'It is difficult for Muslim women to be promoters of knowledge.' How far do you agree with this statement?

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (May/June 2023). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. 10 marks AO1 – Knowledge and understanding
2. 15 marks AO2 – Analysis and evaluation
3. Mark according to the levels of response marking grids for AO1 and AO2. Answers may refer to any religious theory or teaching. Candidates may propose, analyse and evaluate some of the following arguments. All relevant arguments must be credited.
4. Candidates could explain what promoting knowledge is and how both Qur'an and Hadith have encouraged both men and women to be seekers and providers of knowledge.
5. Candidates can choose to write about one or more of the women they have studied from the syllabus or any influential woman of their choice.
6. Agree: Throughout Islamic history the field of knowledge has always been dominated by men.
7. Agree: After the death of the Prophet (pbuh), the companions (sahabas) reputed for having most Islamic knowledge were men, such as the four Rightly Guided Caliphs, Abu Huraira, Ibn Abbas and Ibn Umar.
8. Agree: During the time of the 'Abbasids, again, men were prominent for their intellectual capacities and knowledge, such as Haitham, Khwarizmi, Al Kindi, Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina.
9. Agree: In the field of Hadith, again the most famous scholars of Hadith (muhaddithun) are men like Bukhari and Muslim.
10. Agree: In most societies, whether ancient or recent, women are given the role of homebuilders and mothers/carers and almost absent from the field of science and knowledge.
11. Disagree: There have been many women who were prominent for their knowledge in the history of Islam.
12. Disagree: Aisha, wife of the Prophet (pbuh) is still remembered today for her vast knowledge of Hadiths, jurisprudence (fiqh) and medicine, even though she lived at a time when women were not at the forefront of Islamic knowledge.
13. Disagree: Candidates could also choose to write on another woman of their choice, such as Lubna of Cordoba, secretary of the Caliph and poet, who was the driving force behind the library at Medina Azahara. She was in charge of collecting and copying texts including works by Euclid and Archimedes, as well as providing her own annotations to existing texts, and she scribed some herself. Lubna presided over a momentous collection of books totalling over 500 000. She walked the streets of Córdoba teaching mathematics to children.
14. Depth of knowledge should be assessed for each woman chosen, such as the time and place where she lived and details of her contribution to the field of knowledge. Breadth of knowledge should be assessed across the example chosen.
15. Candidates will arrive at a conclusion on whether women can be promoters of knowledge to a great extent or are limited in doing so.