Women's lifestyles in Libya during the Middle Ages 5-10 AD/4 AH
Abstract
Summary: Studying women's lifestyle historically is not an easy task,
especially during the transitional periods of paganism/Christianity/Islam in
Libya during the early Middle Ages. Libyan women had a specific marriage
system represented by the presence of a man in addition to a number of
wives. This was not the case during the previous centuries, when marriage
was arbitrary. The nomadic lifestyles of a number of tribes imposed their
order on women's lives, such that women would go out behind men in peace
and war, even on the battlefields, fortified within a ring surrounded by a
fence of cattle and camels tightly tied together, under the pretext of
preventing enemy cavalry formations from penetrating the family fence. This
procedure was effective during the Vandal period in the 5th century AD, but
it was not so during the Byzantine era in the 6th century AD, which prompted
women and their children to pay a heavy price represented by being taken
prisoner in battle after battle. We will note the presence of a priestly role
played by Libyan women as religious leaders during the 5th and 6th centuries
AD of the Vandal and Byzantine periods. The same role was played by the
Amazigh leader known as Al-Dahiya during the Islamic conquests in the late
7th century AD, which suggests the spread of the same mythological culture
in Libya and the rest of the Maghreb.
Women's interest in the religious aspect - even if it was pagan - did not
stop even after Islam, as women's conversion to Islam with the locals,
especially in the Nafusa Mountain region, resulted in the emergence of a
generation of righteous, devout, and remembrance women, whose names and
some of their deeds were recorded in history.
