Convinced that the veil is a symbol of unjust male authority over women, in The Veil and the Male Elite , Moroccan feminist Fatima Mernissi aims to investigate the origins of the practice in the first Islamic community.

'Fatima Mernissi has more ideas per book than any other thinker in the Middle East. Her later works increasingly integrate her brilliant ideas into sustained and compelling discourse that is very much worthy of attention.'Laurence O. Michalak