Mernissi is largely concerned with Islam and women's roles in it, and this generally takes the form of a debate about the historical development of Islamic thought and its modern manifestation. Through a detailed investigation of the nature of the secession to Muhammad, she casts doubt on the validity of some of the Ahadith (sayings attributed to the ProphetMuhammad) and therefore the subordination of women she sees in Islam but not necessarily in the Qur'an.
Mernissi's first book, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Islam, is a historical study of role of the wives of Muhammad. For Doing Daily Battle: Interviews with Moroccan Women (1991), she interviewed peasant women, women labourers, clairvoyants and maidservants. In 1995, Mernissi published an autobiography, Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood.
Other works of Mernissi include
Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World (1992)
Forgotten Queens of Islam
Scheherazade is not a Moroccan
Islam, Gender and Social Change
Mernissi is currently a lecturer at the Mohamed V University of Rabat and a research scholar at the University Institute for Scientific Research, in the same city.
Mernissi is largely concerned with Islam and women's roles in it, analyzing the historical development of Islamic thought and its modern manifestation.
Through a detailed investigation of the nature of the succession to Muhammad, she casts doubt on the validity of some of the ahadith (sayings and traditions attributed to Muhammad), and therefore subordination of women that she sees in Islam, but not necessarily in the Qur'an.
Mernissi is currently a lecturer at the Mohamed V University of Rabat and a research scholar at the University Institute for Scientific Research, in the same city.
Mernissi's point of departure is a dissenting interpretation of Islam's historical legacy.
It is currently fashionable to argue that an Islamic civil society, born with the faith, survived and even thrived despite a rapid turnover of absolute rulers; that, under the tumultuous surface of politics, Islamic society maintained an inner harmony that lasted for a millennium, until the rude intrusion of the West.
Mernissi's voice is not a lone one; it echoes those of other North African intellectuals, such as the Tunisian Moncef Marzouki, whose book of a decade ago caused an uproar.
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