The Forgotten Queens of Islam

FATIMA MERNISSI

Oxford University Press Karachi

This "wonderful and enchanting" memoir tells the revelatory true story of one Muslim girl's life in her family's French Moroccan harem, set against the backdrop of World War II (The New York Times Book Review). "I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco..." So begins Fatima Mernissi in this illuminating narrative of a childhood behind the iron gates of a domestic harem. In Dreams of Trespass, Mernissi weaves her own memories with the dreams and memories of the women who surrounded her in the courtyard of her youth -- women who, without access to the world outside, recreated it from sheer imagination. A beautifully written account of a girl confronting the mysteries of time and place, gender and sex, Dreams of Trespass illuminates what it was like to be a modern Muslim woman in a place steeped in tradition.

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Perseus Books

Convinced that the veil is a symbol of unjust male authority over women, in The Veil and the Male Elite, Moroccan feminist Fatima Mernissi aims to investigate the origins of the practice in the first Islamic community.

The Veil And The Male Elite

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Basic Books

As a little girl, Fatima Mernissi was often puzzled by the idea of the harem. Even if you accepted that men and women needed to be kept apart, she asked, why couldn't it be the woman who walked freely in the streets, while men stayed locked behind the harem gates? In this story, she tells of her childhood in a Fez harem in the 1940s, a period of social transition in Morocco. Yasmina, Fatima's grandmother, was one of nine co-wives. She had the freedom to go out and about on her husband's farm and the surrounding countryside, but she carried around within her the "hudud", or sacred frontier that seperates women from men. Fatima's mother was an only wife, but she lived with the other women of her extended family inside an enclosed courtyard in the city, guarded by a gatekeeper whose sole duty it was to keep women from going out into the street. Fatima herself grew up in this enchanted prison, where contact with the outside world was often limited to the imaginary journey's in the tales of Aunt Habiba. But then the French colonists introduced schools for girls in Morocco, and in due course Fatima was able to leave the Harem to forge an independent life. In this memoir Fatima Mernissi shows clearly the roles assigned to women and men by traditional Muslim society. She also shows the intimacy and sense of fun that can unite women in and enclosed community.

The Harem Within: Tales of a Moroccan Girlhood

Bantam]

SUENOS EN EL UMBRAL: MEMORIAS DE UNA NINA DEL HAREN (TRADUCIDO DEL INGLES POR ANGELA PEREZ)

BARCELONA: MUCHNIK EDITORES

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Books by FATIMA MERNISSI