A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 11/86

Females and the Treaty of Hodeibia.

[Sidenote: 86. Females and the treaty of Hodeibia.]

Females were not included in the truce of Hodeibia. The stipulation for the surrender of deserters referred only to the male sex. All women who were to come over to Medina from Mecca during the period of the peace were, by the dictates of Sura LX, 10, to be tried, and if their profession was found sincere, they were to be retained. They were prohibited from marrying the unbelievers. The guardians of such believing females were to receive from the Moslem commonwealth what they had spent upon their charges. Sir W. Muir understands from Sura LX, verse 10, that the women referred to therein were the wives of the Meccans, and says:&mdash;"The unbelief of their husbands dissolved the previous marriage; they now might legally contract fresh nuptials with believers, provided only that restitution were made of any sums expended by their former husbands as dower upon them." But there is nothing either to show that the women had their husbands at Mecca, or to prove, that, on account of their husbands' unbelief, their marriages were annulled. As marriage with women with husbands is forbidden in Sura IV, verse 28, and the verse LX, 10, under discussion, does not designate them as married women, I fairly conclude that this verse treats only of such as were not married. It is not the Law of the Koran that the unbelief of either party dissolves their previous marriage. It only enjoins neither to marry idolatresses, nor to wed Moslem daughters with idolaters until they believe.&mdash;(Sura II, 220.)