ABSTRACT
With the coming of female Muslim leaders such as Benazir Bhutto, and with the increased demand for extended female political participation in the Muslim world in general and in the Arab world in particular, the matter of female involvement in politics on various levels has become a much debated issue. The hadith of the Prophet which says that the people who have a female leader will not succeed has been the foundation on which Islamic scholars have built their prohibition of female leadership (M. al-Ghazza¯lı¯ 1989; az-Zuh˝ailı¯ 1989; Sa¯biq 1985). Despite the sharia prohibition of female leadership, there have been many highly respected female leaders in Muslim history. Bouthaina Shaaban has researched this issue and she mentions names such as Shajarat ad-Durr from the times of the Crusades, Queen Orpha (d. 1090) in Yemen and Sultana Radia (thirteenth century) in Delhi (Shaaban 1995: 62-3). In our own time there have also been examples of female leadership in Muslim countries, such as in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Turkey. However, in Arabic-speaking countries no woman has yet been a leader of the state, although many Islamists remarked on the presence of women such as Jiha¯n as-Sada¯t, the wife of Anwar as-Sada¯t in Egypt and Wası¯la Burqı¯ ba, the wife of H˛abı¯ b Burqı¯ ba in Tunis, who have strongly influenced their husbands in their dealings with matters of state.
