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

Introduction
Was Benazir Bhutto the First?
When Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister of Pakistan after
winning the elections of 16 November 1988, all who monopolized
the right to speak in the name of Islam, and especially Nawaz Sharif,
the leader of the then Opposition, the IDA (Islamic Democratic
Alliance), 1 raised the cry of blasphemy: 'Never - horrors! - has a
Muslim state been governed by a woman!' Invoking Islamic tradition,
they decried this event as 'against nature'. Political decisionmaking
among our ancestors, they said, was always a men's affair.
Throughout 15 centuries of Islam, from year 1 of the Hejira (AD
622) to today, the conduct of public affairs in Muslim countries has
been a uniquely male privilege and monopoly. 2 No woman ever
acceded to a throne in Islam; no woman ever directed the affairs
of state, we are told by those who claim to speak for Islam and
who make its defence their battle cry against other Muslims. And,
so they say, since no woman had ever governed a Muslim state
between 622 and 1988, Benazir Bhutto could not aspire to do so
either.
All the press, in the West as well as in the East, echoed this
argument, overlooking an intriguing point: the Pakistani politicians
resorted to Muslim tradition only after their failure in the election. 3
Paradoxically the leaders of the parties which claim to represent
Islam ostensibly accepted elections as part of the rules of the game
- that is, they accepted parliamentary democracy, which derives
from the principles of the Declaration of Universal Human Rights,
where the vote is the sovereign base of political power. After the