Zamaneh Mofidi
Published: 2018
Total Pages: 125
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Abstract: Historically, the rise of Islam led to the establishment of certain women’s rights during Mohammad’s lifetime, however, those rulings soon declined following his death. Eventually, during the first half of the second century AH or the early Abbasid period (132-656 AH) when the Muslim societies were expanding to become the largest empire of the time, most of the Islamic laws or figh were developed. The image of the Muslim woman became increasingly similar to that of the civilized cultures of the ancient world and resembled less the early Muslim community of Medina. Modern scholarship confirms the unique contribution of Iranian culture and creeds to the numerous aspects of newborn Islamic civilization. I attempt to answer the question that if so, what parts of the Islamic point of view and jurisprudence on women might imitate Sasanian/Zoroastrian tradition? The unique situation of Mesopotamia as the heartland of the Islamic Empire intensified the impact of Iranian culture over the entire empire. My investigation in this thesis confirms the cultural continuity of the Zoroastrian/Sasanian matrimonial customs through Muslim jurisprudence in its early stages. Despite the differences between Zoroastrianism and Islamic understanding regarding the meaning and purpose of marriage and wifehood, many Zoroastrian traditions were adopted by Islamic Family Law, except for the clearly affirmed or prohibited cases in the Quran.