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

Khayzuran: Courtesan or Head of State? 63
Theoretically, in Islam, public space is the arena for taking the
initiative and making decisions in all matters, especially political
affairs; but public space was forbidden to a woman. Again, involvement
in political matters necessarily means taking charge of warmaking;
it assumes the act of killing. By contrast the household,
women's territory, is the territory of life, of sex, and of reproduction.
Women give birth, men make war and go hunting. The harim
(known to Westerners as the harem) has its linguistic roots in sacred
space, the sanctuary at Mecca, and shares in its privileges and laws.
During the period of the pilgrimage, war (killing human beings)
and hunting (killing animals) are forbidden in the haram area, the
sanctuary at Mecca, and this was true before Islam as well as after.
It is one of the pre-Islamic traditions that Islam kept, with only a
few changes. 44 In the pre-Islamic pilgrimage ritual, the word haram
applied to the clothing that the pilgrims had to remove during the
procession that they, men and women, carried out in the nude. The
clothing, symbol of the sins to be cast off, was not allowed to be
touched. 45 The haram, then, was the sanctuary and at the same
time a man's household where his women and children lived, a
space forbidden to others.
Khayzuran's elder son, al-Hadi, wanted his mother to return to
her place, to her territory, the house. In his eyes, the people of the
empire who came for an audience with her transgressed the threshold
of his harem. Al-Hadi's argument against his mother, when he
finally decided to take action four months after the death of his
father, was not at all based on any evidence of her incompetence.
According to him, interfering in power is not one of the prerogatives
of women. And this was because of a distribution of duties based
on assignment to one territory or the other.
After reminding his mother of her place, that is, the harem, he
summoned the persons who were seeking an audience with her and
made them recognize that they were violating a territorial law, a
law to do with honour. When al-Hadi became exasperated by the
retinues of his generals who took turns at his mother's door, he
called them together:
'Who is the better among us, you or me?' asked Caliph al-Hadi of
his audience.
'Obviously you are the better, Commander of the Faithful,' the
assembly replied.
'And whose mother is the better, mine or yours?' continued the
caliph.