The Charismatic Community: Shi'ite Identity in Early Islam

11. “Rarer than Red Sulfur”

CHAPTER 11 “Rarer than Red Sulfur” Women’s Identity in Early Shi˜ism As we have seen, Shi˜ism as a recognizable religious affiliation first emerged in the context of ˜Al¥’s military and political camp during the First Civil War. The movement existed throughout the Umayyad period as a persecuted religio-political group, membership in which was voluntarist and individual, depending to some extent on personal devotion to a living Shi˜ite Imåm. During the early ˜Abbåsid period, Shi˜ism emerged as a prominent theological group and legal school, contributing substantially to the intellectual life of the early ˜Abbåsid renaissance. However, none of these evolving manifestations of Shi˜ite identity included a clear place for women. Few women had the freedom to participate actively in controversial or clandestine religio-political movements or the intellectual training and recognition to contribute to the rational debates over theological and legal issues. Even those women who may have sympathized with the Shi˜ite legitimist cause had few means to express their convictions. Shi˜ite sources mention the presence of a few women among the devotees of the Shi˜ite Imåms, even in the earliest periods of the community , as well as many others who are identified as “Shi˜ite” sympathizers . However, there are clearly fewer women among the transmitters of Shi˜ite ÷ad¥th reports than can be found, by comparison , in the Sunni tradition, and many of the female transmitters in the Shi˜ite tradition are ˜Alid women—that is the daughters, sisters, wives, or servant women of the Imåms, whom one would expect to have 213 214 The Charismatic Community exhibited a kind of family loyalty to the cause. The Shi˜ite tradition’s view of the significance of women to their community overall is mixed, at times indicating a particular inclination among women to be sympathetic to the ˜Alid cause and acknowledging their affiliation with the community, while at other times suggesting that most women had an intellectual deficiency that prevented them from fully understanding Shi˜ite sectarian and theological views, and that their physical and emotional weakness limited their ability to contribute to the cause. This chapter explores the issue of women’s identification with the Shi˜ite cause and the extent to which they could be considered “full” members of the Shi˜ite community, by examining the complex and at times contradictory information relating to women that one finds in Shi˜ite literature as well as by analyzing the variety of historical, ideological , and theological considerations that influenced these views. There are, of course, a number of women among the ahl al-bayt who play important roles in early Shi˜ite history, and we will mention these women insofar as they have some bearing on the overall view of women in Shi˜ism. However, for female members of the ahl al-bayt, there is no real issue of how they come to be affiliated with the Shi˜ite community; and since the present work is concerned with this latter issue, we will focus here primarily on non-˜Alid women’s connections with Shi˜ism. As is the case with most studies of women in premodern societies, the sources are limited and problematic; they tell us little about women in general, and what they do tell us is often anecdotal and nearly impossible to corroborate. For these reasons, one must survey a wide variety of literature—biographical accounts, rhetorical and poetic anthologies of women’s words, Sunni and Shi˜ite histories, and Shi˜ite ÷ad¥th material—to distill as much information as possible about women’s contributions to and identification with the Shi˜ite cause and to work this information into something of a coherent picture of the role of women in early Shi˜ism. Shi˜ite sectarian views derive in large part from very particular, and sometimes polemical, readings of a number of historical events in early Islamic history. This chapter begins by looking at the ways in which Shi˜ite historical and ÷ad¥th traditions have interpreted the roles of women—both positively and negatively—in these controversial events. It then examines the ways in which these historical views regarding women and the Shi˜ite community influenced general Shi˜ite traditions about women, their moral and intellectual worth, and their ability to be fully affiliated with the Shi˜ite cause. Finally, this chapter looks at the impact Shi˜ite views about women had on Shi˜ite ÷ad¥th and legal opinions...