Fatima.Mernessi_The-Forgotten-Queens-of-Islam-EN

116 The Arab Queens
days of al-Hurra the perfect, the sovereign who carefully manages
the affairs of the faithful.' 3
As we have seen, it frequently happened that women took over
political power from the men with whom they shared their life. But
it is exceptional in the Arab part of the Muslim Empire that the
khutba should be preached in their name. So what is the secret
behind the privilege enjoyed by these queens of Yemen? 4
The most fascinating historical fact about Asma and 'Arwa, who
effectively passed power from one to the other during a good part
of the century-long reign of the Sulayhi dynasty, is the complete
amnesia that afflicts people today. No one remembers them! No
one has ever heard of them! A colleague of mine, a historian who
specializes in the Middle Ages, whom I consulted at the beginning
of my research for information on this subject, was very sceptical.
Arab women heads of state? Are you not mistaken about the
area? When I recited to him the form used when the khutba was
proclaimed in 'Arwa's name, he asked me with disconcerting conviction:
'Didn't you read that story in the Arabian NightsT Still more
surprising is that this amnesia affects even Western historians, who
seemingly should not be at all threatened by the Arab woman/power
connection. With an assurance that recalls to mind the ayatollahs,
Bernard Lewis affirms that 'there are no queens in Islamic history,
and the word "queen", where it occurs, is used only of foreign
rulers in Byzantium or in Europe. There are a few instances where
Muslim dynastic thrones were briefly occupied by women, but this
was perceived as an aberration and condemned as an offense.' 5
This type of categorical statement by brilliant Islamic scholars of
the stature of Bernard Lewis confirms just one thing: Muslim women
in general, and Arab women in particular, cannot count on anyone,
scholar or not, 'involved' or 'neutral', to read their history for them.
Reading it for themselves is entirely their responsibility and their
duty. Our demand for the full and complete enjoyment of our
universal human rights, here and now, requires us to take over our
history, to reread it, and to reconstruct a wide-open Muslim past.
This duty, moreover, can turn out to be no drab, disagreeable task,
but rather a journey filled with delight. And what is even more
important, excursions into our past can not only divert and instruct
us, but also give us precious ideas about how to find happiness in
life as a woman, a Muslim, and an Arab - those three characterizations
that they try to pin on us as a maleficent triad, an abyss of
submission and abnegation in which our own wishes must inevitably