Women in Classical Islamic Law: A Survey of the Sources.

• Author: Ali, Kecia
• Position: Book review

Women in Classical Islamic Law: A Survey of the Sources. By SUSAN A. SPECTORSKY. Themes in Islamic Sources, vol. 5. Leiden: BRILL, 2010. Pp. x + 223. $142.

With this welcome volume, the editor and translator of 1bn Hanbal's responsa (Chapters on Marriage and Divorce: Responses of 1bn Hanbal and 1bn Rahwayh, 1993) has performed another important service for those interested in early Islamic legal development, especially as it pertains to marriage. In a cogent introduction and five chapters, this book surveys formative and classical period Sunni legal discussions of marriage contracts and divorce. Heretofore understudied eighth- and ninth-century texts are brought into conversation with scriptural sources, with one another, and with later major texts from each Sunni school.

After a brief introduction that sketches the scope and historical development of Islamic law, chapter one addresses women in the Qur'an; chapters two and three focus on, respectively, the marriage contract and divorce in legal texts from the formative period; chapter four covers selected topics from the two previous chapters as they are addressed in the classical period; and chapter five treats elements of women's lives unexplored in the rest of the volume.

The first chapter's discussion of Qur'anic "verses particularly relevant to the legal position of women" (p. 4) provides a straightforward and detailed account of the numerous Qur'anic provisions that serve as points of departure for jurists' regulations of the marriage portion, guardianship, prohibited degrees of kinship, divorce, and menstruation. It also touches on witnessing, veiling, children, adoption, and the Prophet's wives. Material from al-Tabari and al-wahidi on the occasions of revelation of some verses enriches the chapter, especially the extended discussion of verses 4:3 (polygamy), 4:34 (measures to deal with recalcitrant women), and 2:228 (men's greater divorce rights and/or "degree" above women). The portrait of women that emerges is that of a "woman who is a member of a patriarchal household [and] at all times under the care and control of a male guardian" until she marries and "passes into the care of her husband" whom she "owes ... absolute obedience" (p. 59). Yet male rights are balanced by women's rights as well as divine scrutiny of men's exercise of their dominance. This emphasis on women's gendered family roles results in part from using only verses specifically about women rather than those...