Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

Fatima Mernissi begins her memoir by stating that she was born in a harem in Fez, Morocco, in 1940. Fez is located 1,000 kilometers south of Madid, a “dangerous” Christian city, and Fatima’s early years are defined by the hududs, or “sacred frontier[s]” (1), of her world. While the Christians are breaking one hudud by invading Fez, even building a new city they call the Ville Nouvelle, Moroccan women of the 1940s are also breaking hudud by refusing to conform to old, limiting traditions.

Fatima explains that while Spanish Christians have invaded northern Morocco, the soldiers just “outside [her] door” (2) are Christians from France. The two countries are at war with each other, and the dividing line between northern Spanish Morocco and southern French Morocco is another frontier—an “invisible line in the mind of warriors” (2), which Fatima has never visited because Moroccan women aren’t allowed to travel.

At the age of 3, Fatima begins to attend Koranic school, where she is again taught to keep within the hudud—in this case, whatever rules and boundaries are set by the headmistress. Since that time, Fatima says, her “life’s occupation” has consisted of searching for the frontier—the “geometric line organizing [her] powerlessness” (3).