THE VEIL AND THE MALE ELITE: A FEMINIST INTERPRETATION OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN ISLAM - FATIMA MERNISSI

Got into this based on both an interest in the veil itself as well as a desire to read more criticism/history/theory/nonfiction stuff from Global South (3rd world, developing world, to list the terms in order of my affinity for them) authors. Mernissi is Moroccan and, to her immense credit, still teaches in her home nation. She’s very fucking smart about this stuff and has the great gift of concision and structure. This book could easily have devolved into a long, long exploration of the life of the prophet (pbuh) and the debates and ramifications that still surround his choices in the early days of Islam. Islam, as a culture, is obviously very book focused, Mernissi points out that the first word of the first Sura that was revealed (which isn’t the first Sura in the current Koran, a fact I only mention because the order of the Suras is a major issue the book explores) was Iqra which means “read,” so, unlike with Christ, there are dozens of accounts of these early days as well as centuries of commentary and tradition that Mernissi manages to cut through and offers both clear analysis and useful insights. I would say the first chapter, The Muslims and Time, is the highlight and could be read by itself (tho the book is short, you should just read the whole thing). It basically points out how the modern West has captured the idea of a future (in a process that I would call Capitalist Realism) so subaltern groups like, and especially, muslims must look backwards into their history, for a golden, timeless era that they can use as a utopian vision in the present, a process she calls “chronopolitics.” Again, this part is my favorite, it’s the most broad but seemed to most applicable to my understanding of Islam and modern Islamic culture. Mernissi then delves back into Islamic history to show how the same male elite that call for, and murderously enforce, a supposed “true Islam” are also totally ignorant of actual history. Early Islamic history and pre-Islamic Arabic history is something I have an interest in but not much understanding. Mernissi, however, paints what is, to me, a compelling narrative that Muhammed (pbuh) was trying to build a Umma without distinction between members. That he was attempting to build a religion where one’s connection with the divine as well as the world and the right way to live was equal to everyone else's. There’s no clergy in Islam, the prayers can and are done by one’s self anywhere in the world, the Koran (unlike, say, the Bible) is written in a language people speak and are encouraged to learn if they don’t. However, Mernissi claims that pre-Islamic attitudes, Jahiliyya, especially towards women, made the veil a compromise that Muhammad (pbuh) found necessary. But, to Mernissi, it is a compromise that betrays the true essence of Islam, the idea that you’d need anything besides your reason and the Koran to live a life pleasing to Allah. “The hijab reintroduced the idea that the street was under control of the sufaha (lit. fools and/or hypocrites), those who did not restrain their desires and who needed a tribal chieftain to keep them under control.” This, to me, suggests a sort of anarcho-Islam that I’m into. There’s also a lot about pre-Islamic sexual politics (spoiler alert: bad) including the fact that there is a word, ta’arrud which means “taking up a position along a woman’s path to urge her to fornicate” as well as the life of the prophet (pbuh) w/r/t his wives and the various types of “marriages” and sexual arrangements that existed before Islam. Again, I don’t know enough about Islamic history or culture to truly evaluate her conclusions, I do find them persuasive and incredibly well argued, but that doesn’t seem to stop her critics. Her conclusion contains an anecdote about being interrupted at an Islamic conference (by a man, of course) and being challenged on the history she highlights. She relays how she rattled off a long list of sources in Arabic before being told the man challenging her did not, in fact, speak/read Arabic, he just had a gut reaction against her argument for equality. Always important to learn more about Islam. 300 Idols in the Kaaba