No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam

The City of the Prophet 61

For men who persevere, and women who persevere,

For men who are humble, and women who are humble,

For men who give alms, and women who give alms,

For men who fast, and women who fast,

For men who are modest, and women who are modest,

For men who remember God, and women who remember God. (33:35)

At the same time, the Quran acknowledges that men and women have
distinct and separate roles in society; it would have been preposterous
to claim otherwise in seventh-century Arabia. Thus, “men are to take
care of women, because God has given them greater strength, and
because men use their wealth to provide for them” (4:34).
With a few notable exceptions (like Khadija), women in pre-
Islamic Arabia could neither own property nor inherit it from their
husbands. Actually, a wife was herself considered property, and both
she and her dowry would be inherited by the male heir of her de-
ceased husband. If the male heir was uninterested in the widow, he
could hand her over to his kin—a brother or a nephew—who could
then marry her and take control of her dead husband’s property. But if
she was too old to marry again, or if no one was interested in her, she
and her dowry would revert to the clan. The same was true for all
female orphans, as well as those male orphans who, like Muhammad
when his parents died, were considered too young to inherit property
from their fathers.
However, Muhammad—who had benefited greatly from the
wealth and stability provided by Khadija—strove to give women the
opportunity to attain some level of equality and independence in soci-
ety by amending Arabia’s traditional marriage and inheritance laws in
order to remove the obstacles that prohibited women from inheriting
and maintaining their own wealth. While the exact changes Muham-
mad made to this tradition are far too complex to discuss in detail
here, it is sufficient to note that women in the Ummah were, for the
first time, given the right both to inherit the property of their hus-
bands and to keep their dowries as their own personal property
throughout their marriage. Muhammad also forbade a husband to
touch his wife’s dowry, forcing him instead to provide for his family