Writing is one of the most ancient forms of prayer. To write is to believe communication is possible that other people are good, that you can awaken their generosity and their desire to do better. Fatema Mernissi More Quotes by Fatema Mernissi More Quotes From Fatema Mernissi While Muslim men describe themselves as insecure in their harems, real or imagined, Westerners describe themselves as self-assured heroes with no fears of women. The tragic dimension so present in Muslim harems - fear of women and male self-doubt - is missing in the Western harem. Fatema Mernissi women real fear men 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 know you women society The Western man declares that in order to be beautiful, a woman must look 14 years old. If she dares to look 50, or worse, 60, she is beyond the pale. By putting the spotlight on the female child and framing her as the ideal of beauty, he condemns the mature woman to invisibility. Fatema Mernissi woman man beautiful beauty If there is one thing that the women and men of the late 20th century who have an awareness and enjoyment of history can be sure of, it is that Islam was not sent from Heaven to foster egotism and mediocrity. Fatema Mernissi women islam men history Someone else is going to read for me or go at my place to the mosque, and/or to tell me you shouldn't take anything from the West because the West is the enemy and so on. It is to me to decide. I am intelligent enough to be critical towards the West and take what I need and reject what is bad for me. Fatema Mernissi i-am place me you Sharia law does not exist in the Koran. It was created by man. Fatema Mernissi does exist man law 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 stay understand women home You find in the Koran hundreds of verses to support women's rights, and perhaps four or five that do not. Fatema Mernissi find you women support So much of Islam is Judeo-Christianity. It's impossible to divorce them. Islam is 600 years after Christ. Thousands of years after Judaism. Christ, Moses, Abraham - they are all in the Koran. Fatema Mernissi divorce islam impossible years Educated women armed with computers have defeated extremists by denying them a monopoly to define cultural identity and interpret religious texts. No extremist can say that women are inferior to men without being made a laughingstock on Al Jazeera. Islam insisted on equality between everyone. Fatema Mernissi equality women islam men The Taliban is the Muslim version of the Salem witch trials. Fatema Mernissi version muslim taliban trials 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 i-am me man my-own 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 skin new hot hair In Morocco, for a woman to earn her own living is the essential concern. Fatema Mernissi her woman own living 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 build never trapped past Growing up, I was taught that a woman should lower her gaze so that men could never know her thoughts. The so-called modesty of Arab women is, in fact, a war tactic. Fatema Mernissi thoughts women men war Contrary to what many Westerners believe, Islam has a rich tradition of secular painting in spite of its ban on images. It is only in religious rituals that the use of pictorial representation is totally prohibited. Fatema Mernissi painting islam tradition believe