Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Muslim Society
In: Saqi Essentials
Does Islam as a religion oppress women? Is Islam against democracy? In this classic study, internationally renowned sociologist Fatema Mernissi argues that women's oppression is not due to Islam as this religion in fact celebrates women's power. Women's oppression, she maintains, is due to the political manipulation of religion by powerseeking, archaic Muslim male elites. Mernissi explains in her book that early Muslim scholars portrayed women as aggressive hunters who forced men, reduced to weak hunted victims, to control women by imposing requirements such as veiling, which confined women to