Fatema Mernissi

From veils to polygamy, Islamic feminist Fatema Mernissi fearlessly tackles the most controversial customs in the Muslim world. Her first book – Beyond the Veil – was a revelation and a call to revolution. Born in Morocco in 1940, she grew up in a domestic harem, physically trapped by the traditions of the time alongside her grandmother, mother and female relatives, and only escaping through education – first a traditional Qur'anic school, and eventually as the professor of sociology at Mohammed V University in Rabat. As she later said, "The [male] elite faction is trying to convince us that their egotistic, highly subjective, and mediocre view of culture and society has a sacred basis." Born in 1940, she focuses her work today on civil society, democracy and the digital revolution.