SOURCE: Fay, Mary Ann. Review of The Forgotten Queens of Islam, by Fatima Mernissi. International Journal of Middle East Studies 31, no. 3 (August 1999): 453-55.

In the following review, Fay compliments Mernissi's perspective in The Forgotten Queens of Islam, but considers the book marred by numerous historical inaccuracies.

Fatima Mernissi's The Forgotten Queens of Islam is a flawed but provocative and, at times, insightful study of the nature of power in Islamic history and contemporary Islamic society. Ostensibly, Mernissi is conducting a historical investigation into the question of whether women were ever heads of state. However, she uses her subject matter to assert that political Islam or Islam as the practice of power is fundamentally anti-democratic. Thus, her book is both a historical inquiry and a powerful critique of the state in contemporary Islamic societies.

This is not the first time that Mernissi, a sociologist, has turned to history for...