Page 188 - Arabian Studies (V)

176 Arabian Studies V

the sexual division of labour and power (reproduced in family
structures) tends to result de facto in a division of types of property
by sex, so that in the area under discussion women tend to hold
jewelry, men land, and housing and animals are owned by both
sexes. This does not mean, however, that women are entirely ‘disin­
herited’ in such areas.
What may be said to militateagainst such a division of property
into female as against male property in areas of advanced agricul­
ture and in the town are the patterns of stratification built about
the perpetuation of family types and family name over time. In the
community discussed above, as in so many Arab societies, a
woman retains her father’s family name after marriage. This life­
long identification of a woman as a member of her natal family
marks the daughter of one man from the daughter of another. This
implies that the maintenance of family status is a function of the
status of daughters as well as of sons.
Islamic law, as embodied in traditional texts of fara’id, remains
ambiguously silent about the two questions this paper found so
important in practice if a woman is to gain control over the part of
the family estate on which she has a claim: the timing of the divi­
sion of an estate and the distribution of the separate types of
property in an estate among different classes of heirs. The common
practice of postponing the division of an estate is clearly recognised
in the texts of fara'id. The chapter, Bab al-munasakhat, sets out
rules for calculating the shares of those inheriting from the
deceased heir of a deceased man, but nowhere is any recommenda­
tion made as to the proper timing of the division of an estate.21
Likewise, although marvellously complex classificatory and mathe­
matical principles allow one to calculate the exact share of each
heir, the texts do not provide any instructions concerning the
priority of different classes of heir to different kinds of property.22
Although the implication is that all kinds of property can be
summed in a single unit of measurement (presumably cash) and
that the share is assigned in all the kinds of property, the matter is
left somewhat ambiguous. Thus farmers, whose women rarely
acquire full control of land through inheritance, may well honestly
believe that they follow Islamic law in its essentials. Equally, the
urbanite, and particularly urban political authority, looking at the
l
resistant countryside, may also honestly believe that the farming
populations ‘disinherit’ women, since country women rarely fully
control land.
This paper has sought to suggest that many agricultural commu­
nities recognise the woman’s claim to her father’s estate, even if
few honour it according to the strictest regulations of Islamic