SOURCE: Pakravan, Saideh. Review of Dreams of Trespass, by Fatima Mernissi. Belles Lettres 10, no. 1 (fall 1994): 80-1.

In the following review, Pakravan lauds the “compassionate and intelligent” writing in Mernissi's memoir Dreams of Trespass.

The nonjudgmental, politically correct stance often adopted by some Westerners toward the Islamic fundamentalist resurgence calls for a respectful endorsement of the traditional veiling of women. Some benighted souls actually don the garb (imagine shackling your own feet), presumably out of the same romantic notion that made T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) wear long, loose robes as he trekked Arabian deserts. In Dreams of Trespass, more charmingly but just as forcefully as she did in The Veil and the Male Elite, Fatima Mernissi gives an incisive retort to anyone still harboring illusions about conservative Islam. Not only does it not represent a liberating force, but it enforces the veil, a symbol of oppression, and...