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merchant who had both f ame and wealth and who had many men to
work for her.
1
Another example was that of Hind bintcUtbah, the
wife of Abu Suf- yMi who was the leader of the tribe of Barýi"'Umayyah.
She was also. together with her husband, a corner stone of the
campaign of violence. against the prophet before the conquest of
Mecca.
cattle.
It was reported also that Bint al-Muhalhil owned one hundred
2
From these examples. it may be concluded that some
women in Mecca could hold property before Islam. It is more
M. ely that a woman in the Urban. Community had possession of some
property and enjoyed the right to run these properties more than did
a woman in the Bedouin community as al-Sabbi'gh suggested: 'This
phenomenon was particularly obvious in the pre-Islamic Meccan
society which was dominated by aristocracy of capital represented
in the richest merchants of the Quraysh. ' 3
But Smith believed
that women were in a somewhat better position at Mecca than Medina
and he offered the reason behind it that in Mecca the influence of
higher civilization may have been felt for the townsmen had large
commercial dealings with palestine and Persia, and some of them
had lived in Ronan cities like Gaza. 4 Anyway. such women who
owned property in pre-Islamic Arabia might have had that wealth either
from the rest of her dowry. or from her inheritance when some families
started to give a girl a portion of the inheritance capitalýP of half
the portion given to her brother.
It is reported that the first. of pagans. to give a portion'of
the inheritance to a girl was C Amr bin Jashm who distributed his wealth
1. See Ibn Histram, Vol. 1, P. 171
2. See Smith 120.
3. al-Sabbagh. op. cit.. P. 295
0
4. See Smith. P. 120
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