SOURCE: Jaber, Nabila. Review of Women and Islam, by Fatima Mernissi. Sociology 26, no. 2 (May 1992): 358-59.

In the following review, Jaber praises Mernissi's knowledge of her subject matter in Women and Islam and judges the work important for those interested in Islam and feminist issues.

Mernissi is a well known Arab sociologist who has written extensively on the position of women in Islam. For Western readers, the paradox of her position is that, unlike orthodox Islam, she claims compatibility between feminism and ‘authentic’ Islam. For Mernissi, authentic refers to the canon of Islam as lived and practised during the Prophet's time in the matrilineal city of Medina. According to her argument the prophet's way of life conformed to the social practices of this city which accorded women a position of power with social and political rights. This contrasted with Mecca, the patrilineal and patriarchal city of the prophet's origin...