Intelligence arose in the history of the Islamic state since the Prophet’s era as a result of the growing hostility of Arab tribes in the Arabian Peninsula against Muslims and Islam, as well as the regional geography that was occupied by the Persians and the Romans. Obtaining information about the enemy, sorting this information, examining it, dividing it, assessing its validity, interpreting this information and drawing conclusions from it. This matter is often called “intelligence” or “intelligence”[1].
And the one who looks at the biography of the Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - and his hadiths will find that this work was done by the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - in his conquests and battles and other things in his internal and regional relations. It was narrated that the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - sent Abdullah bin Jahsh - May God be pleased with him - in the second year of the emigration, twelve men from the emigrants, and he provided him with a sealed book, ordered him not to look at it until he had walked for two days and reached a known location that he specified for him. You looked in this book of my book, so go on in the name of God and His blessings, do not compel any of your companions to walk with you, and go with those who follow you until you come to the (area) of the belly of a palm tree and monitor the caravan of Quraish and teach us of their news”[2].
Examples from the biography of the Prophet, the Sunnah, the history of the Rashidun and those who followed them from the Umayyads, the Abbasids, and even the Ottomans are full of news and stories that demonstrate the development of this apparatus, which became one of the important tools of this state, peace and war. An "eye" and a "spy" to serve his state in other hostile countries.
But the remarkable thing is that the intelligence or intelligence in the history of Islam has used women to perform this function at times, and we point out that they maintained their modesty and chastity and took this aim in order to raise their religion, and to show the truth before the authorities, as well as the help of the women of the enemies themselves, and despite the shortness of This role and the lack of news about it, it is useful to point out.
How did women work in the intelligence service in the history of Islam?
And how did you contribute to revealing the truth and benefiting the authorities?
That is what we will see in our next lines.
If we want to understand the activity of intelligence work, we must realize that its main work is not to collect and analyze information in order to benefit from it for strategic or offensive aspects only, but there is “preventive” intelligence, which is intelligence that aims to deprive enemy spies of obtaining information and secrets, and resisting espionage and tracking] 3], by misleading or arresting these agents.
This role was exemplified by the companion Amer bin Fuhaira who used to take the sheep of Abu Bakr to erase the traces of the Prophet and Abu Bakr during their migration from Mecca to Medina, and before him Lady Asma bint Abi Bakr (the two-legged) who used to prepare food and bring it hidden to the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him May God’s prayers and peace be upon him - and her father during that emigration, as she was following the news of the infidels of Quraish to tell the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - and her father, and she does not provide any information that could benefit the enemies in those difficult moments, and she received great harm from this from Abu Jahl, she tells She said: "When the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, and Abu Bakr, may God be pleased with him, came out, a group of Quraysh, including Abu Jahl Ibn Hisham, came to us, and they stood at the door of Abu Bakr, so I went out to them, and they said: Where is your father, O daughter of Abu Bakr? She said: I said no. I know, by God, where is my father. She said: Abu Jahl raised his hand, and he was a vile and obscene person, and he slapped my cheek with a slap, from which my earring was thrown out.”[4]
Prior to the death of the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - and during the apostasy wars in the caliphate of Abu Bakr (11-13 AH), Islamic intelligence succeeded in recruiting the wife of Al-Aswad Al-Ansi “Badan” to eliminate him after he claimed to be a prophet in Yemen, and many people followed him prior to the death of the Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace May God’s peace and blessings be upon him-, and his danger had increased, and this woman had experienced a lot of harm, which made her welcome the book of the Messenger of God – may God’s prayers and peace be upon him – calling for getting rid of her husband’s fitnah. She plotted a plan in cooperation with her cousins, Fayrouz al-Daylami and the commander of the Army of al-Ansi. Detailed information about her husband and how to reach his hideout in his fortified palace and the large number of his guards that surround him, saying: “There is no place in the palace except that the guards surround him except for a remote room. Inside it is the weapon and the lamp, and you will find me waiting for you”[5].
Al-Ansi’s wife kept waiting for the Muslim soldiers and their emir who confirmed the authenticity and importance of this information, and even worked to occupy the palace guards, until the Muslims were able to make an opening through which they could pass, until the night closed and he took Al-Ansi to his bed, and the place was silent. They infiltrated and found her waiting for them. She indicated to them to enter while he was sleeping, so they entered and they judged him, and the Muslims got rid of his temptation and evil [6].
The Caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab - may God be pleased with him - also recruited a Muslim woman to reveal a murder that took place in Medina during his caliphate. And his assistants, and a year after the occurrence of that crime, a child was found lying in the place of that murdered man, and Umar felt with his firasah that there was a link between the two crimes, and here he summoned a woman from the city’s residents and he assigned her to raise and care for the boy, and above that she must watch the movements of the women who might come to visit this boy. Any woman who showed eagerness and longing in hugging and kissing, she must come immediately and tell him about her, in return for a fee he specified for her.
Indeed, it did not take long before a little maid came and said to that woman, the nanny and the informant, "My madam has sent me to you to send the boy to see him and bring him back to you." But the woman recruited by Omar - may God be pleased with him - insisted on accompanying the boy to that woman who wanted to see him, so she came to her, and the maid took the boy and gave him to her mistress. This woman, the secret informant, moved to Caliph Umar and provided him with this important information[7].
The Caliph verified this information, then took permission from the father of this Ansar woman, who was one of the senior sheikhs of the Ansar and the Companions, to interrogate her. Immediately Caliph Umar confronted her, accused her of murder, and threatened to kill her if she did not confess. Indeed, that woman collapsed, and admitted that she was the one who was killed. That young man who was found lying on the side of the road a year ago, and she explained to him that she had forced him to kill him in defense of herself and her honour, and showed him that she had fallen victim to a cunning old woman who was frequenting her and she was doing her command in the place of the mother, and she had the status of a girl, until that time passed, then that This old woman asked permission to leave, and asked to have a daughter with her until she returned from her travels, so I went to her son, Amard, without a beard, so she put him in the shape of a maidservant and brought him to her, and she did not suspect that he was a slave girl, so he saw from her what the maid sees from the maidservant, and he neglected her one day and transgressed against her while she was She was sleeping, so she killed him, and threw him on the road, but the effect of this assault was that boy she had put and then threw him in the place of the dead man, and swore to him thatShe was truthful in her narration, so he believed it, then recommended it and prayed for it[8].
In the era of the Umayyad state, many political and military leaders became aware of the role of women and their intelligence recruitment to serve his project. When Abdullah bin Al-Zubair bin Al-Awwam - may God be pleased with him - (d. 73 AH) sent his brother, Musab bin Al-Zubayr to Iraq, he was able to seize her and stand firm against the Umayyad state Some of the senior tribal leaders, led by Al-Ahnaf bin Qais, the leader and master of the many tribes of Bani Tamim, had hesitated to continue supporting Abdullah bin Al-Zubair and his brother Musab, the Emir of Iraq against Abdul Malik bin Marwan, and here Musab sent to Al-Ahnaf’s maidservant, who had Al-Zubarah Tahfa. And gifts and a thousand dirhams in order to persuade Al-Ahnaf to join his army against the Umayyads, so that maid cleverly and cunningly came to Al-Ahnaf and started crying, so he said: What makes you cry? She said: The women lent me, so they said: Our men went out and your master cowardly, so he was terrified, and went out to support Musab [9].
In the following eras, the Abbasid and Ayyubid states took care of women and recruited them to work in their intelligence apparatus, due to the large number of revolutions, seditions and civil wars, as well as external enemies. It was mentioned that the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun had one thousand seven hundred elderly women with whom he inspected the conditions of people, especially criminals, stubborn ones, and those who corrupt the sanctuary of Muslims, and he used to sit at the caliphate’s house until their news came to him[10].
When the Ayyubid state was established in Egypt and the Levant and took upon itself to resist the Crusader tide and purify the Islamic countries from the clutches of this occupation, Salah Al-Din Al-Ayyubi and his aides took all the energies to achieve this goal, so women took an important position in their intelligence services, and it was not only the recruitment of women Not only Muslim women, but also European women from the crusaders who are trusted, it is reported that the great King Isa bin Al-Malik Al-Adil Al-Ayyub (d. 625 AH), the Emir of Damascus, was using some of the women of the Crusaders to know the news of their armies and men in return for huge financial payments, so they sent him news of movement The Crusader armies first hand, which missed the Crusaders in many cases to surprise the Ayyubid armies in the Levant. Indeed, one of them revealed a dangerous military plan of Emperor Frederick II, King of Germany and the leader of the Crusaders in the Sixth Crusade, through which he aimed to surprise the Ayyubid armies and occupy Damascus, thanks to this The information that the Most High was able toProtecting his city with an advanced attack on the enemy[11].
Indeed, Sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi was able to recruit the wife of one of the most important Crusaders leaders and their princes prior to the Battle of Hattin and the liberation of Jerusalem in 583 AH. He was able to win over Mrs. Sibel, the wife of the Crusader Prince of Antioch Bohemond III, and she had secret contacts with Salah al-Din, and she was informing him of the Crusaders’ plans. First of all, he, in turn, would appreciate this information and give her the most precious and valuable gifts[12].
These are some glimpses of the contributions of women to the intelligence apparatus in the successive Islamic countries since the era of the Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - until the time of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi. Undoubtedly, they played brilliant roles in exposing the movements of the enemy to Muslims, and showing their weaknesses, and they had the greatest impact on the success of The emigration of the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - and then the victory of Islam later, and even in the liberation of Bait Al-Maqdis by Salah Al-Din Al-Ayyubi, and these are roles that historians and the general readers have rarely addressed and were aware of their importance!
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Sources
[1] Ibn Manzur: Lisan al-Arab, the subject of informing, and the subject of Jess.
[2] Ibn Hisham: Biography of the Prophet 3/18.
[3] Muhammad Jamal al-Din Mahfouz: Introduction to Doctrine and Strategy, p. 149.
[4] Ibn Hisham: The Prophet’s Biography 1/487.
[5] Pictures from the lives of the Companions, p. 273.
[6] Intelligence in the Islamic State, p. 54.
[7] Ibn al-Jawzi: Manaqib Umar ibn al-Khattab pg. 79, 80.
[8] Ibn al-Jawzi: al-Maqrib, p. 80.
[9] Al-Thaalibi: Tuhfat Al-Wazir, p. 92, 93.
[10] Al-Munajjid: Between the Caliphs and the Khula’, p. 93.
[11] Intelligence in the Islamic State, p. 192.
[12] Previous source.