ABSTRACT
The general attitude toward women reflected in the Hadith is a positive one. This fact is intimately linked with the original teachings of Islam, and the lifestyle of its founder. Under the impact of a growing asceticism in the Islamic community, and in the framework of a changed social order which secluded women from public life, the nature of women came to be perceived in a different way. The Hadith likewise contains much evidence of women’s visibility as well as full participation in communal matters in the early Islamic period. Most women were subjugated to male domination, either that of a male relative, or that of the husband. Women’s inferiority, however, does not only stem from their impurity and moral deficiency, but also from their weaker intellectual powers. Therefore, among many other deficiencies, women do not have the qualities that would render them fit to rule.
