Womenâs Role in Islamic Histography

Written account of our history shows that Moslem women have been absent from the scene of narrating and recording their roles in the past, leaving the opposite gender to record their history. It can be claimed that femalesâ histography too has been the history of males, written by men. The question is that why womenâs history has been registered by men, and also why even a single histographer or a valid histographic work has not been acknowledged in the last hundred years. This goes as far as to that, no prominent philosopher, jurisprudent, literary man, or orator can be seen in women sector of the society. This qualitative study is in search of finding out about the reasons for such an absence. It speculates that ,on the one hand, intrinsic nature of women and their physiological and cognitive structure are more of maternalistic nature, not allowing them to have opportunities to keep pace with men in scientific, intellectual, and social affairs.On the other hand, There seems to be several factors that have played effective roles in the âweakeningâ of social and scientific positions of Moslem women. These factors included the âwomenâs self-confidenceâ âmenâs pioneering in the two frontiers of land conquer and discovering (and hence transferring) of the scientific treasures of other nations, in addition to translating them and adding to their richnessâ âthe decline of rationality in Islam as a result of sedimentary layers of dogmatism held by the proponents of narration school of thought (ahlul-ul- hadith) that led to reemergence of social and political norms of the pre-Islamic Period of Ignorance in the time of Moslem rulersâ âthe patriarchy dominance over the family and social institutions replacing divinely and popularly acceptable and âImamiteâ system with a one based on political despotismâ waging tribal and ethnic wars and conflicts instead of creating atmosphere of tolerance put forward by Islam, being influenced by anti-life thoughts originated in pre-Islamic ignorance times, as well as from beliefs derived from Buddhism, Judaism, and Manism and finally the Moslem scholarsâ change of attitudes and approach toward women and their social position. The orientation of this study is more of a combinatory based analysis, taking into account the above mentioned possible factors although it acknowledges their varying degrees of effectiveness.