tendencies in non-Islamic cultures. As Croutier says, "Islam holds women in particularly low esteem, considering them intellectually dull, spiritually vapid, valuable only to satisfy the passions of their masters and provide them male heirs. 'Woman is a field, a sort of property that a husband may use or abuse as he sees fit,' says the Koran" (Croutier 20). This doctrine of women, recognizable in the history of Islamic countries to the present day, is consis tent with such traditions as polygamy, slavery, and the insti tu tion of the harem. Croutier explains Mohammed's "altruistic intentions when he sanctioned polygamy, seeing it as a solution to the pre-Islamic practice of female infanticide, as well as a practical way to deal with the surplus female population" (Croutier 20). To put it another way, the rationale behind institutional poly gamy, while undoubtedly meant to serve the interests of men in the culture (who could divorce their wives more or less at will), also had the effect of giving women as wives something like an official status in the family environment. That being the case, husbands incurred a social obligation to "their" women, and as Croutier points out, Mohammed obliged men with more than one wife to treat all wives with equal dignity. This obligation is in the background of Weinman's (94-5) chal lenge to what she characterizes as the Western stereotype that Muslim women have sec ond-class status. The real meaning of Muslim women's accep tance of limits, she explains, is a discarding of slavery to whims, fan tasies, and desires in favor of a higher order of inner freedom.
Much of the literature dealing with the observed shape of Islam in various venues includes discussion of the status of women because it is among those who do not make policy or who are on the margins of a culture that the impact of cultural norms may be greatest. The overarching point, however is that despite the supposedly immutable sharia, the...