Customer Reviews

Beyond the Veil Pb

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It is not easy to be a Muslim female and to read FatimaMernissi's book "Beyond the Veil". This book was simplyenlightening and it helped me a lot in finding many of the answers that I simply dared not ask without been regarded with scorn. It also led me to inquire further on the subject of women and Islam. The greatness of this book is in the fact that Mernissi tried to erase many of the misconceptions about women's rights in Islam as a doctrine. According to her, when it comes to women's rights, the practice of Islam in the Arab and Islamic world is not necessarily compatible with the doctrine of Islam. Rather, it is influenced by the patriarchal tradition that was born far before Islam, and which also influences the practice of religions such as Christianity and Judaism.

The topic of male-female dynamics in Muslim society is one of the main issues covered in the book, Beyond the Veil, by Fatima Mernissi. Mernissi covers a wide range of categories, all of which pertain to the female position in a Muslim society. Though much of the data comes from Moroccan society, the general subject matter attempts to describe all Muslim society. This book has two parts, one of which focuses on the traditional view of women, and the second, which focuses on a more modern and changing view of women¡¯s place in society. A fascinating look at women in Muslim society, this book pushes the reader to question previous biases, and take a look at women in a Muslim society from a Muslim perspective.
Beyond the Veil starts out by contrasting views on female sexuality. One view is that of Imman Ghazali, and the other view is that of Sigmund Freud. Ghazali claims that the female sexuality is active, and equal to the male sexuality. Therefore, females need to be restrained in order to prevent fitna (chaos) in the social order. Freud, on the other hand, sees female sexuality as passive, and therefore masochistic. Ironically, both theories attempt to prove the same point: that women, as uncontrollable beings, are destructive to the social order and need to be restrained.
Part two of the book starts out with interviews and data collection from Moroccan society. This information is mostly focused around sexual desegregation. Mernissi¡¯s conclusions basically say that the traditional/older generation is more sexually desegregated, while the more modernized/younger generation encourages desegregation. She also points out that rural societies are more sexually traditional than urban societies.
This book reveals much about Muslim society in a simplified manner. Mernissi draws her writings from various sources, including historical viewpoints, other writers on the topic, and interviews with Muslim women.
Beyond the Veil is not simply a one-dimensional view of male-female dynamics in Muslim society. The book covers all aspects of relationships between males and females, as well as the various positions women can take in a Muslim society. Mernissi allows for the reader to look three-dimensionally at the Muslim society, especially in regards to sexual space boundaries and desegregation, and form his or her personal opinion about the topic. Mernissi makes it somewhat simpler for the reader to understand the goals of the book by outlining the various dimensions as well as writing conclusions that draw from the section but also incorporate other ideas.
The objective of this book, explaining male-female dynamics in Muslim society, was quite clear and the writings of Mernissi certainly operationalized that objective. A non-fiction book that relied heavily on breakdowns of various interviews, Beyond the Veil, was more analytic than descriptive. However, this was an extremely effective way of scrutinizing the subject at hand. The information provided in the book would be particularly significant to those who are not familiar with Muslim society and wish to learn more about the ways in which males and females interact in this society.
Beyond the Veil explained many things to me, including the reasons behind female desegregation in Muslim society. Mernissi is thorough in her dissertation of male-female dynamics, and encourages the reader to form his or her own opinions about the topic. Beyond the Veil is a captivating look at the past, present, and future positions of women in a deeply complex Muslim society.

Despite a fair amount of attention given to this book in the popular press a few years ago, it is not a book for a general audience. It reads like a long term paper, using terms like "symbolic capital" for "ideas", for example (although to be fair, this English version is a translation). It is also out of date, since even though the publication date is 1985, most of it was written in 1970. As for how well it covers the subject stated in the title, I was disappointed. Many times in the text, Mernissi writes "I will now examine (a topic)" yet at the end of the section, I didn't feel that she had. Especially missing in my mind was information on what the "liberated" muslim women are saying about themselves, about being educated to the same level as men, and working outside of the home for wages. Mernissi reports having had unstructured interviews with six such modern women, but except for listing their ages, marital status, and occupations in a table, never mentions them again. These are women who were breaking new ground in male-female relations in 1970 but we don't get to hear what their experience was. Instead we get a series of basically philosophical discussions on the roles of women, men, and the heterosexual relationship in Morrocan Islamic society based on Islamic texts hundreds of years old. This book is really for political science or religious studies majors only.

This book is like going through someone else's medicine cabinet. A fascinating look into the homes and bedrooms of the Middle East from a scholarly feminist perspective. The only problem is, it's a bit too scholarly to be a really quick and concise read. Still, Well worth buying.

Fatima Mernissi is a leading scholar on numerouse women's issues particularly within Islam. In this book, she examines Islamic religion, patriarichal societies and women's roles within these confines. Mernissi reveals interesting and thought provoking points about religiouse content (both Islamic and Judeo-Christian), jurisprudence (Western and Islamic), and personal experiences that distinguishes itself from western feminist points of view and writing in general. I reccommend this book for any Women's Studies Majors, Middle Eastern Studies or even Ethnic Studies Major's. The reading is dry in some places but I feel these are areas where it is essential to facilitate proper information and thoroughness when expressing an idea.Though some of the material is indeed dated, some of Mernissi's ideas and questions are very relevant today.

Wow! This book really raises some serious, thought-provoking questions regarding female sexual status, and sexual self-determination in Arab-Muslim societies. If I had read this book in the 70s - when it was first written and published - I would have really thought of it as a classic work, but I wasn't born then.

Yet, the book is incredibly outdated. Mernissi does a good job in questioning the general notions (and misconceptions) widespread in her days about religion and the inferiority of women. However, she is out of touch with the contemporary revolutionary ideas that claimed Islam back from the selfish authority of the benighted "Mullahs," who misinterpted Islam out of ignorance, or to fulfill their own political agendas (as still happening in some Muslim countries, wherein Muslim women are subjugated and denied basic rights, such as education.)

Working at the courts in my conservative Gulf country, I witnessed cases in which women "self-determinedly" divorced their husbands, who could not satisfy them sexually. (Lol, awww! I can't believe I'm saying this!)

Even with some historical and Islamic inaccuracies (for instance, many hadiths - Prophetic traditions - quoted by Mernissi have been outruled as inauthentic by contemporary Islamic scholars, thus invalidating many of her arguments and theories), I found this book to be very interesting, and it sheds light - though indirectly, and perhaps unintentionally - on Moroccan history and culture. The chapter on Mothers-in-Law was especially amusing!

It is unfair to criticize the book without taking into consideration the fact that it was written decades ago, and until the latest edition (1985), it must have been current. Instead of complaining about the book and its outdated content, I think I'll just go ahead and write a well-researched book on the same topic!

When this book originally appeared, I did write a review and got in published in print media. In her work, I was happy to have been introduced for the first time from a pen of (western, muslim, voracious) female writer as to how this gender looked at Islam. I am glad that Fatima continues to provide interesting insights, and she is striving to keep people informed on the subject.

Excellent book on the female condition in many Muslim societies. ... More books like this need to be written to stimulate debate and hopefully change.

After reading this book, I have to admit that Mernissi has the ability to convey her message clearly and intellectually. However, I'm most impressed by how she uses secondary and tertiary sources to make some of her strongest points to support her thesis (that female sexuality is suppressed in Islam), even using suspicous translations of the Qur'an and sayings of Prophet Muhammad (weak, at best). This is a talent shared also by Fox News, and writers like her are not unpopular among feminists and those who distrust Islam or know little about it.
As a Muslim woman raised in the West, my experiences are obviously much different than Mernissi's (I, too, have a problem with the Morocccan establishment's interpretation of Islam, but I don't follow Morocco's version of Islam. I use primary sources). She admits that her grandmother was captured and basically used as a concubine, resulting in the birth of Mernissi's mother. Tragic, and I uphold Mernissi's attitude towards such an injustice. However, her anecdotal experience is also used as her "research." To automate such practices to Islam's true teachings is unscholarly and lacks credibility.
Also, to use a (faulty) argument that Islam's purpose is to oppress women (and in particular, their sexuality) is to ignore the fact that a man's sexuality is also oppressed. That is part and parcel of a religion that upholds chastity of both partners, not to suppress them, but to uphold dignity, self-worth/esteem, and uphold the rights of children (to know their paternity), which she largely ignores. Polygamy, although allowed in certain situations in Islam, is not practiced widely in the Muslim world. Upholding concubines is even more questionable in Islam, yet she uses weak/faulty premises like this throughout the entire book.
The most important element that Mernissi ignores is that any true religion is sent to uphold the rights of all individuals, not just the nobility/upper class (who she forgets to mention are the women who practiced unlimited sexual rights in pre-Islamic Arabia, not the average woman, who was considered little more than property and was bought and sold until Islam forbade it). Every woman under Islam is given the right to choose who they marry, to marry at all, to divorce, to own and inherit property, to vote/freedom of expression, to work and to lead, both inside and outside the home, and yes, to be sexually fulfilled. All within the boundaries which every religion has. Where are the males who resent her implication that an "ideal" society would afford women to choose their partners at will and deny the right to paternity if she becomes pregnant? Where is the justice in that argument?
A true religion has a higher purpose than sexual fulfillment/immediate gratification by any means necessary. Yet she doesn't mention these agreed upon principles that uphold the rights of all humankind, and instead, uses weak evidence to support a faulty thesis.
Again, I'm impressed by her ability to do this, at the very least.

This book really went a long went towards me understand the underpinings of the male/female dynamics in Morocco, a moderate Islamic country. Having had virtually no exposure to Islam it was quite informative and an interesting read.