Customer Reviews

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

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Subtitled, Tales of a Harem Girlhood, this is a most fascinating tale of the realities of a Moroccan harem. Most Westerners take the word harem and think Turkish harem - hundreds of women floating around large tiled rooms waiting to serve the lord and master. Mernissi, a western schooled sociologist, feminist, and scholar, takes us into the life of a young girl born into a family in Fez (in Western Morocco) in the 1940's. Her harem is not the rooms of I-Dream-of-Jeannie look-alikes but rather the complex social structures of the Moroccan/Muslim family in the middle of this century. Her harem is the world of women, daughters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers who live 'inside' the urban home (but interestingly, live more freely out on the country farm). We learn about the feelings she and her brother (with whom she is close) experience when they come of an age to be separated; he relegated to the world of the men, and she to the hidden world of the harem. Mostly, though, this beautiful book tells the stories of the women in Fatima's harem who have dreams and fantasies (that will never come true), including the dreams of trespass into the outside world, the world of men. After having worked in Morocco in the early 1990s, I could see that much has changed for Moroccan women, but thoughout the Arab world there still exist plenty who still have those dreams of trespass.

Subtitled, "Tales of a Harem Girlhood," this is the story of the author, Fatima Mernissi's Moroccan childhood in the 1940s. Now a sociologist at the University Mohammed V in Rabat, Morocco, she has skillfully recreated the sense of wonder and observation of a child. Her own father had only one wife, but she lived in an extended family with an aunt, uncle, cousins, divorced female relatives, and even some women who had once been slaves and who no had nowhere else to go. The term "harem" as she uses it, means the seclusion of women. Her mother, who was illiterate, dreamed moving beyond the walls, but did not even have the privilege of simply walking down the street as western women do. Instead, she rebelled by embroidering birds of flight and encouraged her daughter to get an education. The household was lively, and I felt myself drawn right in, getting to know each person through Ms. Mernissi's eyes. I was treated to their storytelling and home theatrical productions; I observed them sneaking up to the roof to get a bit of privacy; I understood why the act of chewing gum was considered a rebellion; I left the walled compound in the city with her when she visited her maternal grandmother who lived on a farm, one of eight co-wives, who gets to "cuddle" with her husband only one out of eight days.

As I'm about the same age as the author, I couldn't help thinking about my life and how much I took for granted in my own childhood - such as the simple act of walking down the street and being exposed to the outside world through newspapers, radio and television. This book provided a magnificent glimpse into a world that seems as strange to me as mine would have seemed to her. And it certainly opened my eyes. At only 242 pages, "Dreams of Trespass" was much too short. I could have gone one reading and reading. And my only criticism is that it was only about her childhood. I wished it would have gone on and described the next fifty years. Highly recommended.

To me it is alarming how prevalent the myth of the "harem" is among Americans. I just watched an interview a few weeks ago and the gentleman interviewer smiled from ear to ear when his guest (a female professor) mentioned the word. I guess I was lucky to have visited a harem in Berrechid, Morocco over a decade ago and got the true story of its cultural evolution over time. Well there were pashas at one time and they did have several wives, but today it is the tales about them that feed our curiosity. Although these stories are not as Romantic as we may like, they still feed the imagination in a remarkable way. This book is simply wonderful in its direct and simple approach to a cultural phenomena that is still evolving, and Mernissi is helping that evolution to occur. It is above all her way of telling old stories that can tame the Shahriyar's in all of us. How could you not fall in love with Chama? Mernissi writes with deep feeling and compassionate understanding for the Morocco that all Westerner's should know but so rarely get a chance to experience. In her writing she takes you behind the hijab and the 40's harem wall to meet with people who have so much to teach us about limits, boundaries, and breaking out. But breaking out means knowing the rules (qa'ida, read 62-3). I think that the lesson is in learning 'how to know.' Not just knowing the rules as they are but in knowing 'how' they exist.

Mernissi explains all uncommon and new words to readers by way of interesting footnotes that are valuable even for people who are familiar with Moroccan societies. That helps the reader again to know 'how' the rules of the harem exist.

More than anything I am attracted to her descriptions of the beautiful people that live in her memories. Though some may see this book as just anthropology, socoiology, or even feminism, I think it is actually a book about the human capacity for compassion and love. In fact when I go back through the book I see it everywhere in Asmahan's "Ahwa!" (I am in love) and even in such names as Aunt Habiba (root habib=friend, companion). Even when she writes about Christians or Jews it is always with a comical kind of curiosity never malicious or spiteful, just enough to make you smile. She brings the outside in. This is a dream book, one you can enjoy in your own interior harem, or if you prefer Castillo Interior (Santa Teresa's "interior castle").

I found this book to be entertaining, educational, inspirational and thought provoking all at once. I personally and Americans in general are largely confused and misinformed about the concept of the harem and how the women in them lived; and it is no wonder or surprise that we are! It seems that even within the high walls and locked gates of the harem the residents cannot agree on the subject! What is a harem? Is it a den of iniquity? A commune? A brothel? A prison? An extended family? A refuge?

Told from the perspective of a 6-9 year old girl growing up in a domestic harem in Morocco in the late 1940s, this book has a freshness and naiveté that only a child can muster as she ponders her place in her home, society, and the world at large.

Her observations of the world around her are uncensored, and guide the reader to a greater understanding not only of other cultures and other women, but of our relationships and ourselves. Only a child has the innocent courage to stand up and say, "The Emperor has no clothes!"

As I learned about another world, I began also to draw parallels to may own life and current times. Changing laws does not grant freedom to individuals. Here in America we have all the freedoms that these women were deprived of and fought for, and yet in many cases we remain trapped- prisoners of our fears, our habits, our insecurities, and our weaknesses.

In this book I found lots of hope and inspiration, reminding me of many ways to experience freedom inwardly- without the necessity of changing outward circumstances.
© 2006 Shahina

It is really difficult for Americans to comprehend a culture as different as traditional Moroccan culture. In particular, the lot of women, confined in domestic harems and obliged to submit to male rules, seems intolerable. This lovely book gives a portrait of one Moroccan family living in a tradtional way. Or are they? Rebellious ideas abound, and women find ways of stretching restriction. The stories are beautifully human and funny. It is easy to be critical of another culture that seems so different, and I would never be able to live that way. But I feel that I have a better understanding of how they did. I sent a copy of this book to my mother.

Please read the review,

Reviewed by Karen Henry
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Karen Henry is an Arab-American free-lance writer and lecturer from Michigan.
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She knew how to talk in the night. With words alone, she could put us onto a large ship sailing from Aden to the Maldives, or take us to an island where the birds spoke like human beings. [We] traveled so far that no gods were to be found, only sun-and-fire worshippers, but even they seemed friendly and endearing when introduced by Aunt Habiba. Her tales made me long to become an adult and an expert storyteller myself. I wanted to learn how to talk in the night. (page 19)

We enter each chapter of Dreams of Trespass through an exquisite photograph and are held there by the magic of Fatima Mernissi's words, proving that she has indeed become an expert storyteller. Mernissi's memoir about her childhood in an urban domestic harem in Fez in the late 1940s recounts the life experiences of her female relatives and her own reactions to the world around her. The book demystifies the harem and puts a face on Arab Muslim women in a personal and highly entertaining manner, exploring the nature of women's power, the value of oral tradition, and the absolute necessity of dreams and celebrations.

The comfort of tradition is recognized and celebrated while women's advances and past accomplishments also are applauded. The strong women characters-mother, grandmothers, aunts, cousins-have different responses to and methods for coping with restricted life in a harem. Fatima's mother celebrated her daughter's birth with the same level of enthusiasm usually reserved for boy babies; she claimed male superiority was nonsense and anti-Muslim. The nationalists' struggle against French rule and for gender equality gave strength to the women's occasional acts of rebellion. The intimacy of harem life allowed eight-year-old Fatima to observe and to participate as well as to question endlessly in order to understand what was happening in changing Morocco.

Her grandmother Yasima, although also part of a harem, lived on a farm where the women had access to the outdoors. She grew plants and rode horses, redesigned her clothing for more freedom of movement and told Fatima that the days were near when men would have only one wife and women would be equally educated. As the men held on to tradition, with the support of some of the women, most women argued for equality and change and found ways to express their desires. For example, cousin Chama and Aunt Habiba staged elaborate plays celebrating famous women's lives with all the women and children of the harem (and occasionally the young men) participating as members of the production or members of the audience. These plays helped Fatima decide that singing, dancing and sensuality were part of the feminists' lives and should not be forgotten; sensuality is a refreshingly natural part of life throughout the book.

In Dreams of Trespass we glimpse a world of Arab women struggling to maintain some aspects of tradition while emerging into a modern and freer world. As the women identify the nature and limitations of their power and the opportunities for change, they do not abandon their dreams. Mernissi tells us on page one that the women dreamed of trespassing all the time and that the world beyond the gate was their goal. But how they got to that world was an important part of achieving their goals: Confronting Ahmed (the gatekeeper) at the gate was a heroic act. Escaping from the terrace was not, and did not carry with it that inspiring, subversive flame of liberation. (page 60)

The power of the oral tradition, a tradition very important to the Arabs, is manifest in this book as it opens worlds, creates variety, provides sensuality and inspiration. Fatima's Aunt Habiba, who could take her listeners all over the world, says: When you happen to be trapped powerless behind walls, stuck in a dead-end harem, you dream of escape. And magic flourishes when you spell out that dream and make the frontiers vanish. Dreams can change your life, and eventually the world. Liberation starts with images dancing in your little head, and you can translate those images into words. And words cost nothing. (page 113.)

Magic flourished throughout this book as it educated and entertained us. It is wonderfully written and has the power to open Western eyes to a world often objectified and trivialized. In the process, it creates a new appreciation and understanding for the varied lives of Arab women.

I had to read this book for class and I found this book to be easy to follow and interesting. It was interesting because it discussed what life was like in a harem. The book was written from a child's perspective, which made it more personal. The book provides a lot of information on harem life that the reader does not even realize they are being taught while enjoying the story. I also thought the title was good because it describes how the women of the harem are dreaming of the outside world and what is beyond the walls. I thought Fatima Mernissi did a good job describing harem life and I would recommend reading the book for those interested in harem life, Moroccan women, or for enjoyment.

This was a great, easy reading book that many people could really use as a tool for learning about a different culture. In this book, Fatima tells us about her life as a child growing up in a Harem, and the trials and tribulations that go along with that. Throughout the story, one of the major themes that is asked over and over is what is a Harem? Is it a place with four walls like the Harem she lived in? Or is it like her grandmother's Harem which is out in the country with no walls, only open fields. Fatima's mother's role is crutial in this book because her mother is so against everything that has to do with the Harem. She wants her two daughters to grow up and have every opportunity they can in life, unlike the lack of opportinities her mother had. To do this, Fatima's mother dresses the girls in western style dress with frills and lace. Fatima's father does not seem to say much when his wife does this, unless it is a holiday, then the girls are expected to be in traditional attire. The book itself was great and I would highly recomend it! The details Fatima Marnissi uses in describing the women's lives is fantastic, as is her point of view that this is being told by a child. Any age that is studying this area, or time period in history would enjoy this book as did I!

This is a tale of a young girl born in a haran in Morocco in the 1940's and the struggle she and other Moslem women faced. Fatimi Mernissi was a shy girl born into a world she was sheltered from. She is restricted by the Moslem culture, but uses her imagination to escape beyond the boundaries of the courtyard to see the outside world. She is encouraged by her mother and relatives to fight for women's rights and she tells of the lessons she has learned. I think that this is a great book. Very interesting and easy to read. If you have the time, it could be read at one sitting.

I would have given this book a 10, but subtracted a point because of the title. I agree with Kirkus' review (below) which suggests a more appropriate title, _The Making of a Muslim Feminist_. The present subtitle, _Tales of a Harem Girlhood_, is not only sensational and provocative, but detracts from the real subject matter of the book. Yes, the book does contain tales of a harem girlhood in a sense, but more importantly it provides a rich, eloquently told description of a culture in which women were (and still are) held back from achieving their potential because of prejudice, ignorance, and blind obedience to a dysfunctional cultural tradition. I find this book to be an enlightening account of the life of an intelligent, courageous woman for whom I have the utmost respect and admiration. After first reading _The Veil and the Male Elite_, what Mernissi has to say in _Dreams of Trespass_ provides insight into some of the events and perceptions of her early life that helped shape who she is today. I highly recommend this book, but would urge readers to first read some of her non-autobiographical works (then you can more fully appreciate her autobiography).