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women and islamic law 221MuÈammad’s (ß) political and legal decisions were deliberatelypositioned between Allah’s limits and constantly adapted to thespirit of his time: at times he enforced Allah’s limits vigorously, andat other times he allowed old conventions to continue if their practicesdid not violate Allah’s law. Such conventions, however, preventedwomen from doing what they would do today because itseverely limited the opportunities of women to fulfil public roles.In some areas, however, for example as advisors to political leaders,in community administration, or during military campaigns,the remarkable public positions of #$"isha or Khaula bint al-Azwar 3demonstrate that the new religion inherited a structural imbalancebut did not exclude women from public affairs per se (i.e., onlybecause they were women). One should not forget that the firstmartyr for the sake of Islam was Sumayya, a woman. 4And yet, we must not think that women’s emancipation endedwith MuÈammad’s (ß) reform of ancient Arabian society. What isneeded today is to understand his messengerhood and the versesof the ‘mother of the book’ in their dual capacity to both absorbthe prevalent historical conditions of MuÈammad’s (ß) time andencompass subsequent developments that allow much greateris now not practiced any longer in the Arab and Muslim world, Islamic fiqh ‘only’strongly discourages the practice of slavery but does not, because it cannot formallyabolish an explicitly condoned practice in the Qur"an, declare it as obsolete. Hence,the notion of slavery still exists in principle (see al-ZuÈaylÊ, al-Fiqh al-isl§mÊ, vol. 3,359–61; vol. 8, 67–69. See also William Clarence-Smith, Islam and the Abolition ofSlavery (New York: OUP, 2006)).3A female companion of the Prophet who died in the year 655. She came fromthe famous tribe of the Banå Asad and was known for her elegant poetry and herskills in warfare. She was among the Muslim women who were taken as prisoners ofwar during the Battle of Yarmåk where she led a campaign to fight for their freedom.She also impressed the caliph #Umar b. al-Khaãã§b and the Muslim commanderKh§lid b. WalÊd with her bravery when she came to Syria to free herbrother 4ir§r who was held captive by the Byzantine army (see Abå #Abd All§hal-W§qidÊ, FutåÈ al-Sh§m (Beirut: D§r al-Kutub al-#Ilmiyya, 1997), 42–48; 208).4Sumayya bint al-Khayy§ã, a female Abyssinian slave of Abå \uzayfa b.al-MughÊra who had converted to Islam in the early period of MuÈammad’s mission.She died as a result of brutal torture by Abå Jahl and was subsequently consideredthe first female martyr in Islam, although strictly speaking in a (traditional) SunniIslamic context, martyrs are primarily those who fight unbelievers for the advancementof Islam in a military confrontation and who sacrifice their lives for this. As aconsequence, Muslim exegetes count those fighters who fell at UÈud (625) as the firstmartyrs (see Encyclopaedia of the Qur"an, s.v. “Martyrs.” (W. Raven), 281–87). MS vehementlycontests this definition of martyrdom (see chapter 6), that is why he considersSumayya as the true first martyr of Islam.