Even though women leaders were historically a rare phenomenon, the absence of women from politics in Islamic history is striking. For Dr. Fatma Mernissi, however, this absence says more about those writing the narratives than history itself.
History is often a disputed territory. Since there is rarely a single version of it, the timeline and the point of view someone chooses make a world of difference. However, for most “histories”, half of humanity was systematically left out; men were empowered to make history, men recorded it, and men read it. This male domination is apparent in the way Islamic history was recorded and taught over centuries. Beyond the role of the Prophet’s wives and Sahabiyat in the early period of Islam, rarely does one encounter any mentions of women, especially not in leadership positions.
In her book, The Forgotten Queens of Islam, Dr. Fatema Mernissi counters this prevailing narrative by documenting the extraordinary lives of fifteen Muslim Queens who each ruled over parts of the Islamic empire at different times. For Dr. Mernissi, the systematic obliteration of women from the history of a civilization that extended for centuries was accompanied by a popular negative stereotype of women’s involvement in politics, even when it came from the boundaries of the harem. Women who yielded any authority, however modest, were typically blamed for catastrophic events like military losses and the fall of dynasties. In Mernissi’s view, this distorted version of history highlights how Muslim women in general, and Arab women in particular, cannot count on anyone to break down their own history to them.
It is perhaps because of this fascination with the cautionary legends of “women’s cunning” which brings the fall of men that the story of the Queen Shajarat Al-Durr is unusually well-documented. She is most known for her assassination of her husband, Izz Al-Din Aybak, which ultimately brought her downfall and death. On the other hand, the political skills and abilities that enabled Shajarat Al-Durr to rise to power and later rule Egypt on her own as a Sultana (scoring major military achievements like the imprisonment of the king of France) are downplayed.
A similar historical treatment was extended to Queens Asma and Arwa Al-Sulayhi who combined ruled Yemen for almost a century. Although both of them officially ruled alongside their husbands, they still had the special privileges denied to most Muslim Queens like being mentioned in the Muslim sermon delivered on behalf of the ruler, Al Khutbah. Upon Queen Asma’s death, her sick son Al Mukaram officially passed over his authority to his wife Arwa, who practically ruled alone for decades. Despite proving herself a capable ruler that led Yemen and the Sulayhi dynasty in an era of expansion, Queen Arwa still struggled to be a woman in politics. According to Mernissi, the political pressure on Queen Arwa climaxed when her husband passed away as the Caliph Al Mustansir wanted to ensure that she shared the throne with a man. However, while she did compromise and re-marry, she continued to rule the dynasty until her death. Both Asma and Arwa, like the rest of the Muslim Queens, did not shy away from demanding a place at the table to engage with and sometimes outright defy men. Therefore, it is understandable how historians and educators, worried about consolidating their authority publicly and privately and chose to either taint their reputations or minimize their legacies.
Recognizing the histories of the Muslim Queens does not involve glossing over the dirty political tricks that kept them, as their male counterparts, in power, nor lamenting the failures most of them experienced. Yet, engaging with the histories of Muslim Queens can offer a fresh perspective on a historical narrative that still shapes our identities as Muslim Women. Even in the UAE, a country that prides itself on the strides towards women empowerment, issues of women’s rights are always framed between Then and Now. By turning to history, instead of turning from it, we can find neglected evidence of an Islamic history where women were far more active than typically assumed. While this doesn’t deny the systematic obstacles Muslim Queens, and Muslim women generally, faced in their quest of political participation, it still shows that a long history of women’s emancipation in Muslim societies exists. And just like the historical amnesia surrounding Muslim Queens, we might discover histories of Muslim women left to be revealed, written, and disputed.
References:
The Forgotten Queens of Islam book by Fatma Mernissi
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