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Troubling quote from Sarakhsi: "If a woman were told to earn [her living], she would earn it with her genitals."
context: husbands must provide bc women are incapable of earning
Katz quotes correctly, but something bothered me about this. How can Sarakhsi say such a thing ...
context: husbands must provide bc women are incapable of earning
Katz quotes correctly, but something bothered me about this. How can Sarakhsi say such a thing ...
![Troubling quote from Sarakhsi: "If a woman were told to earn [her living], she would earn it with he...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fg5SyysX0AEot6f.png)
...when women worked all the time?
He probably got it from a report attributed to Uthman b. Affan in the Muwatta': "do not burden an unskilled slave girl with earning money, if you do she will do so with her genitals..."
He probably got it from a report attributed to Uthman b. Affan in the Muwatta': "do not burden an unskilled slave girl with earning money, if you do she will do so with her genitals..."
Arabic: لا تُكَلِّفُوا الأمَةَ غَيْرَ ذاتِ الصَّنْعَةِ الكَسْبَ، فَإنَّكُمْ مَتى كَلَّفْتُمُوها ذَلِكَ كَسَبَتْ بِفَرْجِها، ولا تُكَلِّفُوا الصَّغِيرَ الكَسْبَ، فَإنَّهُ إذا لَمْ يَجِدْ سَرَقَ، ...
I asked Prof. Modarressi (my adviser) if there was a broader context missing? His comments (posted with permission):
"This is a clear example of the very serious problem of corruption of text in early Islamic sources...The foundation of Sarakhsi's text was, as you correctly...
"This is a clear example of the very serious problem of corruption of text in early Islamic sources...The foundation of Sarakhsi's text was, as you correctly...
said, Uthman's statement. That was explicitly about أمة = slave girl in line with Q 24:33 that referred to the common pre-Islamic Arab custom of forcing slaves to work and pay their income to their masters. Slave girls who had no skills to use for ...
work (غَيْرَ ذاتِ الصَّنْعَةِ) had no option but to
work as prostitutes. Qur'an condemns this latter practice. (The general practice of forcing
slaves to work and pay their earning to their masters continued after Islam. Consider this
one example: Zubayr had allegedly one...
work as prostitutes. Qur'an condemns this latter practice. (The general practice of forcing
slaves to work and pay their earning to their masters continued after Islam. Consider this
one example: Zubayr had allegedly one...
...thousand slaves, each of them had to work and
pay their master one dirham per day).
That the original word in Uthman's statement was أمة and not امرأة is also evidenced by
the fact that it is quoted in Muwatta' in the chapter on الرفق بالمملوک and in Bayhaqi's
Sunan ...
pay their master one dirham per day).
That the original word in Uthman's statement was أمة and not امرأة is also evidenced by
the fact that it is quoted in Muwatta' in the chapter on الرفق بالمملوک and in Bayhaqi's
Sunan ...
in kitāb al-nafaqāt under باب ما جاء فی النهی عن کسب الأمة. Likewise, it is quoted in works of law in the same context as in, for instance, Ibn Qudāma, Mughni (ed. Turki, 11:434: باب نفقة الممالیک).
The word was apparently corrupted first in Sarakhsi's mind to امرأة (and we ...
The word was apparently corrupted first in Sarakhsi's mind to امرأة (and we ...
...know in what situation he dictated his book to his students, all from memory in the dungeon well with no book available to him). The corruption then found its way to at least one additional source: Mughni 11: 437 although the author understood and used it in the correct ...
...context of slavery as noted above. The question is thus only about الأمَةَ غَيْرَ ذاتِ الصَّنْعَةِ and the practice of forcing her to earn a wage even if as a prostitute and not about women in general."
So Sarakhsi was basing his opinion on a misremembered source-text.
So Sarakhsi was basing his opinion on a misremembered source-text.
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