Definition
In pre-Islamic Arabia (the 'Jahiliyyah' or Age of Ignorance), women, orphans, and slaves generally had very few rights: women could be inherited as property, had no guaranteed share in inheritance, and female infanticide was practised in some tribes; orphans' property could be seized by guardians without accountability; and slaves had no legal protection from harsh or abusive treatment.
The Prophet Muhammad's (ﷺ) reforms, guided directly by the Qur'an, addressed each of these groups specifically — establishing rights that were revolutionary for their time and place.
Definition
Three specific rights introduced for women: a guaranteed, specified share in inheritance (previously women typically received nothing), the right to own and independently manage their own property and earnings, and the right to consent to marriage (rather than simply being given away without a say).
The Qur'an directly guided these reforms — for example, verses laying out specific inheritance shares for female relatives (Surah An-Nisa), and verses condemning the practice of female infanticide, which together gave these reforms firm scriptural authority rather than leaving them as mere social custom that could later be reversed.
Definition
The Qur'an placed strong emphasis on protecting orphans' property and rights — warning guardians against consuming or mismanaging an orphan's wealth, and requiring that it be handed over in full once the orphan reached maturity. This shifted orphans from being vulnerable to exploitation by guardians to being a group whose rights were explicitly, religiously protected.
Definition
The Prophet (ﷺ) promoted the emancipation (freeing) of slaves by teaching that freeing a slave was a highly rewarded act of virtue, and by making the freeing of a slave a prescribed penalty (expiation) for certain wrongs — directly linking good religious standing to actively reducing slavery.
Steps taken to ensure humane treatment of slaves still in servitude included teaching that slaves should be fed and clothed as their masters fed and clothed themselves, and explicitly forbidding excessive or cruel punishment — treating them, in the Prophet's own words, as members of the household rather than mere property.
Remember
Values from these reforms remain relevant to modern social justice: the principle that vulnerable groups (women, children, and the economically powerless) deserve specific, enforceable legal protection rather than depending solely on the goodwill of those with power over them — a principle underlying much of modern human rights and child-protection law today.
Definition
Simile: a direct comparison using 'like' or 'as' — e.g. 'howling like a hungry wolf'.
Metaphor: an implied comparison without 'like'/'as', describing one thing directly as another — e.g. 'his courage had turned to stone'.
Personification: giving human qualities to something non-human — e.g. 'the old house groaned in protest'.
Onomatopoeia: a word that imitates the sound it describes — e.g. 'Crash!'.
Hyperbole: deliberate, obvious exaggeration for effect, not meant literally — e.g. 'this storm is going to bury us alive!'.
Oxymoron: two contradictory terms placed together — e.g. 'bitter sweetness'.
Idiom: a phrase whose meaning isn't literal but is understood by convention — e.g. 'in over my head' (meaning overwhelmed, facing more than one can handle).
Remember
To work out an unfamiliar word's meaning from context (like 'pummel'), look at the surrounding clues: nearby actions, the general mood of the sentence, and what would logically make sense given everything else happening in the passage — this contextual-guessing skill is more reliable and useful long-term than only ever looking words up.
Definition
When proofreading a paragraph, check systematically for: capitalization (sentence starts, the pronoun 'I', proper nouns), verb tense consistency (matching past/present throughout a narrative), subject-verb agreement (e.g. 'we were', not 'we was'), correct irregular verb forms (e.g. 'saw' not 'seen' as a simple past), and punctuation (commas, full stops, apostrophes).
Definition
A hyphen is used to join two words acting together as a single descriptive unit before a noun (a compound modifier) — e.g. 'a part-time job' and 'the check-in desk' both need a hyphen, since 'part time' and 'check in' are each functioning as one combined descriptive idea modifying the noun that follows.
Quick Recap
- ●Pre-Islamic Arabia: women/orphans/slaves had few protected rights
- ●Women: guaranteed inheritance share, right to own property, right to consent to marriage — grounded directly in Qur'anic verses
- ●Orphans: property protected from guardian mismanagement, handed over in full at maturity
- ●Slaves: freeing encouraged/rewarded (and prescribed as expiation); humane treatment (food, clothing, no excessive punishment) required
- ●Figures of speech: simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, oxymoron, idiom — know the difference
- ●Vocabulary in context: use surrounding clues, not just a dictionary
- ●Proofreading: capitalization, tense consistency, subject-verb agreement, irregular verbs, punctuation
- ●Hyphen joins a compound modifier before a noun (e.g. 'part-time job', 'check-in desk')
