PART I: The Pre-Islamic Middle East Chapter 1 Mesopotamia Chapter 2 The Mediterranean Middle East PART II: Founding Discourses Chapter 3 Women and the Rise of Islam Chapter 4 The Transitional Age Chapter 5 Elaboration of the Founding Discourses Chapter 6 Medieval Islam PART III: New Discourses Chapter 7 Social and Intellectual Change Chapter 8 The Discourse of the Veil Chapter 9 The First Feminists Chapter 10 Divergent Voices Chapter 11 The Struggle for the Future Conclusion Notes Index.
Leila Ahmed is professor of women’s studies and director of the Near Eastern Area Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and faculty associate at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University.
"Elegantly argued and intertwining at least three subjects of great
contemporary interest — Islam, feminism and postcolonialism — it is
certainly both timely and thought provoking."—Cornelia Sorabji,
Times Higher Education Supplement
"[O]ne of the best studies of Islam’s discourse on gender—an aspect
of Muslim culture many non-Muslims find particularly difficult to
understand."—Hans Kundnani, Wall Street Journal
"Ahmed's rousing book is destined to become a classic. . . . It
gives [Muslim women] back our rightful place, at the center of our
histories."—Rana Kabbani, The Guardian
"A pathbreaking survey of Islamic discourse."—Publishers Weekly
"I would not hesitate to recommend this book as a good source of
information."—Joyce Mokhesi-Parker, Africa World Review
"Clearly one of the book's enduring strengths is Leila Ahmed's
genuine, as opposed to academic, concern (a distinction often lost
on writers of Islam) that Muslim women, for too long the subject of
inflated homilies or hollow gender confrontations, strike up their
own debate—on grounds designed to suit rather than stifle."—Riffat
Yusuf, Africa Events
"Leila Ahmed's beautiful style takes us back to antiquity and
guides us through the ages; we are made to revisit the past through
the eyes of a woman—an unusual and rather refreshing way to enquire
into past societies. She possesses the skill and expertise to
venture into such an arduous enterprise, her sharp mind allowing
her to make perceptive remarks about Muslim men and the use and
misuse of religion not just as a tool of social control, but also
as a cultural system, as political discourse, a means of resistance
at different historical junctures."—Dr. Rashida Hankin,
Islamica
"[A] very thoughtful and very brave book. . . . Should be required
reading not just for Muslim intellectuals and feminists, but also
for those non-Muslims, particularly Western feminists and so-called
experts, who scornfully dismiss Islam as 'sexist and
bigoted.'"—Asian Times
"[An] exemplary case of in-depth historical survey. . . . Women's
studies in general and Middle Eastern studies in particular are
much enriched by [this] work, which should be included in the
readings of all who wish to gain a sound understanding of Muslim
women and politics in the Middle East."—Haleh Afshar, Third World
Quarterly
"A meticulous historical analysis of the discourses on women and
society in Islamic countries."—Ethnic and Racial Studies
"I read it in a sitting for the fascination and unexpectedness of
the information."—Doris Lessing, Independent on Sunday
"This is a book that had to be written. This is a book that must be
read. No other general survey of women and gender in Islam exists.
I am deeply grateful to Leila Ahmed for giving us this
book."—Catharine R. Stimpson
"This thoughtful and thought-provoking book should be required
reading for anyone who is interested in the complexity of women's
experience."—Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
"A signal contribution to the question of Islam and gender as well
as a solid overview of the history of gender in the region. This is
a highly original, well-researched book that explores a topic of
great current interest in a responsible and enlightening
fashion."—Judith Tucker
"A signal contribution to the question of Islam and gender as well
as a solid overview of the history of gender in the region. This is
a highly original, well-researched book that explores a topic of
great current interest in a responsible and enlightening
fashion."—Judith Tucker
"Ahmed's book is a serious and independent-minded analysis of its
subject, the best-informed, most sympathetic and reliable one that
exists today. It is most powerful and compelling in its absence of
clichés and hedgings, and more than anyone before her Ahmed
discusses women and gender in Islam as a lived and contested
reality."—Edward W. Said
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