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The modern Muslim state has never presented itself as secular. Muslim nationalist forces, trapped by a militant and colonialist West unable to share or export its humanism, were driven to build up a rampart, to entrench themselves within the past.
Fatema Mernissi -
I was amazed to realize that for many Westerners, Scheherezade was considered a lovely but simple-minded entertainer, someone who relates innocuous tales and dresses fabulously. In our part of the world, Scheherezade is perceived as a courageous heroine and is one of our rare female mythological figures.
Fatema Mernissi
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There has been a terrible hemorrhage of educated women to the West where they can flourish. I understand, but it is terrible. We must stay home.
Fatema Mernissi -
The waves of religion based on terrorism in the 1990s are based on the tormented response of a mutilated Muslim society whose progressive forces have been savagely emasculated. Why on earth is the Arab world so hostile to women? Why can it not see women as a force for development?
Fatema Mernissi -
Women are builders of civil society. We are the ones who are going to build it. You know why? We have no choice. Either you shut up, and you are humiliated, or you do what I'm doing. You scream.
Fatema Mernissi -
To me, the Quran is a research book.
Fatema Mernissi -
I go to the hamam and put henna on my skin and hair. Even when I go to New York, I let the shower run hot to create a steam hamam at my hotel. But when I finish with the bath, I put on expensive French creams.
Fatema Mernissi -
No man could have accepted me because I am too rebellious. It would have been catastrophe. I am too into my own thing.
Fatema Mernissi