The gender question should be reexamined, as the gender revolution was intended in Islam but never took off. It was aborted arguably for two reasons: a) mainstream Islam turned royalist from the Ummayids [first ruling Islamic dynasty] onwards, and the harem developed and became more secluded as a more aristocratic version of Islam developed, and b) the doors of ijtihad [intellectual effort] closed and the gender revolution was thereby aborted. -Mazrui 1993, 533