BIRTH OF THE KHALIFATE 51women and men pray separately, presumably so they wouldn't be thinking
about sex during that ritual.
This was, however, a far cry from the separation of the sexes and the dis-
empowerment of women that developed in Islamic societies centuries later
(and persists to this day). It's true, of course, that gender relationships in
Medina did not conform to modern feminist ideals. Tribal Arabs (and most
early cultures) saw separate and nonoverlapping roles for men and women,
and Islam confirmed the separation. In Omar's day, however, education was
compulsory for both boys and girls in the Muslim community. Women
worked alongside men; they took part in public life; they attended lectures,
delivered sermons, composed poetry for public orations, went to war as re-
lief workers, and sometimes even took part in fighting. Important decisions
facing the community were discussed in public meetings, Omar partici-
pated in those meetings as just another citizen of the community, and
women as well as men engaged him fearlessly in debate. In fact, Omar ap-
pointed a woman as head of the market in Medina, which was a position of
great civic responsibility, for it included duties such as regulating construc-
tion, issuing business permits, and policing the integrity of weights and
measures. Even so, Omar did plant seeds that eventually developed into a
severe constriction of women's participation in public life.
In the seventh century CE, every society in the world permitted slavery,
and Arabia was no exception. Islam did not ban the practice, but it did
limit a master's power over a slave, and Omar enforced these rulings
strictly. No Muslim could be a slave. If a man impregnated a slave, he had
to marry her, which meant that her child would be born a Muslim and
therefore free. Slavery could not result in breaking up a family, which lim-
ited a master's options: he could only buy or sell whole families.
Masters could not abuse or mistreat slaves, who had the same human
rights as free folks, a theme stressed in the Qur'an and specifically reaf-
firmed in Prophet Mohammed's final sermon. Omar ruled a master had to
give his slaves the same food he was eating and in fact had to have his
slaves eat with his family. If Omar's rulings had been carried to their logi-
cal conclusions, slavery might have ended in the Muslim world in the early
days of the khalifate. (Instead, Muslim societies regressed in this matter.)
Ironically, Omar's own career ended when an emotionally unstable Per-
sian slave drove a knife into his belly at the mosque. On his deathbed,