Week 3 Fatima Mernissi

One of the most interesting ideas in the chapters from Mernissi’s book is how Islam and its laws became mysoginistic. In her articles, Menissi thoroughly examines the interpretations of mysoginistic hadith through looking at the chronological historical – the context within which the Prophet uttered these words/sayings – emergence of these hadiths. One of the most fascinating contradictions that Mernissi unveils, are the standards that are set in place by Imams about who can transmit hadith and who cannot, and who actually did transmit hadith. As an example, why was Abu Hurraira trusted when he transmitted the Prophet’s hadith, while Aisha have always contradicted him in hadith related to women (who within Mernissi’s description was perceived as a more legitimate credible source than Abu Hurraira)? If scholars knew that the Prophet was against the mysoginistic treatment of women during polytheistic era before Islam, why would they find such hadiths credible?

Mernissi’s supply of background information on hadith transmitters, such as Abu Hurreira, provides ample justification to why those men emitted such words. Islam was and still is ruled by men, thus taking away the voice of women in matters of the state. While Islam is a very patriarchal society, it is also a classist society that lacks democracy. Mernissi illustrates that through a young man’s words to Aisha in a mosque in Basra, “You decided, still without consulting us…” (p. 56). By “us,” he means the Muslim population. Another piece to add to this is Mernissi conclusion of power and knowledge and how power regulates knowledge. “What is being supervised and managed, in fact is memory and history,” and “no one has ever really succeeded in banning access to memory and recollection.” I think that what Mernissi is trying to convey here is that while the leaders cannot control what people remember, they can control what is communicated to the Muslim public, which in this case are the hadiths. Therefore, women lack the democracy to contribute the regulation of religion since that would get in the way of power-hungry mysoginistic Muslim men. Female Muslim bodies become regulated and marginalized from the public spheres, under the agenda of females are sinful, unable to rule, and pollutants to the male body.