Hadramaut: Ridda Rebels to Osama bin Laden:Osama bin Laden's clan comes from the inhospitable Hadramaut, a bitterly poor region in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, whose name couldn't be more appropriate. Hadramaut means "death is among us."
Today, Hadramaut is notorious for churning out fanatic champions of the faith like Bin Laden, but 1400 years ago, it was important for a diametrically different event- a rebellion against Islam!
I found this article, thought it is interesting!
The Harlots Of Hadramaut A disturbing incident following the death of Muhammad forever linked woman and song with blasphemous behavior. Not all tribes willingly clung to the new religion; some turned apostate. Perhaps thinking Muhammad' demise signaled a return to their former spiritual traditions, six women in the city of Hadramaut celebrated news of the Prophet's death. They marked the occasion by staining their hands with henna -- a practice associated with festivities -- and playing on the 'tambourine.' Two converts to Islam reported the women to Muhammad's successor, Caliph Abu Bakr, who gave orders for a gruesome punishment.
The two righteous servants [of God] who remained
steadfast in their religion when the greater part of their
tribes apostasizedhave written to me that before them
there are certain women of the people of Yemen who
have desired the death of the Prophet of God, and that
these have been joined by singing-girls of Kinda and
prostitutes of Hadramaut, and they have dyed their hands
and shown joy and played on the tambourine in defiance
of God and in contempt of his rights and those of His
Prophet. When my letter reaches you, go to them with
your horses and men, and strike off their hands. [Italics mine] 13
Fatima Mernissi , Moroccan feminist examines this significant clash between women and Islam. Who were these women, dismissed as harlots and prostitutes? Muslim historian Ibn Al Bagdadi identified the twelve of them in his work Kitab al-Muhabbar: Two were grandmothers, one a mother, and seven were young girls. Three of the twelve belonged to the ashraf (the noble class) and four to the tribe of Kindah, a royal tribe which provided Yemen with its kings.
14 Mernissi asks a riveting question:
What kind of harlotry is practiced by elderly grandmothers,
young girls, by the most noble of women, the members of
princely houses? And why, anyway, was the clapping of
tambourines by twenty-six women in the faraway villages
of South Arabia so threatening to the powerful military
Muslim order? 15
One historian, A.F. L. Beetson, believes the incident reveals a conflict between the old pagan religion and the new monotheism. He speculates that these women dissidents were deprived by the new religion of their position as pagan priestesses of the old temple where religious prostitution was practiced. 16
Mernissi interprets the conflict differently, believing that whatever the previous social position of the women had been the new Islamic order threatened it. Furthermore, she sees that the clash between the women and Islam clearly was in the sexual field. The fact that the Caliph labeled his opponents as harlots implies that Islam condemned their sexual practices, whatever they were, as harlotry. Mernissi believes this infamous "Harlots of Hadramaut" incident is an example of Islam's opposition to the sexual practices existing in pre-Islamic Arabia.' 17
http://www.laurelvictoriagray.com/wizards-and-harlots.htmWonder what Osama makes of his rebellious ancestresses, if at all he knows about this incident?
Topic: Hadramaut: Rebellious Women of Ridda Wars & Osama bin Laden!