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

188 Conclusion
in place so that the soles can be beaten), my grandmother, who
always tried to teach me how to be happy, asked me, 'But, little
one, what exactly did you do?' I held back my tears of humiliation
and started to formulate my answer: 'I wanted to say to the faqiha
[teacher] . . .' And my grandmother, who had 50 years of the harem
behind her, interrupted me before I could even finish my first
sentence: 'Child, don't bother to go further. You committed a very
grave fault. You wanted, you, to say something to yOUT faqiha. You
don't say something at your age, especially to someone older. You
keep silent. You say nothing. And you will see, you won't get any
more beatings.' My grandmother died when I was 13 years old, on
a beautiful summer afternoon. I grew up, developed broad shoulders,
left the Koranic school, and went out into the world with a
sure step in search of dignity. But my progress has always been
interrupted by the dismayed advice of those who love me and wish
me happiness. They always say the same thing: you must keep quiet
if you don't want to be beaten.
In a medina democracy, individuals focus all their efforts on one
basic body organ - the tongue. And its acrobatics make them forget
the essential - the brain and the act of thinking. While Westerners
concentrate on thinking, we, the inhabitants of the medina democracy,
invest our efforts in the art of talking. But to express what?
Most of the time we do not even know. That is why our meetings
go on until midnight and our conferences are interminable. This
also explains the flood of words of our planners, politicians, technicians,
and intellectuals, whatever their political colour. A flood
of words which, when subjected to a rigorous analysis of content,
turn out to be just talk without any new ideas - or very few - at
the level of real thinking. Perhaps this is because the ability of
human beings to develop their minds depends on the degree of
responsibility they take for what happens on their earth. If the earth
belongs to someone else, the need to think becomes superfluous.
A citizen and a believer do not behave the same way in space,
for the good and simple reason that Heaven and earth are governed
by different laws but exist together in a cosmic scheme. In the
caliphal scene one is in the midst of the immense vastness and
omnipresence of Heaven, which crushes earth with its divine power
and sacred sovereignty; here earth, as populated as it is, has little
importance. It is minuscule compared to the overwhelming majesty
of Heaven. Above all it is degraded in comparison to the luminous
spirituality that sets Heaven aflame. The earth of the believers is
low, physical, and heavy with sensuality. Degraded and degrading