Calm down, lads. I J T E M A has not been taken over by feminists! I just happened to come across a second informative article discussing the role of women in Islam, independently of my fellow contributor, Sharique. There is no agenda here… really.

Fatima Barkatulla discusses a recent Times article, about the role of female scholars in Islam’s history:

…trawling through centuries of biographical dictionaries, madrassa chronicles, letters and travel books, Akram has found evidence of thousands of muhaddithat, or female experts in Hadith, the deeds and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. He has found accounts of women teaching men and women in mosques and madrassas, touring Arabia and the Levant on lecture circuits, issuing fatwas, and making Islamic law.