In Robert G. Holyland's Arabia and the Arabs, various historical sources are mentioned that tell us pre-Islamic Arabian culture was one in which women could marry multiple men, advertise for mercenary husbands when they wanted children, had the right to dismiss their husbands when they wanted, enjoyed significant financial independence, with Arab tribes sometimes having matrilinear lineages, female gods, and queens.
The Qur'an partially mentions some of this (like the female gods, decrying them) and urges Muslim women not to emulate the women of the time of ignorance in their bedizenment, with the Tafsirs pointing out to pre-Islamic Arabian women dressing in a skimpy manner and without modesty. How come that Islam, which developed against this backdrop, came to be such a puritanical religion in which any sexual or romantic affection before marriage is heavily frowned upon, and in which women have to cover themselves partially or fully almost all the time?
Hey!
So this has a couple of different parts that I hope to address. I can't give a super specific answer, but will try to touch on a number of facets you could ask follow-up questions about. I'm pulling some from previous answers that I have written, but much of this is also new. A great book on this topic is Leila Ahmed's book Women and Gender in Islam, which I will heavily use below.
Because you specifically mentioned it, I wanted to start with a small section on veiling itself. Veiling was common practice in multiple pre-Islamic societies across the Middle East. In Assyrian culture wearing a veil separated between a 'respectable' woman and those who were 'up for grabs', so to say. Upper class women, concubines accompanying those women, and former "sacred prostitutes" all had to wear it whereas normal prostitutes and slaves were forbidden from veiling themselves, even so far as being under threat of flogging or having their ears cut off. Ahmed then writes that this practice spread throughout the upper-class Mediterranean world - from the Levant through to Persia - and also crossed religious lines appearing in Byzantine Christian societies. Here, Ahmed gives the example of a 10th century Byzantine patriarch who wrote that he only allowed his daughter to go out "veiled and suitable chaperoned". She also notes the reasoning, separating the respectable from the rabble, remains constant even in these other societies.
However, that is not to say that veiling was necessarily widespread in Arabia itself. Women of the jahilyya pre-Islamic period did not normally don a veil. This of course varied from city to countryside, with cities being more likely to veil. Overall, nowhere was the veil common to the extent of places like neighboring Syria and Palestine. As you noted in your question, sexual relations in Arabia were more open than in those other societies, with both polygamy and polyandry being present.
Through Muhammad's entire life, the only women who were regularly veiled or secluded were his wives. Through successful revelations received by Muhammad, the practice of veiling and seclusion took hold among them, getting to the point where the phrasing "she took the veil" became synonymous to "she became a wife of Muhammad". Various impetuses pushed Muhammad towards these rulings. For example, it was after he became annoyed with guests staying too long chatting with his wives after dinner that the Sura 33 was revealed, within which verse 54 details that one should only speak to Muhammad's wives from behind a curtain. The word he uses for curtain is ḥijāb. Most westerners associate the word hijab with some sort of head-wrap of veil, but it also literally can mean 'veil' in the sense of a curtain. Verse 59 then gives the commandment to women to "bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused." This is allegedly in response to the "hypocrites", mere nominal converts to Islam, harassing Muslim women and claiming to have thought they were slaves. Finally, I should note that the later second Caliph, Omar, was a proponent of seclusion of women and veiling and actively pushed Muhammad towards this position.
This is what I suspect to be the more interesting section – why did Islam develop the way it did, when women played such major roles in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times?
In the jahilyya, and within early Islam, women contributed in a number of facets of life. Women were soothsayers and prophetesses such as Sajah, a Christian woman of the Banū Tamīm who led a force of over 4,000 along with Musaylimah, “The Liar”, in rebellion against the nascent Muslim state. Like the previous sentence indicates, they were also involved in warfare. They were not only poets, telling stories of the battles and engaging in ritualistic pre-battle exchanges of insults, but also warriors themselves. Umm ‘Umara fought at a number of battles alongside men, eventually losing her hand at the Battle of ‘Uqraba in 634. Women were heavily involved in early Islamic religious life, providing the many of the hadith that came to guide religious life. It was common for them to remarry, showing there to be a lack of stigma against non-virgins, and often they brought significant wealth to these relationships (Muhammad’s first wife, Khadija, was one such widow. 15 years his senior, she was rich enough to allow Muhammad to not have to work, allowing him to instead focus on his spiritual teachings).
#So why did this begin to change?
The changes actually started before the spread of Islam, as merchants in urban Arabian cities were increasingly exposed to the norms and cultures of lands with much more rigid gender roles. This can be seen as an explanation as to why it was the cities, not the countryside, that first adopted veiling. However, what brought the changes into hyperdrive was the rapid expansion of the early Islamic Empire. Not only did this bring increased contact with these foreign cultures, but it also brought an influx of slaves, diminishing the bargaining power of even Arab-born women.
The conquests brought untold wealth to the Arabs. Even regular soldiers were able to afford slaves, houses, and concubines. Accordingly, women lost one of their original bargaining chips – the wealth they brought to marriages. Further, as a condition for surrendering and keeping their place, many Persian and Sassanian nobles converted to Islam. They kept, however, their original cultures. One of the features that developed around this time was the harem, with a multitude of women being walled off for rich and powerful men, guarded only by Eunuchs. With easy access to sex slaves, Ahmed argues that the line between “woman” and “object” started to blur. Men did not need to put up with the demands stipulated by Arab women’s wedding contracts when they had access to sex elsewhere. Women faced increasingly strict restrictions and were treated increasingly poorly. Some elite men even went so far as to lament the fact that they had to marry their daughters, as their standards of living would so dramatically fall. Ahmed included the following poem in her book, written from one noble man to another on the occasion of his daughter’s death. This did not come from a sense of general misogyny, that daughters were worthless, but rather from the degradations and humiliations their daughters were liable to face.
To Abu Hasan I offer condolences.
At times of disaster and catastrophe
God multiplies rewards for the patient.
To be patient in misery
Is equivalent to giving thanks for a gift.
Among the blessings of God undoubtedly
Is the preservation of sons
And the death of daughters.
But cultural and economic changes are only a portion of the story. Also in play was the religious framework that marriage operated within. Islamic law works through a local judge, a Qadi, issuing a ruling on a specific case so that it is in line with religious teachings (we have to note that there was no separation between the illegal and the immoral, but rather they were the one and the same). However, while the Qur’an protected women’s rights in a number of areas, judges often interpreted these not as legally binding rules, but rather as binding only upon the individual’s conscience. So, a man would not be legally bound to treat his 4 wives fairly, even if that is a stipulation within the Qur’an itself. There was, in essence, the loss of many Qur’anic provisions that could protect women.
The 11th century also brought the Closing of the Gates of Ijtihad. That is, Islamic jurisprudence reached a point where they (allegedly) decided that there had been sufficient rulings in the past that any questions which need an answer were answerable, and it is was longer necessary to use independent reasoning to come to new solutions (for more on this, see my answere here)
This in essence froze many Islamic teachings. There are 4 main schools of Sunni Islamic thought, and at the point of the closing of the gates of Ijtihad, only the Maliki school allowed for women to obtain a divorce on the grounds of desertion or cruelty. Meanwhile, only the Hanafi school fully enforced marriage contracts that would bind a man to monogamy. While before the closing of these gates a judge could, theoretically, use his own reasoning to analogize and come to a new ruling, they were now largely bound to taqlid, imitation of the past. So, these doctrines, along with countless others controlling women’s lives, ceased to develop at the same speed as before. That is not to say that women were completely locked out, as one could effectively “shop” between the different schools of thought for the most favorable ruling.
There is much, much more one could write on this topic, but I unfortunately have work that I have to do. I hope this can help begin to answer your question, and if you have follow-ups I’ll try to respond if possible.
I think you're vastly overstating Pre-Islamic Arabia's "very" women-friendly and sexually liberal society.
In Robert G. Holyland's Arabia and the Arabs, various historical sources are mentioned that tell us pre-Islamic Arabian culture was one in which women could marry multiple men, advertise for mercenary husbands when they wanted children, had the right to dismiss their husbands when they wanted, enjoyed significant financial independence, with Arab tribes sometimes having matrilinear lineages, female gods, and queens.
Looking back at Hoyland it seems these thing are weren't as ubiquitous as you make it seem. He mostly cites only one or two sources for each claim. How common or prevalent these things were remains unseen. The time period was long enough and pre-Islamic society diverse enough where we cannot take these things as representative.
women could marry multiple men
Hoyland says;
Diversity in marriage customs is also evident in the degree to which monogamy, polygyny (one man many wives) and polyandry (one woman many husbands) all crop up in our sources.
Hoyland then goes on to quote a source saying polyandry was practiced as fraternal polyandry and brothers would share a wife.
Arab tribes sometimes having matrilinear lineages
Hoyland says;
While descent through the male line would seem to have been the norm in pre-Islamic Arabia, we are occasionally given hints of matrilineal arrangements.
The problem with discussing pre-Islamic Arabia is that there just aren't that many sources let alone sources about women, to give insight on how most women lived. So it becomes difficult to make any kind of judgment about how "liberal" pre-Islamic society was. Even Hoyland's book only discusses women in society for six pages and mostly only discusses the things you mentioned here. Hoyland's book does not give a rigorous enough discussion to make any kind of judgement on the "liberalness" of pre-Islamic Arabia. The things discussed do not in and of themselves indicate a women-friendly or sexually liberal society. These things can still exist in a patriarchal and misogynist society. Hoyland also mentions that women were encountered "first and foremost as wives and mothers." Not to mention they may not have been as ubiquitous as the book suggests.
One of the largest sources for information on pre-Islamic Arabia come from Islamic sources themselves. However Islamic sources are not charitable to the position of women in pre-Islamic Arabia and characterized the time as a time of ignorance and barbarism. For example sources mention things like bride kidnapping, forced marriage, marriage by inheritance, female infanticide, forced prostitution etc. Islamic sources saw Islam as elevating the position of position of women in Arabia and giving them rights like the right to divorce, the right to consent to marriage, right to a bride-price, etc. Early Muslims who had known both pre-Islamic and post-Islamic Arabia commented on the positive turn Islam had given women in terms of women's status in society.
So we actually don't know very much what it was actually like for women in pre-Islamic Arabia and cannot make judgements about how "liberal" or "women-friendly" it actually was. There simply isn't enough historical information to make this kind of judgment.
The most comprehensive answer above has given you a good idea of the role of women in early Islamic society. I also wanted to give a few examples of other interesting situations in Arabic culture/law in terms of women.
There's a hadith from the Sahih Bukhari that deals with the matter of Thabit ibn Qais's divorce from his wife Jamilah. I'll post it in full here:
"Narrated Ibn 'Abbas: The wife of Thabit bin Qais came to the Prophet and said, "O Allah's Apostle! I do not blame Thabit for defects in his character or his religion, but I, being a Muslim, dislike to behave in un-Islamic manner (if I remain with him)." On that Allah's Apostle said (to her), "Will you give back the garden which your husband has given you (as Mahr*)?" She said, "Yes." Then the Prophet said to Thabit, "O Thabit! Accept your garden, and divorce her once."
*Mahr here means dowry.
Basically this hadith said that Thabit's wife was able to procure a divorce thanks to an agreement between herself and her husband. She gives back her dowry and they are divorced. This is an example of khul, which is a type of divorce that's often called mutual agreement. I think it's important though that Muhammad tells Thabit that he has to divorce her, and also that her divorce is phrased as a way for her to maintain her religiosity. She will be a better Muslim as a result of her divorce!
Translation of the Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 63 (Divorce), hadith 197. From SearchTruth.com.
Another kind of divorce was called talaq, which is probably the most famous form of Islamic divorce to westerners in the form of "triple talaq," when a husband repeats three times that he wants to divorce his wife. It appears in another hadith (185) when a man divorces his adulterous wife: "Then he pronounced his decision to divorce her thrice before Allah's Apostle ordered him to do so." Talaq was generally seen as a reprehensible way to divorce someone.
As for the marriage itself. Judith E Tucker suggests that consent was an important component to the marriage contract, called the nikah, even in the case if she were married off by a guardian. Obviously, consent can be a dubious issue when pressure from a guardian is involved, but in the sources it encourages guardians to obtain consent. Sometimes that consent could include silence, because silence would indicate embarrassment at how much someone wanted it. You can see how we might be critical of this idea. In any case, these only applied to adult women. Pre-pubescent children could be married off by their fathers without obtaining this consent.
On the other hand, widows or "non-virgins" could be choosier. A professor of mine once encouraged the female students in our seminar to marry an old man so that he would die and they would get to be widows, the most comfortable position for a woman in patriarchal society. What he was getting at here was that a widow has essentially 'done their part' by marrying. Widows needed to give explicit consent to a marriage.
The public role of women was also controversial. While there are many prominent female figures in the history of Islam, like Muhammad's wife Aisha herself or the Sufi saint Rabi'a, the question of the acceptability of women in various roles has been answered differently by different scholars. Some, especially early on, argued that women could be imams.
The issue of veiling is similarly contested.
Now, head coverings are far from exclusive to Islam. Many Irish people of a certain generation could talk about women wearing headscarves to Mass, and many Orthodox Jewish women today cover their hair or wear wigs when out in public. It's a common religious idea that women should go covered. But we're talking about Islam here and not Judaism or Christianity, and particularly early Islam.
Different schools (and there are four main schools in Islam, called madhab) argued that women should conduct themselves differently. Some said that women's entire bodies were awra, which is basically a way of saying private parts, and that they should therefore cover themselves entirely. Others said that women could go uncovered and have hands and legs relatively bared. Unsurprisingly, the parts of a woman that non-related men could see also correlated to a woman's ability to participate in wider society. Many women held property, participated in commerce and the market, etc.
Citation:
Tucker, Judith E. Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law. Cambridge University Press, n.d.
Finally I'd like to share a story that I think is interesting and noteworthy, if not directly related to the question at hand. The 1001 Nights includes a story called The Lady and her Five Suitors. The gist of the story is as follows: a woman is conducting an affair with a man who gets thrown in the clink. In order to get him released, she claims that he's her brother and tries to entice various important figures-- judges/qadi, a wazir, even the king-- into letting him free. In the process she seduces them and traps each one in turn in a cabinet, where they eventually can't hold their bladders and pee all over themselves. The story is obviously a satire and isn't reflective of 'real life', whatever that means; it's intended to make the big people look small and show that they can be duped by even a simple adulterous woman. But she is depicted as the hero of the story despite the fact that her aim is to free her lover from prison after he gets in a fight! So socially unacceptable women still appear in literary texts as heroes. The aim of the story is obviously primarily to diminish the high, who the story portrays as being undeserving of their high position, and the woman is used as a way of shaming them.
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