In the Islamic tradition, as in other religious traditions, female saints are relatively few and not much scholarly attention has been given to them. Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, is one such example. It is, however, a point of interest in her case is that in the twentieth century she has captured the attention of writers of Muslim religious literature to such an extent that there now exist at least eleven fairly recent biographies of her in Urdu, English, Arabic and Persian. This is remarkable, given that the earliest sources of Islamic history contain only a minimal amount of information on her. These modern biographies present Fatimah in a manner which interweaves historical information with hagiographic accounts, thus reinforcing her status as a saint. / This thesis attempts to identify, from the earliest available sources, the details concerning Fatimah as a historical person but ultimately shows that there is little real evidence for her life and even what facts do exist are the subject of controversy. Following this it examines the growth of the hagiographical tradition which created out of her a true Muslim saint and discusses its significance particularly for the Shi'ah. Finally, the conclusion presents some of the possible reasons for Fatimah's exalted status and for the resurgence of interest in her in the context of the modern Islamic world.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.22367 |
| Date | January 1988 |
| Creators | Ali, Rukhsana |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Institute of Islamic Studies.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000894524, proquestno: MM75889, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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