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

The Criteria of Sovereignty in Islam 85
tional - that is, the history of dynamic tensions, the history of order
thwarted, the history of rejection, of resistance. This is the only
history that can give the Muslims back their glorious humanity, by
showing them not as obedient automatons, but as responsible
beings, able to refuse to obey if ordered to maim themselves, to
deprive themselves of the capacity to envisage their own life.
These are the questions that can give us 'another history, which,
in its quest for explanations, dares to go to the other side of the
mirror'. 45 Islam, a civilization of 15 centuries, which embraces the
lives of millions of individuals of different sex, class, and ethnicity,
cannot but be a history of complexities, tensions, and rejections.
To say today that 'Islam forbids women access to the field of polities'
is certainly to speak the truth. But we understand our history a
little bit better if we admit that that is one truth among many others.
One could, depending on the approach, choose another historical
truth by studying the cases of some women who pushed their way
into political power. Admitting that there are several historical
truths, depending on the point of view of the person speaking, is
already a big step forward. This is an admission that Islam and its
so-called history are only political weapons, the most dogmatic and
efficacious weapons directed at the throat of millions of human
beings living in theocracies - that is, the societies ruled in the name
of God, but where not everybody has the same right to speak or to
rule in God's name.
In this context, the contemporary desire to veil women is really
the desire to veil resistance. If you dare listen to women, you will
find resistance. If you ignore it, you will have ignored the tensions
that are the dynamics of life. In order to take on the present and
shape the future, one has to have an active past, a past of beings
who always preserved the privilege of being human, of thwarting
the plans of the master. We have to discover this past. Studying
these queens, whom history has not remembered, means plunging
into the living, but also murky, material of our culture. We still
have to count how many women fulfilled the criteria of the khutba
and the minting of coins and can therefore be classed as heads of
state. The answer to that question can reveal to us a history that
up until now has been covered up - hidden by a veil, the hijab, and
carefully pushed into invisibility. In addition, are there any historians
who are interested in this question and have tried to count
these women?
Using the most respected sources of the Muslim heritage, the Turkish
historian, Badriye Uc,ok Un, the author of a book on women