WOMEN, SAINTS AND SANCTUARIES

Fatima Mernissi, Simorgh 1987 

Fatima Mernissi was born in 1940 in Fez, a medieval Muslim centre in Morocco. She is a feminist scholar and a well-known figure in North Africa, and is a recognized authority on questions of women in Islam both in the Arab World and in academic circles internationally. In Women, Saints and Sanctuaries she explores the question of the dependent and emotionally highly charged relationship between women and the ‘mazaar’ of the local saint or ‘pir’. She offers us valuable insights into one of the ways in which women mediate their position – their desires and needs – within a patriarchal order.