[In the following excerpt, Brata praises The Harem Within, but expresses misgivings over Mernissi's privileged perspective.]

The two women who cry their hearts out in these books do not belong to the proletariat, nor to the bourgeoisie as the Marxists understood it. Both come from the upper crust of their respective Islamic societies, Moroccan and Pakistani. Their greatest childhood deprivations were in the realms of diamonds, pearls, chiffons and silks; not food, clothing and shelter.

Mernissi is a respected feminist academic; [Tehmina] Durrani an erstwhile housewife who has launched a crusade, with this first autobiographical excursion, on behalf of Islamic women [My Feudal Lord]. But there is something cloying in their pleas for the three great words of the French revolution, coming as they do from hugely privileged mouthpieces. Tugged on the one hand (Mernissi) by the end of French colonial rule and on the other (Durrani) by indigenous male oppression, the authors flounder in their political and philosophical exegesis.

These caveats aside, the fables themselves are riveting. Mernissi's book [The Harem Within] is the story of a child (herself) between the ages of four and nine. Quotation marks abound: conversations with her illiterate mother, with her father who taught her of the “sacred frontier” that divides men's and women's spheres, and with her maternal grandmother, who rode horses and harboured the other wives in the “harem”. These really are the tales of Scheherazade. You forget to query how a 50-year-old can remember what she was told 44 years ago. Total recall? Artistic licence? Who cares? The tale rings true.

Suspension of disbelief is commandeered in both books. …

Mernissi is a vastly more acute observer of oppression. Hers is a sharp intellect that tells its story in lethal footnotes. “Anxiety eats me whenever I cannot situate the geometric line organising my powerlessness.” And again, “Where a Muslim government stands on the question of polygamy is a good way to measure the degree to which it has accepted democratic ideas.” How do you react to a statement such as this: “Once you knew what was forbidden, you carried the harem within. You had it in your head, inscribed under your forehead and under your skin.” This is no megaphone polemic. It is quiet, assertive and devastating. …

Aged six, Mernissi asks her illiterate grandmother why “rules are always made by men”? The response: “The moment women get smart and start asking that very question … they will find a way to change the rules and turn the whole planet upside down.” The child queries “How long will that take?” and Yasmina, the wise old owl, replies “A long time”.