Fatima Mernissi (b. 1940 Fez, Morocco) is a Moroccan social scientist, an internationally recognized sociologist and writer. Many agree that she pioneered the new age of the study of Middle Eastern women. She has an excellent command of French, Arabic, and English and her books have been published from twenty-six countries and translated into several languages including German, Dutch, and Japanese. She is said to be “one of the most eloquent voices of feminism” in the Muslim world. Some of her books include: Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Muslim Society (1985 [1975]); The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam (1991); Women and Islam in the Middle East (2008 [1991]); The Forgotten Queens of Islam (1993).

A well-known feminist, “Fatima Mernissi attempts to present the case for re-reading in many of her works. She developed a critical approach to Islamic tradition over several years and ventured into ‘taboo’ areas. In a number of her works, she examines the Qur’anic text in the light of hadith focusing on the biases of some of the Companions who narrated these ahadith (plural), particularly those concerning women”, writes Abdullah Saeed in his Interpreting the Qur’an (2006). Another scholar writes about her in these words: “Moroccan scholar Fatima Mernissi places Qur’anic verses of gender-inegalitarian content into their historical context and calls for the adjustment of such verses to today’s socio-economic conditions”.

Essays on problems around hijab dominate Mernissi’s academic career. Her response to the challenge posed by the veil derives from her personal experience. She was forced to veil as a young child, yet her mother and grandmother fought against the custom and Mernissi pioneered the first generation of unveiled women in her family. To Mernissi, hijab means limitation, segregation and isolation, anything that keeps women out of the public domain. Mernissi speaks of the veil or hijab as a reference to restrictive boundaries and frontiers behind which she, like other women, is forced to lead an obscure, shadowy existence devoid of autonomy and human dignity. To her, the veil is only one of the incarcerating barriers that isolate women, but it has become a general symbol representing women’s diminished existence in isolation from humanity at large.

The practise of veiling is intensely debated among scholars essays on problems around hijab dominate Mernissi’s academic career. Her response to the challenge posed by the veil derives from her personal experience. She was forced to veil as a young child, yet her mother and grandmother fought against the custom and Mernissi pioneered the first generation of unveiled women in her family. To Mernissi, hijab means limitation, segregation and isolation, anything that keeps women out of the public domain. Mernissi speaks of the veil or hijab (from a term hijab; equated by some with the iron curtain as a defunct concept) as a reference to restrictive boundaries and frontiers behind which she, like other women, is forced to lead an obscure, shadowy existence devoid of autonomy and human dignity. To her, the veil is only one of the incarcerating barriers that isolate women, but it has become a general symbol representing women’s diminished existence in isolation from humanity at large. Also, Muslim women are challenged on their right to self-affirmation through actions, such as unveiling. Society defines the challenge, so the challenge changes with society. Therefore, the issue concerns the veil per se and how women manage to balance old customs and traditions with rapid social change.

Mernissi asserts then that the descent of the hijab runs counter to the egalitarian ideals of Muhammad. The Prophet envisioned a polite society in which violence was illegitimate and supervision superfluous, in which individual self-control made the veiling of women unnecessary. The resistance and incomprehension of Companions such as `Umar to this principle of individualism thus diluted the real Islamic message, substituting the law of tribal violence as the cornerstone of the Islamic community. This misogynistic principle was then entrenched within the sacred literature and enforced by manipulating the texts both within and after Muhammad’s lifetime. Only by studying the context in which these texts emerged can Muslims truly begin to understand the original Islamic principles supposedly contained within the hadith but shrouded in centuries of bias and begin to reassess women’s position within Islam.