The Forgotten Queens of Islam
by Fatima Mernissi
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Description
When Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988, there were some who claimed that is was a blasphemous assault on Islamic tradition, since no Muslim state, they alleged, had ever been governed by a woman. In this extraordinary book, now available in paperback, Fatima Mernissi shows that those self-proclaimed defenders of Islamic tradition were not only misguided but wrong. She looks back through fifteen centuries of Islam and uncovers a hidden history of women who have held show more the reins of power, but whose lives and stories, achievements and failures, have largely been forgotten. Who were the Queens of Islam? How did they accede to the throne and how did their rule come to an end? What kinds of states did they govern and how did they exercise their power? Pursuing these and other questions, Mernissi recounts the stories of fifteen queens, including Sultana Radiyya who reigned in Delhi from 1250 until her violent death at the hand of a peasant; the Island Queens who ruled in the Maldives and Indonesia; and the Arab Queens of Egypt and of the Shi'ite Dynasty of Yemen. It was the Yemenis who bestowed upon queens a title that was theirs alone - balgis al-sughra, or 'Young Queen of Sheeba'. Mernissi concludes this absorbing historical inquiry by reflecting on its implications for the ways in which politics is practised in the Islamic world today, a world in which women while generally more educated than their predecessors, are largely excluded from the political domain. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
[Herrscherinnen unter dem Halbmond] 3* One one level, this book is about women who had positions of power in Islamic countries. On another level it is about how power is held in Islam. And it is also about how a moslem woman of the twentieth century deals with the contradictions she sees in her culture.
I was not really prepared for the second and third levels. I also am not well enough informed over the histories of the countries covered to really follow even the first level comfortably.
In spite of all that, I still found the book interesting, if often frustrating.
I was not really prepared for the second and third levels. I also am not well enough informed over the histories of the countries covered to really follow even the first level comfortably.
In spite of all that, I still found the book interesting, if often frustrating.
Die Macht der Frauen in der Welt des Islam
Nov 24, 2014German
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Women in Islam
120 works; 8 members
Women and Islam
12 works; 1 member
Author Information
47+ Works 2,412 Members
Fatema Mernissi is an Islamic feminist whose books have been published in 22 countries & have been bestsellers in many. (Bowker Author Biography)
Some Editions
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Die Sultanin
- Original title
- Sultanes oubliées: femmes chefs d'Etat en Islam
- Alternate titles*
- Die Sultanin : die Macht der Frauen in der Welt des Islam; Herrscherinnen unter dem Halbmond : die verdrängte Macht der Frauen im Islam
- Original publication date
- 1990
- Original language
- French
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, History, General Nonfiction, Sexuality and Gender Studies, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 920.00917671 — History & geography Biographies, Genealogy, Healdry Biographies General and collective by localities
- LCC
- DS38.4 .A2 .M4713 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Asia History of Asia
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 172
- Popularity
- 190,913
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.82)
- Languages
- 7 — Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 19
