** FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 763 8/3/18 REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN

THE VIRGIN MARY AND FATIMA ZAHRA. BEST REVOLUTIONARY ROLE MODELS FOR FEMINISTS.
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‘Why do you come here?’ A question asked of two Muslim ladies visiting the Our Lady of Fatima shrine, in Portugal. Where 100 years ago the Virgin Mary appeared to three peasant children. ‘Fatima’, they tersely replied. ‘The beloved daughter of our Prophet, Fatima!’ Equivocation or insight?

The mother of Jesus and the mother of Imams Hasan and Husayn. Unlikely associates? Yet, there are more verses about Mary in the Qur’an than in the New Testament. Jesus is always named ‘Son on Mary’ in al-Kitab. Mary is the only woman the Qur’an mentions by her first name. As to Fatima, the great Catholic scholar Louis Massignon saw her as ‘the Lady of Islam’ and daringly argued she was ‘a merciful shadow cast by the Blessed Virgin’. On Women’s Day, I challenge feminists to adopt Mary and Fatima as patrons and true emblems of the female cause!

The Song of Mary, the Magnificat, is like automatic machine gun fire. Revolution! The Lord, she sings, ‘has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts; has put down the mighty from the seats; has exalted the humble and meek; has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he has sent empty away’. Not bad for a young virgin, eh? Because she became pregnant of the Holy Spirit before having known her spouse Joseph, the NT hints that foul people accused her of unchastity. The Qur’an defends Mary. Her baby son vindicates her, speaking from the cradle, to the chagrin and utter crushing of the Virgin’s slanderers (19:28-33). A miracle that confirms the child’s exalted status, as well as Mary’s purity.

By the Cross, when Jesus was crucified, Mary would have cried a lot but the Gospels are silent about that. Different with Fatima. Drawing on traditions, Jesuit Father Lammens unsympathetically accuses her of having ‘a melancholy character’, a regular shedder of tears, though he admits that her tears were also an expression religious fervour. She certainly cried bitterly at the death of her beloved mother Khadijah. However, she also wept and lamented over the fallen Muslims at the battle of Uhud. Her father himself was hurt and Fatima lovingly nursed his wounds. An expression of her Islamic piety and devotion.  More dynamically, Louis Massignon, a distinguished French Orientalist and priest, views Fatima as a fearless promoter of justice. A combatant against all forms of oppression and discrimination. She was the defender of equal rights amongst Muslims, Massignon contends. He means the Mawali, the early, non-Arab converts to Islam. Fatima is the goodly hostess, the Rabbat
al-Bayt, the Mistress of the Tent of Hospitality. A virtue central to Arab culture, hospitality is Fatima’s special charisma, her divinely conferred gift. She is the receiver and protector of the freedmen, the slaves emancipated by her father. Fatima’s meaning is then a universal one because, Massignon contends, the values she stood for, the principles she symbolises are worldwide, inclusive ones.

The last appearance of Mary in the NT is in Jerusalem, after Jesus’ ascension into Heaven. Legend has it she followed the Apostle John to Ephesus, lived on and died there. Church dogma asserts her body was taken up into Heaven, a privilege accorded before only to prophets Enoch and Elijah. The paucity of information about her is frustrating but it’s a fact Mary’s example and spirit inspired righteous modern rebels like the brave Cristeros. Ordinary Mexican faithful who in 1926 rose up against the secular, anti-Christian, violent tyranny of President Calles. He was another Yazid, another vile oppressor of true religion. Even saying ‘Adios’ – an innocent greeting literally meaning ‘To God’ – was made a crime. The Cristeros revolted. Their battle-cry was ‘Long live Christ the King’ and their flag bore the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, national patroness of Mexico. Many were horrendously martyred in the name of Jesus and Mary. Eventually, the hideous Calles had to compromise.


Ali Shariati, a radical Iranian author, penned an amazing book, ‘Fatima is Fatima’. He sees Fatima Zahra, 'the Luminous One', as working her way through the struggles and the many affronts she suffered after her father’s death. Caliph Abu Bakr denied her rightful inheritance of the oasis of Fadak and, physically injured, she died shortly afterwards. She was buried at night and no one knows the precise spot. At the end of his book Shariati draws a comparison between Fatima and Mary. Painters, poets, theologians and novelists have rhapsodised about the mother of Jesus. You can assemble a collage with all those and believe you have achieved the totality of Mary’s picture, the Virgin’s meaning. Actually, the fullness is missing. Mary remains elusive. Only the description ‘Mary, the Mother of Jesus’ encapsulates perhaps her essential, if still mysterious, significance. Similarly, Shariati candidly admits that, despite all his efforts, Fatima’s meaning eludes him. He has to fall
back on a truism: ‘Fatima is Fatima’.

Muslim women, Shariati says, are caught between two alternatives. The conventional, submissive model or ‘the new woman’. The first is the traditional role, meaning the old-fashioned idea of woman as a housekeeper. The second model wears the European, Westernised visage. A basically imported, derivative, neo-imperialist concept. He advocates a third alternative, another face: that of Fatima. A wife, a  mother, a heroine, a fighter, a martyr…Convincing?

Can’t speak for Muslims but for me the Blessed Virgin Mary does it. Best role model for feminists!

Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee!

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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