. Today, women constitute more than half of the society. Our women today are confused somewhere. The religion of Islam, the foundation of which is education, is completely deprived of this education. Then how will their children benefit from knowledge from these women?
Believe me, more than half of the ignorance in society today is due to ignorant women, who cannot be conscious or empowered without knowledge. There is a need for the government to encourage Muslim women scholars.
