Fatima Mernissi and the Aesthetics of Desire: Shirin, the Odalisque, and theAndrocentric Imagination

Abstract: This article critically engages Fatima Mernissi’s art criticism, focusing on her thesis that Western and Muslim artistic traditions imagine femininity through contrasting ideals of passivity and mobility. By examining Nezami’s Khosrow & Shirin and its miniature depictions, the study challenges Mernissi’s binaries and reveals Shirin as a morally idealized yet androcentric figure. The analysis shows that both Western and Muslim visual cultures project masculine fantasies onto the female body, albeit through different aesthetic registers. Ultimately, the article argues for a more nuanced understanding of gendered representation, where visual art becomes a site of power, desire, and symbolic control.

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