SOURCE: Afshar, Haleh. Review of The Forgotten Queens of Islam, by Fatima Mernissi. Signs 21, no. 1 (autumn 1995): 205-08.

In the following excerpt, Afshar compliments Mernissi's analysis of Islamic history in The Forgotten Queens of Islam.

These volumes [Mernissi's The Forgotten Queens of Islam and Julie Marcus's A World of Difference] represent two very distinct approaches to understanding Islam and gender hierarchy. They both attempt to explain the apparent absence of Muslim women from the public sphere and the historical construction of unequal gender relations. But whereas Fatima Mernissi blames the veil and the “architecture” of separatism, Julie Marcus sees the laws of “purity and pollution” as the villain. Mernissi provides an in-depth analysis of the social, religious, and historical factors that have contributed to making the women ruling over Islamic countries invisible through history. This illuminating volume engages critically with the ascribed characteristics attributed by Western academics and historians...