Mernissi's legacy can be greatly attributed to her scholarly and literary contributions to the early Islamic feminist movement. Mernissi tackled issues such as Eurocentrism, intersectionality, transnationalism and global feminism in her publications and public lectures. The New York Times quoted her in an obituary:[1] "Not only have the sacred texts always been manipulated, but manipulation of them is a structural characteristic of the practice of power in Muslim societies,” Fatema Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam (1991)