Au contraire, elle s’est battue et s’est décidée To honour the message of the Quran, the ontological equality described therein has to be emphasised and reclaimed for social and individual wellbeing, “The democratic glorification of the human individual, regardless of sex, race or status, is the kernel of the Muslim message.”[10] Mernissi’s hope was known to the people around her, to her students that are now scholars and have high esteem of her encouraging spirit, and to activists defending family and women in Muslim societies and communities worldwide - like the international Musawah movement, founded in February 2009 and headquartered in Malaysia, and whose workshop in Rabat just few days ago Mernissi could not attend for health problems. These dreams are translated in twenty-five languages, to give the harem a different connotation. This short tribute is from an indirect student to a great scholar. The West had its own version of the harem, at the core of which is the ontological inferiority of woman. Professor Mernissi, it added, “is the most highly regarded among them.”. The most — or, more accurately, the least — visible manifestation of such control was the domestic harem. “If I only could go for a walk in the early morning when the streets are deserted. Mernissi’s point that Muslim males may be among the advocates of gender equality stems from her familiarity with the Islamic tradition and its scholarship that dedicate(d) space to women rights and duties. [8]Ibid., 32-33 [9]Raja Rhouni, Secular and Islamic Feminist Critiques in the Work of Fatima Mernissi (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), 268. She dreams of reclaiming the “second message of Islam,” which is that of equality and justice. The cause was cancer, said her literary agent, Edite Kroll. In 2003, Professor Mernissi, along with Susan Sontag, received the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters, presented by the government of Spain. Face à la crise, les réactions des économies sont-elles suffisantes ? In Islam there is no such belief in female inferiority. They sustained one another with stories, songs and, when they could spirit away the key to the radio cabinet, quiet news of the outside world. They give me evidence to feel proud of my Muslim past, and to feel justified in valuing the best gifts of modern civilization: human rights and the satisfaction of full citizenship.”[14] Of this I am certain, after reading the works of those scholars mentioned above and many others. Nor did she exempt the West from criticism on matters of sexual politics. Name Last modified Size; Go to parent directory: 150. memory and access to it, and to hide the feminine. The women were rarely allowed to venture outside the house, and when they were, they did so — veiled — escorted by a male relative. Elle avait fondé les «Caravanes civiques» fin 1990 et le collectif "Femmes, familles, enfants". More than that, she sees it as a politicized symbol. 73-86. 1, vol. Unlike her mother and grandmother, who were uneducated, Professor Mernissi was a beneficiary of the nationalist fervor that had arisen in Morocco in the 1930s as the country sought to break free of French dominion. This article first appeared on the website Resetdoc.org, Copyright © 2017 Muslim Institute. But for the most part — owing in no small measure to the careful phrasing and rigorous scholarly documentation of her writings — she was left alone. On November 30, 2015, the Moroccan sociologist, writer and feminist Fatema Mernissi died in Rabat at age 75. 35) , pages 154 à 155 Fatima Mernissi (1940-2015) : la lutte pour un féminisme sans tutelle Suivre cet auteur Dorra Mahfoudh Draoui Dans Nouvelles Questions Féministes 2016/2 (Vol. That is what she narrates, among others, in Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems (2001). [10]Mernissi, Beyond the Veil, xvi Yasmina urges the little girl (Fatema) to travel, see the world and recognize God’s marvels outside, an inspiration she learnt from Sufis. After the election of Benazir Bhutto as a Prime Minister in Pakistan in 1988, some Muslim conservative scholars objected to the fact that a woman leads a country. Abstract This paper seeks to evaluate missiological approaches to Muslim women in the light of the analysis of Moroccan Islamic feminist, Fatima Mernissi. [8]Ibid., 32-33 [9]Raja Rhouni, Secular and Islamic Feminist Critiques in the Work of Fatima Mernissi(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), 268. Here, Mernissi attempts to situate the conflict in Islamic thought to the early history of the Kharijites and Muʻtazilites. All Rights Reserved, Muslim Institute Annual Ibn Rushd Lecture. Fatima Mernissi, la pasionaria du féminisme musulman. Fatima Mernissi died November 30 at the age of 75 in Morocco. mengenai konsep-konsep feminisme Fatima Mernissi berdasarkan latar belakang kehidupan dan pengalaman-pengalamannya, serta melengkapi studi kepustakaan dalam bidang feminisme. (3) Margalit Fox, « Fatema Mernissi, a founder of Islamic Feminism, Dies at 75 », in The New York Times, Dec. 9, 2015. Letter from Layla Chaouni, Mernissi’s longtime Moroccan Publisher . Peu connue du public Français Fatima Mernissi est pourtant l’une des principales figures du féminisme marocain. By putting the spotlight on the female child and framing her as the ideal of beauty, he condemns the mature woman to invisibility.”. Comparatively, Mernissi had her say on Western feminism and its historical background, thus its present priorities and neglect of Islamic women liberation history and input. Fatima Mernissi menait en parallèle à sa carrière un combat pour le féminisme au sein de la société civile. [9] She does not need to, since her approach goes in that direction, to reclaim the “Rissala/ second message of Islam” and its defence of human dignity and social justice. 13 avril 2020. [3] In Women's Rebellion and Islamic Memory (1996), she says that the veil has been politically and not morally imposed in the Arab world so as to divert the masses from raising the issues of democracy and freedom of participation in the socio-political arena. It has become a classic on Arab-Muslim-and-Mediterranean socio-anthropologic work on women. The harem’s matriarch, her grandmother, had been one of her grandfather’s nine wives. Elle anime des ateliers décriture avec des amate… One of the primary ways in which this manipulation played out, Professor Mernissi argued, was in Islam’s time-honored control of the physical space that women are allowed to occupy. [2] The medieval spiritual city of Fez and its family harem of the 1940s was a closed tradition, it appears from outside, but open to historical narratives and intellectual nomadism of various female voices that bring their dreams to the world outside. This statement translates her optimism: “The Arab world is about to take off […]. The veil is “intrinsically political.”[6] Fatima Mernissi Author: Claire Noon. As to the issue of the veil, for example, she sees in it a male and patriarchal dominance that resists liberation. Through his harem, a man maintained his honor by preserving his wives and daughters from the eyes of male outsiders. Fatima Mernissi mena, en parallèle à sa carrière littéraire, un combat pour le féminisme dans la société civile : elle a fondé les « Caravanes civiques » où s’exprimaient toute la société civile désireuse de démocratie, ainsi que le collectif « Femmes, familles, enfants ». Her quasi-real grandmother Yasmina that we find in her novels is a source of inspiration to her. Puis, après des études à la Sorbonne à Paris, elle part étudier la … Its first edition was very anti the widespread un-egalitarian and misogynist interpretation of Islam. If she dares to look 50, or worse, 60, she is beyond the pale. Catégories . GERAKAN FEMINISME ISLAM DALAM PERSPEKTIF FATIMAH MERNISSI Oleh: Widyastini1 Abstract The purpose of this research is to know the women’s role in the scope of social life, nation and country. She accuses those Muslims who Westernize liberation and egalitarian claims for the sake of opposing them, or externalizing them, or for the sake of modernizing the tradition from without, she accuses them of ignorance of the tradition and their past. They were instead, quite simply, sequestered multigenerational living quarters for the female members of an extended family. The former, in her reading, are labelled “rebel Islam” partisans, while the latter represent the “rationalist tradition.” The Muʻtazilites are described to have focalized the utility of reason on all matters that concern human affairs on earth. So she will remain for the coming generations. In her preface to the English translation of The Veil and the Male Elite (1991), Mernissi affirms that when she finished writing the book she had no doubts of ‘one thing’: “if women's rights are a problem for some modern Muslim men, it is neither because of the Koran nor the Prophet, nor the Islamic tradition, but simply because those rights conflict with the interests of a male elite.”[12] A stronger confirmation follows: “We Muslim women can walk into the modern world with pride, knowing that the quest for dignity, democracy, and human rights, for full participation in the political and social affairs of our country, stems from no imported Western values, but is a true part of the Muslim tradition.”[13]. Fatema Mernissi: The Pride of Islamic Feminism in Modern Times - Muslim Institute Obituary . She went into history to come out with a book entitled The Forgotten Queens of Islam (1993)[15] to support her argument of Muslim women past involvement in socio-political and economic affairs of their societies. She was a sociologist whose books include "Beyond The Veil" and "Islam And Democracy." [1] Mernissi had high hopes for change, the spirit of which she saw growing among the youth since the 1990s. Mary Jo Lakeland, 2nd ed. “Any man who believes that a Muslim woman who fights for her dignity and right to citizenship excludes herself necessarily from the umma and is a brainwashed victim of Western propaganda is a man who misunderstands his own religious heritage, his own cultural identity. [7]Mernissi, Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World, trans. She is very critical of the authority of some Prophetic narrated hadiths, and questions their validity in comparison with the Islamic message which she considers to have given full ontological equality of man and woman. From Libération. That spirit of hope is what her overall work has been about, hope rooted in the bright past, in memory, in crossing borders, and in spiritual nomadism. Souad Mekkaoui - 2 mars 2018 . The American scholar Amina Wadud has mourned her and called her “one of our greatest foreMothers.” Many see her as having given confidence to the idea of an Islamic feminism and its struggles for human dignity, equality, and social justice, at a time when Western feminism remained Eurocentrist, anti-religious, and not Third Worldist enough. Mernissi wanted to make sure that this was a mere patriarchal attitude and not an Islamic one. Intégrant une vision sociologique contemporaine et une vision historique des rapports hommes femmes dans les sociétés musulmanes, Fatéma Mernissi est progressivement sortie de l’approche du féminisme historique occidental pour adopter une approche théologico-idéologique à la manière dudit féminisme islamique, puis une approche économico-politique de recherche action avec et The vast and inspiring records of Muslim history so brilliantly completed for us by scholars such as Ibn Hisham, Ibn Hajar, Ibn Sa´ad, and Tabari, speak to the contrary. In 1956, when Morocco won its independence, the nationalists’ reforms included the dissolution of harems throughout the country. Professor Mernissi, who was divorced from the Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah, is survived by a brother, Mohamed, and a sister, Ratida Mernissi. Fatima Mernissi. That reading, she argued, sprang from centuries of misinterpretation by male leaders intent on maintaining the sexual status quo. “If those fanatics from the Moslem Brothers show up and try to interrupt my talk, they must be thrown out. Nourrie pas l’envie de défendre la place des femmes musulmanes dans le monde et au Maroc, Fatima Mernissi a laissé derrière elle une œuvre engagée sur l’islam, le féminisme et la modernité. “Not only have the sacred texts always been manipulated, but manipulation of them is a structural characteristic of the practice of power in Muslim societies,” Professor Mernissi wrote in “The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam” (1991, translated by Ms. Lakeland). It is going to take off for the simple reason that everybody, with the fundamentalists in the lead, wants change.”[11] Fatima Mernissi, la pasionaria du féminisme musulman. Added to this is the fact that Mernissi now underlines the ontological equality the Quran speaks of, a strong basis on which to adjust legal rights on equality in Muslim majority societies nowadays. “At least in Morocco, you can’t be put into jail for writing something, unlike most of the other Arab countries,” she told The Toronto Globe and Mail in 1982.