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

86 Sovereignty in Islam
rulers in history, identified and studied 16 women who ruled in
various countries. 46 According to her, the first was Sultana Radiyya
of the Turkish Mamluk dynasty who took power in Delhi in
634/1236. The last was Zaynt al-Din Kamalat Shah, who reigned in
Sumatra between 1688 and 1699. Benazir Bhutto would be the
seventeenth, and the fact that she is an Asian seems to agree with
Dr Uc.ok Un's theory: the 16 women heads of state she found were
Asian, Turkish, Mongol, Iranian, Indonesian, or from the Maldives
or other Indian islands; not one was Arab. As a methodical historian
Dr Uc.ok Un chose as criteria the khutba and the minting of coins:
'I did not include any woman head of state who did not have money
minted in her name or the khutba of the Friday service delivered
in her name.' 47 That no sovereign included was an Arab woman is
explained by the fact that the Arabs opposed their access to the
throne and women could only reach the throne at the end of the
Arabs' supremacy, that is, at the time of the fall of the Abbasid
caliphate.
Athough it is true that two Mamluk queens, Radiyya and Shajarat
al-Durr, owed their position to the conquest of power by the slaves
who formed a military caste at that time, it would be ridiculous to
deduce from that a tendency towards democracy on the part of
the Mongols. The Mongols exterminated masses of people with
disconcerting ease; rape and the enslavement of whole cities
accompanied invasion by these nomads. At all costs we must avoid
making impossible comparisons, projecting on to historical events
of the thirteenth and fourteenth Muslim centuries our need as
Muslims to further our claims of a democratic relationship between
the governed and the governors. It is in this spirit that the following
chapters about women who reached the throne should be read, with
a vigilant, critical, if possible ironic attitude, never pontificating nor
eulogizing, and still less indulging in sentimental dreams of glory.
At the risk of disappointing some feminists who want to lull us with
dreams of democratic matriarchies at the dawn of civilization and
superpowerful women in past realms, I examine the sultanas with
humour and a bit of irreverence.
The important thing is not unusual, uncommon ancestors, but
very human ancestors who in difficult situations succeeded in thwarting
the rules of the masters and introducing a little responsibility
and freedom. Moreover, these women acquired power in differing
contexts, and we should not bunch them into one superwoman
model as in American comic strips. On the contrary, we should
avoid generalizing; we should take full note of nuances and enrich
our approach by not neglecting what are called the details.