Hadhramout.
Wow! Hadramaut?
A little info which you might find interesting, your distant ancestresses(yep,
not ancestors, but
ancestresses) had led a spirited rebellion against Islam & the restrictions the new religion imposed on their sexual & other freedoms.
They rebellion unfortunately was quickly quashed & the women ordered to be executed in a gruesome manner by Caliph Abu Bakr. :'(
http://www.laurelvictoriagray.com/wizards-and-harlots.htmA 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’s 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 apostasized…have 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 Mernissi 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 Mernissa asks a riveting question:
15
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? 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
Will you sing & dance & play the tambourine when you manage to escape?
Lets' hope your plans to escape have a more happy ending than your spunky ancestresses!
Topic: Hello, everyone!