I want to share my reading lists, book comments and the experiences I have when I lead lifelong learning sessions on history and literature - plus occasional nibbles at philosophy and religion.
I have been an wide-ranging reader all my conscious life.
Silver Season is the name under which I research and write about American silverplate (www.silverseason.com).
I have been an wide-ranging reader all my conscious life.
Silver Season is the name under which I research and write about American silverplate (www.silverseason.com).
Nine Parts of Desire
Posted 15th January 2009 at 09:27 PM by silverseason
Subtitle: The Hidden World of Islamic Women
When Australian-born Geraldine Brooks was assigned to the Middle East in the 1990s, she was frustrated by the limitations placed on her travel in some Islamic countries and the difficulty of interviewing important males in these societies. So she did what Margaret Mead did years ago, when she experienced similar difficulties, -- she talked with the women.
Nine Parts of Desire is her account of visiting and joining in the experiences of women in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Iran. Some of the chapters are snapshots of specific experiences: interviewing Jordan’s queen, but also talking to the first generation training for the military, learning the movements of the Egyptian belly dance, and attending the Muslim Women’s Games.
I learned about the shading of differences between the various societies. Some, once proclaimed to be secular like Egypt and Iran, have seen a resurgence of a fundamentalism which is different in spirit from that which preceded the secular period. Other places, like Saudi Arabia, cling even more tightly to an unbroken tradition, fearing all change.
What I appreciated most about the book were Brooks’ investigations into the life of the prophet and his relationship with his wives, the domestic drama on which many Islamic doctrines are based. She shows how much fundamentalist practice departs from both literal and metaphorical interpretations of Mohammed’s sayings. Brooks engages with the question of what is the true Islam and what is a tribal or cultural overlay which uses religion to perpetuate itself:
“Presented with statistics on violence toward women, or facing the furor over the Rushdie fatwa, progressive Muslims… ask us to blame a wide range of villains: colonial history, the bitterness of immigrant experience, Bedouin gradation, pre-Islamic African culture. Yet when the Koran sanctions wife beating and the execution of apostate, it can’t be entirely exonerated for an epidemic of wife slayings and death sentences on authors.”
Brooks wrote these words before 9/11, but what happened that day has done nothing to make them less true.
When Australian-born Geraldine Brooks was assigned to the Middle East in the 1990s, she was frustrated by the limitations placed on her travel in some Islamic countries and the difficulty of interviewing important males in these societies. So she did what Margaret Mead did years ago, when she experienced similar difficulties, -- she talked with the women.
Nine Parts of Desire is her account of visiting and joining in the experiences of women in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Iran. Some of the chapters are snapshots of specific experiences: interviewing Jordan’s queen, but also talking to the first generation training for the military, learning the movements of the Egyptian belly dance, and attending the Muslim Women’s Games.
I learned about the shading of differences between the various societies. Some, once proclaimed to be secular like Egypt and Iran, have seen a resurgence of a fundamentalism which is different in spirit from that which preceded the secular period. Other places, like Saudi Arabia, cling even more tightly to an unbroken tradition, fearing all change.
What I appreciated most about the book were Brooks’ investigations into the life of the prophet and his relationship with his wives, the domestic drama on which many Islamic doctrines are based. She shows how much fundamentalist practice departs from both literal and metaphorical interpretations of Mohammed’s sayings. Brooks engages with the question of what is the true Islam and what is a tribal or cultural overlay which uses religion to perpetuate itself:
“Presented with statistics on violence toward women, or facing the furor over the Rushdie fatwa, progressive Muslims… ask us to blame a wide range of villains: colonial history, the bitterness of immigrant experience, Bedouin gradation, pre-Islamic African culture. Yet when the Koran sanctions wife beating and the execution of apostate, it can’t be entirely exonerated for an epidemic of wife slayings and death sentences on authors.”
Brooks wrote these words before 9/11, but what happened that day has done nothing to make them less true.
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