Women and Religious Life in the Muslim Middle Ages

This is a joint research paper by Omaima Abou-Bakr and Hoda El-Saadi which  sheds light on the neglected history of women as religious scholars in Islamic societies during the pre-Islamic period.  The study is a historical survey of the women who worked in the religious field as theologians and religious scholars.  It is unearth their status among the religious elite in Islam, comparing them to the Christian saints of Europe during the same period.  The comparative aspect opens new avenues for research, analysis and questions of women’s history, cultural and popular patterns of memory and social discourse.