A habit of violence grown ordinary : constraints on Muslim women's participation in war - 1

Although the constraints may be partially explained by the determination of the Islamist political project to change the existing corrupt society as quickly as possible, they also raise the question of choice. One starts to gain the impression that women have only one choice: to conform to Islamist interpretations. It could be argued, however, that playing a constructive role in one's society depends upon participation in the public sphere and on the battlefield. If women are kept out of these two crucial arenas, there are several alternatives open to them: they can internalise the Islamist model of womanhood, they can agitate for an enhanced role for women according to international human rights agreements, or they can seek to reinterpret their religion for themselves.

Muslim women and war

By referring to Islamic history, one can get some idea of "the limitations gradually placed on Arab women's active participation in their society, the progressive curtailment of their rights, and the simultaneous development of practices detrimental to women and attitudes indicating a decline in their status". (24) We are told that, in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, women took an active part in the life of the community, including its battles. War "was one activity in which women of pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabia participated fully. They were present on the battlefield principally to tend the wounded and to encourage the men, often with songs and poetry. A number of women became famous for their poems inciting warriors to fight fiercely, lamenting death or defeat, or celebrating victory. Some women also fought". (25)

There are accounts of women's participation in some of the battles that took place during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. In the Battle of Uhud (623 CE), for example, "women took an active role". (26) A witness described seeing two of the Prophet's wives, "their garments tucked up and their anklets showing, carrying water to men on the battlefield. Other women on the Muslim side are mentioned as caring for the injured and removing the dead and wounded from the field". (27) During the same battle, in which the Muslims fared badly and it was even feared that Muhammad himself had been killed, a woman called Nusayba "fought with sword and bow to protect the Prophet". (28)

After the death of the Prophet in 632 CE, A'isha, his favourite wife, whom he had married when she was a child and was only 18 when he died, became a figure of some influence; she was an intelligent and thoughtful young women and, as she had enjoyed close proximity to Muhammad, was able to attest to the accuracy of some of his sayings (hadith). Succession to the Prophet took the form of a caliphate (29) but, even during the rule of the first four "rightly-guided" caliphs, dissension began to occur. This reached crisis point during the reign of the fourth caliph, Ali Ibn Abi Talib, son-in-law of the Prophet. In 656 CE, when she was 42 years old, A'isha "took to the battlefield at the head of an army that challenged the legitimacy of ... Ali". (30) This incident, which is known as the Battle of the Camel ("named after the camel on which A'isha sat while exhorting the soldiers to fight and directing the battle" (31)) was the first Islamic civil war. It resulted in the defeat of A'isha and her army, which vindicated the position of some opponents who claimed "that A'isha's going into battle violated the seclusion imposed by Muhammad, who had ordered his wives to stay at home, women's proper place in this new order". (32)