Assia Djebar’s novel, Far from Madina, retells the stories of the community of women who appear on the margins of the earliest sources of Islamic history from a contemporary Muslim feminist’s perspective. In the work, Djebar uses formal elements of early Islamic historiography and relies upon classical Sunni sources. These techniques place her novel in conversation with classical Islamic traditions and bring legitimacy to her subversive project which aims to shift the boundaries of that canon. Djebar improvises female voices in an effort to restore female agency and subjectivity to the historical narrative and draws portraits of women who posed vocal and direct challenges to authority. This essay examines Djebar’s overall project in Far from Madina and treatment of Fatima in particular. I consider Djebar’s selection of classical sources and compare the earliest canonical Sunni renderings of Fatima and those found in the novel. I argue that the vision of empowered women in the first Muslim community posited in Far from Madina destabilizes the ideal of gender identity constructed in early Islamic historiography. Though crafted in relation to classical sources, Djebar’s critique of gender identity is also addressed to the discourses and institutions of Islamic authority that evolved over the centuries and that continue to delineate narrow roles for women, up to and including contemporary regimes. This study argues that by grounding her critique of circulating discourses on Muslim women within a project that appropriates classical canonical Sunni historiography, Djebar refuses the disjunction between feminism and Islam, critiquing normative Islamic discourse on women in contemporary Algeria without framing the conflict in terms of an East/West or a religious/secular binary. Far from Madina focuses on the moment after the death of the Prophet when the Muslim community was left to interpret the scripture and collectively recall the words and deeds of Prophet. Djebar constructs the novel around the question of what role Muslim women would play in this process which mirrors her own choice to write the novel and embraces her role as witness and transmitter of the stories of these early women. This essay will examine the reflexive and autobiographical nature of Far from Madina and examine how Djebar’s narrative strategies and hermeneutical approach facilitate the articulation of identity through difference. I will argue that the narrative can be read as Djebar’s performance of contemporary Muslim identity.