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

Notes 211
70 Zarkali, A 'lam, vol. 1, p. 305.
71 Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat, vol. 3, p. 413; Hanbali, Shazarat, vol. 3, p.
347.
72 On the attack by the Karmatis on Mecca, see Ibn al-Athir, Kamil,
vol. 7, pp. 53ff; Hanbali, Shazarat, vol. 2, p. 274. On the Karmatis,
see Encyclopedia of Islam, article on 'Karmati'.
73 Hanbali, Shazarat, vol. 2, p. 274.
CHAPTER 8 THE LITTLE QUEENS OF SHEBA
1
2
3
4
Zarkali, A'lam (see ch. 1 n. 35 above), vol. 1, p. 279. At the end of
this biography the reader can find a list of the principal sources on
Queen 'Arwa, especially a biography of her in the famous Siyar al-
'alam al-nubala' by al-Dahbi (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1958); vol. 2
contains biographies of women.
On the jahiliyya I would suggest the following: on the Islamic vision
of time, see Tabari's fascinating introduction to his Tarikh al-umam
wa al-muluk (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1979). On the -word jahiliyya itself,
see how Tabari explains it in his Tafsir (Commentary on the Koran)
(Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1984), vol. 22, pp. 4, 5, when he comments on
verse 33 of sura 33 of the Koran, which reads: 'And stay in your
houses. Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment of the Time of
Ignorance' (Pickthall translation, see ch. 4 n. 8 above). This verse says
that for a woman to 'bedizen' herself before going out into the street
is definitely behaviour of the jahiliyya. The distinctive behaviour of a
Muslim woman is characterized by modesty. And modest the queen
of Sheba was not. For a short exposition of the subject see Ignaz
Goldiziher, 'What is meant by al-Jahiliyya?', in Muslim Studies
(Chicago: Aldine, 1966), pp. 208-19.
'Abdallah Ahmad Muhammad al-Thawr, Hadihi hiyya al-Yaman
(Beirut: Dar al-'Adwa, 1979), p. 281.
The Lisan al-'Arab of Ibn Manzur, which I am mad about because he
looks for the root of the word and in the process undertakes a veritable
archaeological search into Islamic and pre-Islamic memory, often
bringing out meanings hidden for centuries, is particularly afflicted
with amnesia when it comes to the woman's name Asma. He deals
with it first in vol. 1 with the first letter, the alif, when he speaks of
the word ism, name. On this occasion he evokes two names of persons.
The first is a masculine name, Usama, which, he tells us, is one of the
words for 'lion'. Then he takes up the second, which is Asma, and
tells us very briefly the obvious - that it is a woman's name - without
adding anything more. Without adding, for example, something that
was obvious to the Yemeni poets - that the word has a connotation
of elevation and thus comes from the same root as sama. The word
sama (sky) is taken up by Ibn Manzur in vol. 3, devoted largely to