?–? CE · Companion; reported market supervisor of Medina

Umm al-Shifa bint Abdullah (al-Shifa' bint Abdullah al-Adawiyya)

Cited in modern scholarship (Ahmed, 1992, p.74) as a recorded instance of a woman holding a form of public administrative function in the earliest post-Prophetic generation. The report of her market appointment is transmitted through a chain classical hadith critics rate as weak (da'if), which does not establish it as fabricated but means it should be held with the same caution this paper applies to comparably attested reports elsewhere.

Content referencing this person

Research Paper
Women in Mainstream Islam: Protection, Restriction, and the Historical Development of Religious Practice
A historical-critical review testing whether practices commonly described as Islamic requirements for women — segregation, face-veiling, travel guardianship, exclusion from mosques and public office — rest on the Qur'an itself or on later hadith, jurisprudence, dynastic custom, and regional practice.

Umm al-Shifa bint Abdullah (al-Shifa' bint Abdullah al-Adawiyya)

Content referencing this person

Women in Mainstream Islam: Protection, Restriction, and the Historical Development of Religious Practice