The Veil and the Male Elite

One of the reasons I signed up for this week's reading was the author Fatima Mernissi. I've read her before, and although it wasn't a historical book, I enjoyed reading it.

Coming back to the reading, I think the text raises a lot of legitimate questions/points. But before I dwell on it, I'd like to add how difficult it can be to read any historical text without prejudice. I come from a Muslim background, and sometimes reading historical text can be challenging.

• The texts talk about the legitimacy of Hadiths. Hadiths are basically what Prophet Muhammad did or said, and being born and raised in the modern era (or any era other than Prophet's) it can be very difficult to trace the authenticity. Mernissi does that for us. She reads volumes and volumes of historical books by numerous authors just to find the context of this Hadith narrated by al-Bukhari in one of his books 'Those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never know prosperity.' In her conclusion, she found out that in fact, this Hadith is dismissable because Abu Bakar was accused of lying, and thus it can't be trusted. I think the point I'd like to make is how do we know that we can trust Mernissi (I love her work but her text raises this question) until we either trace her background or we trace the Hadiths ourselves like she did. 
• Second, I'd like to point out (which might be what she's trying to point out or not) that all the authors including al-Bukhari, al-Tabari, al-Asqalani and others mentioned in the text were male. 
• Thirdly, the people today present in Muslim countries like Iran, Suadi Arabia, Pakistan among many others or non-Muslim countries like U.S. France, Germany, or the terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda or ISIS have one thing in common: they all are ignorant when it comes to Islam and Hadiths. As Mernissi mentions, that these unverified Hadiths are used even today as an excuse for punishing, killing and discriminating both women and men regardless of their religion. 
• And lastly, I think we find it easy to believe these Hadiths, translations, tafsirs because we neither have the time nor the energy to go through hundreds and hundreds of pages to connect the dots. Not at all saying it is a legitimate excuse, but I think that's how it is.  
• Edit: One more thing that just came to my mind which I think is very crucial to this debate of true and false Hadiths. In Islam, only the Prophet and Imams (in Shia sects) are considered infallible; This means that anyone except them can commit a sin or are capable of making mistakes. So does this mean that we can't trust anyone else because they might have committed a sin or were capable of committing one? What about forgiveness in Islam? Just my two cents.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.