About the Author

Amira El-Azhary Sonbol is associate professor of Islamic history, law, and society at Georgetown University. She is author of Women of Jordan: Islam, Labor, and the Law; The New Mamluks: Egyptian Society and Modern Feudalism; and The Creation of the Medical Profession in Egypt, 1800-1922, and editor of Women, the Family, and Divorce Laws in Islamic History, each published by Syracuse University Press.

Reviews

[This book] is important for many reasons. First, it expands our knowledge of history, not only women’s history but also Middle East history and, in a larger sense, world history. The very range of the work is an impressive antidote to the narrow, single-topic historical studies of Muslim women often seen in this century—not only in scholarly offerings but also in scope. Professor Sonbol has made a serious and intellectually vital contribution by asking authors to critically examine sources for women’s history, primary sources, from scripture and archival records to art and popular culture. I know of no other such ambitious effort. A tour de force. . . . The scholarship is sound and often new and seminal to the field. This is an important work that addresses an array of specialties: religion, documents, field work, slavery, law, education, art and architecture, and popular culture.