Women in Eastern Arabia: Myth & Representation

This chapter explores the history of eastern Arabia looking for traces of women, goddesses, priestesses, kahinaat, in fact, any female representation. It finds that there are few such traces, but that those that exist, however scarce, are very interesting and telling. Three distinct periods can be identified with regard to women’s history in ancient Arabia. First, the mythical woman, up to the third millennium BCE; second, the historical eastern woman, from the end of the first century BCE; and third, the Arabian woman, with evidence from a few decades before the Prophet as part of the survivals of the two ages of pre-Islamic and Islamic. The group of people who are known as al-mukhadramun.