life she found that "all men seek is pleasure. For that reason I cry out for complete and complementary love in all my writings." Fatimah also expresses in her autobiography the need for men and women to only participate in intercourse when they are in a serene state, so that orgasm can be achieved, which she believes acts to strengthen faith in God. Fatimah Rifaat's writing centers upon the silent plight of women in a patriarchal Muslim society. Her stories mainly take place in provincial Egypt. These stories handle themes such as sex, death, marriage, masturbation, clitoridectomy, love, teenage pregnancy, widowhood, and loss along with other controversial topics. During this time period a woman was considered a purely sexual being, and the allowance of freedom of her sexuality was feared to result in fitna, or societal chaos. Although Alifa Rifaat strove to express through writing the sexual repression of women, her stories and her life were conducted in an orthodox Muslim manner and she did not advocate the rise of women against patriarchy. Most of Rifaat's female protagonists take a resigned or begrudgingly accepting stance towards the hardships they face in life. For Fatimah Rifaat, patriarchy is merely a fact of life and acceptable under Quranic terms, however it is the opposite and in some instances even the same gender's lack of observance towards religious teachings that acts as the catalyst to many of the protagonists’ problems. In her stories many of the sexual encounters take place during the characters' marriage and there is no instance of extra-marital male-female relationships as this would be considered purely sinful under the practice of Islam. Some of Fatimah Rifaat's most popular stories include "Distant View of a Minaret," "Bahiyya’s Eyes," and "My World of the Unknown." Distant View of a Minaret Distant View of a Minaret opens with a husband and wife performing the act of intercourse. The story is told from the wife's point of view and it is quickly revealed that during this interaction she is both uninterested and feels estranged from her husband. She recalls how in the past she attempted to express her desire for sexual satisfaction to her husband which was met in return with denial and anger. At some point during the act she becomes aware of the call to prayer. Afterwards she performs necessary ablutions and her prayers, a ritual with which she feels more in