Crystallization of the Islamic Feminist Fatema Mernissi in Maruf Al Rusafi's Poetry

Abstract

Islamic feminism tackles Eastern women who are often viewed as shackled by social oppression, religious manacles, and domestic confinement in various literary works. They often suffer exclusion from the public life in an age afflicted by extremity and heretical exercises. The notion that women are shame and a likely reason of dishonor seems to appeal to some Muslim communities; a notion that was bitterly widespread in communities before Islam whereas baby girls were buried alive so that their fathers could dispense with their shame. The paper reveals a clear affinity between the theoretical views of the Moroccan feminist, Fatema Mernissi and some enthusiastic feminist poems of the Iraqi poet Marruf Al Rusafi. It highlights the woman's position and rights in Islamic communities and how a woman practices a life within these norms. Mernissi, on the one hand, is one of the precursors of Islamic feminists who published many books and articles trying to unveil and uplift at the same time the Muslim woman's status. Her publications got wide responses, sometimes abhorring and other times hailing. Marruf Al Rusafi, on the other hand, is an Iraqi nation bard whose ideas align with Fatema’s in fighting dogmatic ills and to arouse social conscience.  For him, the absence of the woman's role in life causes absence of tolerance, mercy, and advancement.