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The effect of the coming of Islam on the condition of women has long been a subject of debate among scholars with divergent interests in the Muslim world, including Protestant missionaries, anthropologists, Muslim reformists, apologists, and feminists. The central question upon which this subject is focused has been couched in language of mutually exclusive extremes: Did Islam at its inception bring about an improvement in women's condition, or was Islam responsible for bringing about inequalities between men and women in Muslim societies? The purpose of this article is to suggest new directions for exploring the effect of Islam on women, to confront the inadequacy of the sources and methods that are presently brought to bear on the issues, and to introduce Christian sources to a debate that has been carried out within a self-contained Muslim-Arab context

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