In her 2009 article in The Guardian, ‘What happened to Arab science fiction?’ Nesrine Malik cites Sultana’s Dream as an illustration of science fiction’s subversive potential:
The women are aided by science fiction-esque “electrical” technology which enables laborless farming and flying cars the women scientists have discovered how to tap solar power and control the weather.
It depicts a feminist utopia (called Ladyland) in which women run everything and men are secluded, in a mirror-image of the traditional practice of purdah. It was published the same year in the Madras-based English periodical The Indian Ladies Magazine. Sultana’s Dream is a 1905 feminist utopian story written by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, a Muslim feminist, writer and social reformer from Bengal. For those who have not heard of this groundbreaking work, a quick Google search yields this synopsis on Wikipedia: Particularly chilling is Hossain's work's relevance to our times, as pointed out in the afterword when purdah and its variants are being revived in different social and religious movements.I was fascinated to learn that a new exhibit at the Memorial Art Gallery (MAG), in Rochester, New York, celebrates Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream. "This short book is a window opened too briefly onto a world whose exoticism is overshadowed only by its oppressiveness. An interesting and informative work for Asian studies and women's studies collections." -Library Journal Commentaries by scholars put the works of the little-known Hossain in a global and historical context. Accompanying this story are selections from "The Secluded Ones" (1928), a factual account of extreme cases of purdah. "A clever and appealing story of reversed purdah (seclusion of women) in Ladyland, where women overpower men through brains rather than brawn. "The Secluded Ones" is a selection of short sketches, first published in Bengali newspapers, illuminating the cruel and comic realities of life in purdah. Sultana’s Dream, first published in 1905 in a Madras English newspaper, is a witty feminist utopia-a tale of reverse purdah that posits a world in which men are confined indoors and women have taken over the public sphere, ending a war nonviolently and restoring health and beauty to the world.
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