Tag: Hafsa bint Sirin

Reconstructions of the Past 7: Hafsa bint Sirin (My Story of Her Life 2) by Laury Silvers

silvers-bio-pic-frblog - Version 2Sirin’s efforts to raise his and his family’s social status ensured his spiritually and intellectually precocious children had the best opportunities for success. By his efforts, Hafsa, her two sisters Umm Sulaym and Karima, and her brothers Muhammad and Yahya–not to mention her half-siblings, some of whom are also reported to have transmitted hadith–would have grown up in the deeply intertwined social, scholarly, and devotional circles of the Companions and Followers in Medina and Basra.

Because her family had some access to these elite social circles, Hafsa had the opportunity to memorize the Qur’an by the age of twelve under the tutelage of the well-known Qur’an reciter Abu al-ʿAliya. As we saw, she also had the opportunity to learn from the companion of the prophet, Umm ʿAtiyya, from whom she transmits hadith. It is no small matter that she was a guest of the Governor of Basra and took part in an elite legal debate while there. Continue reading “Reconstructions of the Past 7: Hafsa bint Sirin (My Story of Her Life 2) by Laury Silvers”

Reconstructions of the Past 4: Hafsa bint Sirin (“Women’s Withdrawal is Women’s Piety”) by Laury Silvers

silvers-bio-pic-frblog - Version 2Despite the public roles women most likely played in the first century, hadith, biographical, and legal literature of the following centuries positioned women’s ritual activity at home as a norm for pious behavior. The earlier blogs noted that women were present at the Prophet’s home mosque while he was alive and just after, but that public worship seems to have become a problem for men by the middle of the first century. Continue reading “Reconstructions of the Past 4: Hafsa bint Sirin (“Women’s Withdrawal is Women’s Piety”) by Laury Silvers”