Women and the codification and stabilization of the Arabic language

Abstract

This chapter explores and documents women’s contributions to the codification and stabilization of the Arabic language from the fourth to the nineteenth centuries across the region that roughly corresponds to today’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Spain. Using the acknowledged sources of the Arabic language, namely pre-Islamic poetry, the oral and written process of transmitting the Qur’ân (holy book of Muslims) and Ḥadīth (Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and deeds), and consolidating practices such the construction of the language of Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and the teaching of Arabic, this chapter presents and reads women’s contributions to the codification and stabilization of Arabic as both direct and indirect. These readings are based on the linguistic value of women’s contributions and the contextualization of their legacy within an overall comprehensive Arab-Islamic patriarchy where women’s contributions helped establish the male canon in linguistic studies more than they served women as individual constructors of the Arabic language.