cover image The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam

The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam

Fatima Mernissi, Fatema Mernissi. Addison Wesley Publishing Company, $24.9 (228pp) ISBN 978-0-201-52321-8

Muhammad was a chief of state who publicly acknowledged the importance of affection and sexuality. He was a polygynous husband whose wives were not just background figures but often shared decision-making with him. According to Moroccan sociologist Mernissi ( Beyond the Veil ), the founder of Islam asserted the equality of women, rejected slavery and envisioned an egalitarian society. Mernissi further claims that successive Muslim priests manipulated and distorted sacred texts, from the seventh century onward, in an effort to maintain male privileges. Her close textual analyses of the Hadith , or stories of words and deeds attributed to the Prophet, support her far-reaching reinterpretation of the historic roots of Islam and its modern tendency to reduce woman to a ``submissive, marginal creature.'' (Aug.)