http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=12154&size=A
This is shown by a book written by a female scholar and published in
Great Britain. At that time, they are able to run businesses; while
today, at a discussion of work for women in Riyadh, all of the women
were in another room.
Riyadh (AsiaNews) - Arab women had more rights at the time of the
Romans than they have today. At that time, in fact, their capacity to
conduct their own economic affairs was recognised, which is not true
in Saudi Arabia today. This is maintained by a female Saudi scholar,
Hatoon al-Fassi, in a book entitled "Women In Pre-Islamic Arabia",
published by British Archaeological Re****ts.
Barred from teaching at King Saud University in 2001, the scholar has
examined the situation of Nabataea, a kingdom that at the beginning of
the Christian era included parts of modern-day Jordan, Syria, and
Saudi Arabia, and had its capital in Petra. Here, Fassi maintains,
women were able to conduct business, without even the form of
"protection" required by Greek tradition in these matters. In her
opinion, it is precisely because of the lack of understanding on the
part of Islamic scholars of the influences of Greco-Roman legislation
on sharia that the limited rights and freedoms for women have arisen.
"We now live the worst status imaginable": this statement from Fawziya
al-Oyouni, a women's rights activist, is re****ted in the review of the
book on Middle East Online, which highlights how, when religious
authorities, ministers, and businessmen met last month in Riyadh to
discuss work for women, there were no women visible, because they were
confined to another room, and the men were able only to hear them.
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And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
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