Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women | Geraldine Brooks

Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women | Geraldine Brooks | Fascinating view of women in Islam

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Nine Parts of Desi...

	Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women Geraldine Brooks Anchor, 1995 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 142 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Slightly dated but still very informative book

Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks details, as the subtitle says, the HIdden World of Islamic Women. Brooks is an Australian reporter who spent the late 80s and early 90s doing a lot of Middle East reporting, and spent a lot of time with Muslim women in various Middle Eastern countries at a time when fundamentalism was on the rise and had already triumphed in a few countries. She spoke with women who embraced a return to traditional women's roles (often symbolized by taking on the veil or chador or otherwise covering oneself and turning away from Western fashion and styles) and those who resisted it in countries like Egypt and Lebanon, which had had a more liberated tradition, and those trying to negotiate for greater liberalism for the first time in areas like Saudi Arabia and the gulf states.

Ms. Brooks never takes her own personal reactions and opinions out of picture but examines Islamic beliefs carefully, bringing Islamic history of the first Muslim women, the wives and children of Muhammad himself, and the writings of the Koran and hadiths to bear on the modern day issues. She finds at times surprising amounts of liberation in the thoroughly fundamentalist nation of Iran as well as hidden hypocrisies in supposedly more "forward thinking" countries. She does differentiate between Koranic customs and tribal customs (particularly the practice of female genital mutilations)but does not let Islam off the hook entirely, pointing out that 20% of Muslim women live in areas that practice some form of genital mutilation and yet it is rarely spoken out against and most people who practice it believe it is officially sanctioned by the Koran.

The bulk of Ms. Brooks stories were researched in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period of great upheaval and change but only the start of another decade and a half of continuing change in the Middle East and the Islamic world in general. I found myself continually wondering what had become of the women she had interviewed, a decade and a half later, and how their opinions had changed or not changed. Alas, Ms. Brooks seems to have left reporting behind for the life of the novelist so the follow up remains for someone else to carry out, but this book still stands as an excellent overview of the varied worlds of Muslim women, even if it is a bit out of date. It's easy to see why it is frequently assigned as a text in college courses and it's well worth a read for any interested layperson curious about Islam and the role of women within it, as well as in a part of the world that remains a central focus of current events and politics.

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Fascinating view of women in Islam

I've been reading various books on Islam, the Middle East, the war, and various related topics for some time now. This book is somewhat unique in that it's not old, but not that new either, having been written a decade ago. The author, is a convert from Catholicism to Judaism, a native of Australia who now lives in the States with her author husband (Tony Horwitz of "Confederates in the Attic"). She went to the Middle East as a correspondent in the early 90s, and wrote this book in an attempt to understand the plight and situation of women who are Muslim. The result is very interesting, a clear and illuminating account of the different situations women face in various Muslim countries, and how these things are changing. Because the book is a decade old, things have of course changed a bit here and there; but the differences she outlines are there, regardless, and very interesting.

For instance, the author makes it clear that while Iran is a fundamentalist Muslim state, the status of women in the country is much better there than it is in our supposed ally, Saudi Arabia. Iranian women hold offices in their government (there are even deputy ministers), can have driver's licenses, and walk the streets safely, admittedly while robed. In Saudi Arabia they can't do any of those things, and of course the author makes it clear that the government there suppresses dissent out of fear that they'll wind up like the Shah.

Brooks looks at the society and its attitude towards women in various parts of the Arab world. She even comes rather close to getting raped at one point, and spends a lot of time talking with various women, and of course with men who talk to her about the role of women in their countries.

I enjoyed this book a good deal. The author has a sense of humor, recounting the incident where Muslim Clerical Police showed up at a university in Beirut to arrest Thomas Aquinas, because they found some of his writings objectionable. She illuminates her points well, and discusses the issues involved carefully. I don't know that I agree with all of her points (she's more confident that the Iranian Revolutionary government is positive) but she makes them well. I would recommend this book highly.

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I couldn't put this one down!

After I finished this book I was dying to read more, I went to the library and I picked up biographies on some of the personalities, I began reading more and more about Islam, the middle east, etc. This was exceedingly well written and I have recommended it to everyone I know.

A Peek Under The Veil

What a wonderful read! I love all of Brooks' book, but I think this is the best by far! She takes the reader into a forbidden world. What a journey!

reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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