The Veil And The Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation Of Women's Rightsin Islam - Hardcover

Mernissi, Fatima

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0201523213 ISBN 13: 9780201523218

Publisher: Basic Books, 1991

Synopsis

English (translation)Original French

About this title

Reviews

Muhammad was a chief of state who publicly acknowledged the importance of affection and sexuality. He was a polygynous husband whose wives were not just background figures but often shared decision-making with him. According to Moroccan sociologist Mernissi ( Beyond the Veil ), the founder of Islam asserted the equality of women, rejected slavery and envisioned an egalitarian society. Mernissi further claims that successive Muslim priests manipulated and distorted sacred texts, from the seventh century onward, in an effort to maintain male privileges. Her close textual analyses of the Hadith , or stories of words and deeds attributed to the Prophet, support her far-reaching reinterpretation of the historic roots of Islam and its modern tendency to reduce woman to a "submissive, marginal creature."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Mernissi, an internationally known Moroccan sociologist, endeavors to show that discrimination against women, so common in the Muslim world today, is not a fundamental tenet of Islam as many contemporary male Muslims would like us to believe. Her basic premise is that Islam is inherently egalitarian and, using extensive documentation from the Koran, the Hadith, and other Islamic historical commentary, Mernissi successfully proves her hypothesis. While doing so, she teaches the reader a great deal about Mohammed (the man as well as the prophet), his wives, his companions, and early Islamic society. Like Mernissi's other books ( Beyond the Veil , Indiana Univ. Pr., 1987; Doing Daily Battle , Rutgers Univ. Pr., 1989; Women in Emergent Morocco , Flame Internat., 1982), this fascinating, well-written, and well-documented work is an excellent addition to scholarship on Muslim women. Recommended for academic libraries and others with women's studies or Middle East collections.
- Ruth K. Baacke, Bellingham P.L., Wash .
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0201523213
• ISBN 13: 9780201523218
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240