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

212 Notes
the letter S. He tells us that it designates the sky, but that it also
designates 'everything that is elevated, everything that is high', like
al-sumuw, Royal Highness. Sama also designates high things like the
ceiling, and high things that are connected to the sky, 'like clouds and
rain'. Sama has the same root as ism, which means sign, that is, a sign
designating a thing. There is a 'sense of superiority in the sign'. Ism,
he tells us, 'is a design, a mark which is superimposed on an object
to signify it'. And guess what is one of the plurals of isml Asma\ How
did it happen that Ibn Manzur, the archaeologist of our Arab memory,
did not see the link between the woman's name Asma and the word
ism (name, sign), which, he tells us, come from the same root, samal
Is it because such a suggestion would have brought on the return of
the repressed - namely, the fact that pre-Islamie Arabia worshipped
goddesses and that the Prophet's battle against the mushriqin was very
often a struggle against those goddesses? In any case, the eleventhcentury
Yemeni poets had no difficulty in seeing the link between the
name of their queen and the heavens.
5 Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (New York: Dorset
Press, n.d.), sura 27.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Tabari, Tarikh, vol. 19, p. 48.
9 Imam Ibn Tahir Tayfur, Kitab balaghat al-nisa' (Beirut: Dar al-Nahda
al-Haditha, 1972), p. 129. The author died in year 280 of the Hejira.
10 Umar Kahhala, A lam al-nisa' fi 'almay al-'Arabi wa al-Islami (Beirut:
Mu'assasa al-Risala, 1982), vol. 1, p. 144.
11 Qannuji, Husn al-uswa (see ch. 5 n. 39 above), p. 179.
12 Mas'udi, Muruj al-dahab (Beirut: Dar al-Ma'rifa, 1982), vol. 2, p. 384.
13 Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edn (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960) article on
'Saba'.
14 Sura 27, verse 23.
15 One need only read the prolific poet Nizar Qabbani, for example.
How could he express the pleasure he finds in women if he was
forbidden to evoke Balqis? I believe he would go on strike against
writing! And who would be the losers? Obviously it would be Arab
women, who are the greatest consumers of his poetry, with me at the
head of the list. One feels wonderful and serenely at peace with the
world after reading a poem by Nizar.
16 Lisan al-'Arab, section on 'Hazm'.
17 Thawr, Hadhihi, p. 281.
18 Ibid.
19 Mahmud al-Kamil, Al-Yaman (Beirut: Dar Bayrut li al-Tiba'a wa al-
Nashr, 1968), p. 169.
20 Salah Ibn Hamid al-'Alawi, Tarikh Hadramawt (n.p.: Maktaba al-
Irshad, n.d.), vol. 1, p. 342.