From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: WOMEN: Islamic historians suppress evidence of woman rulers
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 09:23:23 GMT

/** gen.women: 197.0 **/
** Topic: WOMEN: Islamic historians suppress **
** Written  8:57 pm  Jul 16, 1992 by peg:paua in cdp:gen.women **
/* Written  1:58 pm  Jul 14, 1992 by cdp:newsdesk in peg:ips.english */
/* ---------- "WOMEN: Islamic historians suppress" ---------- */
Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.

Title: WOMEN: Islamic historians suppress evidence of woman rulers

an inter press service feature

by marit scheepmaker

amsterdam, jul 14 (ips) -- islamic historians are deliberately
suppressing evidence that muslim women have become community
leaders, says a prominent moroccan feminist.

fatimi mernissi should know. a well-known arab writer, she has
delved into ''nearly forgotten'' historic archives to research a
book which reveals that islamic history has known 16 women heads
of state.

first published in french in 1990, sul~tanes oubliees, femmes
chefs d'etat en islam -- for~gotten sultanes, female heads of
state in islam --  has since been translated into several
languages. the dutch edition was published last week.

inspired by opposition to pakistan's benazir bhutto, the
sociologist-turned-author said bhutto's 1988 election as prime
minister was of particular significance because it was democratic.

newspapers across the islamic world charged she had no right to
govern because there was no precedent of a woman heading a
government, mernissi said in a recent interview. ''but i happened
to know of one woman who ruled egypt in the 13th century. her name
was sjadjarat ad-doer. i wonde~red why every~body had forgotten
about her and started doing re~search.''

researching her book, mernissi says was like playing detective.
erasing from history women rulers such as sultanes, malikates and
chatoens amounted to ''a kind of historic murder,'' she says.

other woman rulers could not claim the title of head of state
because islamic leaders failed to grant them the 'chutba' in
friday prayers, which officially would have given them appropriate
status.

most women rulers emerged in asian islam. arabs knew only two who
had received official friday prayer mention:  malika asma and
malika oerwa, rulers of yemen in the 11th and 12th century.

''it's remarkable that outside yemen, even highly esteemed
historians don't mention this fact,'' mernissi says. ''of~ course,
this collective loss of memory is no coincidence. this kind of
knowledge is a direct threat to the authority of the islamic
clergy.'

revealing the history of islamic women in government may
influence the perspective of islamic women today, she says.~

''women have been taught to please men, to efface them~selves, to
be submissive, to show their weakness and  helplessness. but these
yemenite queens show us that striving for power and being loved
can go hand in hand,'' mernissi writes. ' (more/ips)

women: islamic historians suppress evidence of woman rulers(2-e)

women: islamic (2)

mernissi has made a career of writing about the role of women in
islam as well as islam's relationship to democracy. contrary to
western perceptions of undemocratic intolerance, islam to her is a
rich, multilayered culture. benazi bhutto, she says, was a
revolutionary elected by ''people without shoes''.

mernissi discounts the fact that she was the daughter of
pakistan's powerful leader, zulfikar ali bhutto, whom the military
regime hanged in 1979. she also dismisses benazir's forced
dismissal in late 1990. ''the point,'' she says, ''is that the
people expressed the wish to have a woman as their leader.''

benazir's election, she argues, changed islamic politics. it was
emulated last year in bangladesh where khaleda zia became prime
minister. younger women in pakistan and algeria have since
demonstrated courage in street protests against both dictatorship
and islamic fun~damentalism. ''muslims, just like christians
during the inquisition, hate...state violence,'' mernissi says.

opposed to modern day fundamentalism, mernissi compares her
fundamentalist islamic brethren to germany's fascists of the 1930s
who constituted ''the biggest workers' move~ment that ever existed
in germany and turned out to be the final stage of despotism...
the final convulsion of authoritarianism before the germans would
become europeans.''

in her latest book, la peur-modernite, -- the fear of  modernism --
mernissi, like other arab writers, predicts that last year's gulf
war against iraq will strengthen fundamenta~list movements. she
blames the west for islam's lack of democracy.

''western europe managed to put dicta~torship behind it after
many centuries. but we never had a normal development because
western coun~tries fearing nationalisation of the oil sector,
systema~tical~ly supported the oil sheiks and ob~structed
demo~cratic develop~ments,'' she says

as a result, arab politicians are still able to employ religion
as a means of suppressing the people, she says. their political
control is enhanced by the lack of modern education in many
islamic countries.

people ''have never heard of rous~seau,'' the concept of
individu~alism or the declara~tion of human rights, ''which is, to
my mind, the most beautiful gift that wes~tern civili~sation has
given the world.'' arab women, she says, are entitled to
''everything'' the world has to offer.

''that can be candlelight, computers, the declaration of human
rights, the quran and the mosque. i want everything. why should i
only listen  to some imam who tells me what i should do and think?
religion is not only an institution, not only power. it's also an
attitude of mind, language, symbols. in that way islam will not
die.'' (end/ips/ip/ms/cpg/jmd/92)

** End of text from cdp:gen.women **