The Concept of “Hareem” in Fatima Al-Mernissi’s Perception & the Cultural Criticism

Abstract

This study analyzes the concept of Hareem through the books and writings of Fatima Al-Mernissi that make this concept central and fundamental. It is important for any researcher to deeply go through this concept in order to understand her feminist cultural discourse, especially as it is a multi-meaning concept that runs from the linguistic meaning to forms and multiple images Hareem; unrealistic Hareem, delusional Hareem, and from the eastern to the western Hareem, political and invisible Hareem, and makes Scheherazade’s image an icon to alterations and transformations of this concept. Al-Mernissi is primarily concerned about providing an image of eastern Arabic Muslim woman, she discussed the dimensions of this image by understanding the different religious, political, social and cultural conditions that emerged, and at the same time paying attention to that this eastern Hareem is linked very closely to the European and American Hareem, which even if disagreed in form, but has the exact context. Al-Mernissi also dismantled the concept of Hareem through serious and profound investigations in different sources that produced it, being basically a sociologist, and in order to understand the image of women and analyze it, she based on social studies in different scopes of knowledge.