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Geraldine Brooks's book, while written before the "War on Terror" era, allows for a much better insight on Islamic life (specifically the treatment of women under Islamic law) than watching the evening news. Her panorama of experiences in the Middle East allows for the reader to see the tremendous variation that exists in Muslim countries. The background that she provides on Islam is also very useful for a Western understanding of the social climate in that part of the world. This book is an excellent starting point for anyone seeking to learn about the Muslim world.
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I read this book for the first time well before 9/11, and I think it could be a useful read for a lot of people exactly for that reason- it was not written with the hindsight of 9/11. A lot of other reviewers have described Brooks' standpoint, so I won't go there, but I will say that her writing itself is beautiful. She does not use clunky language to get her point across, and this gives her writing a great deal of eloquent power. I found myself re-reading it several times over the course of a couple years.
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Using her six-year experience in the Middle East, Geraldine Brooks wrote her first book entitled "Nine Parts of Desire," which was published in 1995. The author spent sex years researching the status and the role of women in several Middle East countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The book is broken into thirteen chapters, which describes the journey and the observation of the author in the Middle East countries. She writes about the history of Muhammad and his wives, the purpose for the veil and hijab, the Islamic marriages, the women in military, politics, business, and entertainment, and the author's experience with Queen Noor in Jordan.
In part, this book explores the women's social status as defined by the Islamic culture and the words of the prophet Muhammad. Since Muhammad's death, the Islamic culture has been defining women according to their Koran, which became part of Islamic law (p. 190). The Muslim traditions and customs, such as hidden faces, hairs, or exposed skin of women, seems to came from the book of Koran that expresses Muhammad's accounts with his wives and his revelations. The Islamic laws seem to require women to wear hijab, cloth covering all of their skin expect for hands and eyes, and restricted social interaction between men and women who are not related by blood. In this book, Brooks mentions that the prophet, Muhammad, had a revelation from Allah that required women to be put in seclusion and to wear hijab when in public to avoid the sight of men who might feel temptation or desire to them for their own (p. 4-5, 20-1, 83). The Koran's accounts of Muhammad and his wives seem to show examples of why women needed to be covered and how this gives men ideas of being pure-hearted.
Throughout this book, one can comprehend why the repression against women became intensified in the Islamic societies in the 1970s to the 1990s through the defined social status of women in Islamic culture, Muhammad's interpretation of women's status, the rise of the fundamentalism and its mission, and their reasons for repressing women. With her extensive experience interviewing Muslim women in the Middle East, Brooks has written a fascinating book which expresses an unique perspective about the lives and tradition of Muslim women of the Islamic culture.
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Everyone woman in the USA should read this book to understand how very lucky we are. The book was written well before 9/11 and I think I finally understand what was in the mind of the terroist.
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When I picked up this book, I could not put it down. Everything about this book fasinated me: the connections to ancient Islamic hadith, the lives of specific women, and the overlying comparisions on treatment of women in the Middle East. One by one, Brooks takes issues she encountered while living there and address each on its own. She laces individual stories with greater events and observations, trying not to make judgments - until the end. Then she sets forth with a fury and I can't help but admire the way in which she puts forth her arguments.
The book was clearly written for a Western audience unfamiliar with most Islamic traditions and that happened to work out nicely for me as I just happened to be that kind of audience. This book was not meant for people very familiar with Islam and the Middle East, if you are and plan to read this book, I would suggest patience as Brooks explains many things you might already know.
The biggest flaw is the structure of the book, which seems to jump around alot and isn't bound by a central theme or string (other than Islamic women, of course). Each chapter stands on its own and address a different topic, which makes it nice to read, but negates the impact of the conclusion. The other problem is one of age. The book was written over ten years ago and most of the interviews took place during the late 80s, early 90s. This impacts the discussion of nations in the book, especially for Afghanistan and Iraq (of course). However, I did not find it that distracting as most of the book discusses the women and their every day life.
In all, I would recommend this book, especially to people interested in Women's Studies or the Middle East. It's light reading and fasinating, so anyone interested in those topics should get around to reading it sooner or later.
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