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

1
How Does One Say
'Queen' in Islam?
Faced with the plethora of queens who in the yellowed pages of
history books constantly contend with caliphs for power and with
sultans for thrones, we must first of all ask the most obvious
question: how does one say queen in Islam? Remember, the Koran
refers to the queen of Sheba, without ever mentioning her name!
Moreover do you call queens by their given name or by that of
their father or husband or son? Do they have the right to titles,
and to which ones if not to the two most specific titles of power in
Islam: caliph and imam? Once again words are going to reveal what
over the past 15 centuries has modulated Islamic mental attitudes,
conscious and unconscious, at the most profound level.
I hasten to say that, according to the little I know, no woman
has ever borne the title of caliph or imam in the current meaning
of the word, that is, someone who leads the prayers in the mosque
for everyone, men and women. One of the reasons for my caution
is that I cannot help feeling guilty in simply asking the question:
Has there ever been a woman caliph? I feel that asking the question
in itself constitutes a blasphemy. The simple idea of daring, as a
woman, to question history is experienced by me, programmed as
I am by a traditional Muslim education, as a troubling blasphemy.
On this sunny morning of 6 February 1989, just a few steps from
the Jami' al-Sunna, one of the great mosques of Rabat, I feel guilty
being here with my computer about to expatiate on women and the
caliphate. This strange association of words creates a new and
diffuse anxiety which I must try to respond to before the hour of
prayer. I want to have everything in order before noon, when the