Marriage, Family, and the Faith: Women's Conversion To Islam

In: Journal of family history: studies in family, kinship and demography, Volume 21, Issue 3, p. 235-266

Abstract

This article studies what conversion to Islam meant in legal terms for women and how it affected their marriage, conjugal rights, children, and property rights in two circumstances: one, when conversion was of their own volition, and the other, when it was not their own decision, but that of their husbands or fathers. A cluster offive conversion documents-three for Christian, Jewish, and pagan males, and two for Christian and pagan females—from a notarial manual composed in tenth century Cordoba is used here to place the results of the investigation within the analytical framework of the study of Muslim women's legal status, and beyond, into the emotional and psychosocial environment of women's conversion and its significance as a life event.