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

12 Queens and Courtesans
law, while mulk exists elsewhere, wherever people have gathered
together in a community.
The caliph is by definition someone who deputizes for someone
else. He replaces the Prophet in his mission, which is to make it
possible for the group to live according to religious laws that guarantee
a harmonious life on earth and a happy one in Paradise. Not
just anyone can claim to be a caliph; access to this privilege is
subject to strict criteria. By contrast, titles like sultan, the linguistic
origin of which is salata (dominate), and malik (king), which has
the same connotation of raw power not tempered by religion, are
available to anybody. 5 And that is why women can carry them; they
do not imply or signify any divine mission. But women could never
lay claim to the title of caliph. The secret of the exclusion of women
lies in the criteria of eligibility to be a caliph.
According to Ibn Khaldun, the Arabs decided with the coming
of the Prophet to resolve the problem of conflict between a leader,
who rules by force, and a subject, forced to obey, by adopting one
law, the shari'a, which links the leader and the subject. The leader,
in this case called the caliph, the one who replaces the Prophet,
and the subject both have the status of believer. What links the two
and subordinates the will of both parties is their belief in the shari'a,
the law of divine nature. Remember that the two key words in
Islam, shari'a and sunna, mean 'way, mapped-out route, path'. All
one has to do is follow. Having a caliph is an innovation in the
history of the Arabs, a privilege granted to them by God through
the intermediary of an Arab prophet, which allowed them to bypass
the inevitably violent relationship between leader and community.
This is the reason why few non-Arab heads of state could claim the
privilege of bearing the title of caliph, while any military man who
succeeded in subjugating a country could claim the title of sultan
or malik. 6
Women are not the only ones who cannot aspire to the title of
caliph. Rare are the men among those succeeding in taking power
in the Muslim world who could carry this title and be convincing
and credible. If one understands the mission of the caliph, one will
have grasped the whole Muslim political system and the whole
philosophy that underlies it, and especially why the emergence of
women in politics is necessarily a challenge. The appearance of
women on the Muslim political scene, which for centuries was
subjected at least nominally to the supervision of a mythically
pious caliph, signals the eruption of earthly oriented, necessarily
unscrupulous, power-hungry agents. The emergence of women in