Nine Parts Of Desire: The Hidden World Of Islamic Women (1995) - Plot & Excerpts
Aaargh. I just wrote a bloody long review of this book then the ******* goodreads website ate it. Anyway, starting over...." Read, in the name of thy LordWho hath created all things, whoHath created man of congealed blood.Read, by thy most beneficent Lord,Who taught us the use of the pen,who teaches man that which he knoweth not."The Koran: The Chapter of Congealed BloodI have been living, working and travelling in the Middle East since I was nineteen years old. That's over eleven years now. In that time I have taken buses, boats, service taxis, trains, planes, lorries, scooters, camels and horses to get across Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. I've travelled from the Iraqi Border to Istanbul, from Aqaba to Aleppo and still have yet to reconcile my feelings on various attitudes towards women. I suspect it is something I will never fully make my peace with.Geraldine Brooks has written an approachable, easy-to-read guide to the Koran and what is says about women. She makes a clear distinction between the teachings of the Koran and the Hadith as how they are then interpreted by various different groups. Interpretations vary widely across the pan-Islamic world hence the variety of rules and regulations which govern womens lives vary quite greatly from country to country. However, this is only a very introductory guide - this is not a definitive examination... go out, seek other books and talk to other women! You will not finish this book and walk away with a complete and unbiased understanding of the Islamic faith in its many, rich and varied forms. Brooks, in a relatively privileged position as an established journo was able to talk to numerous successful powerful women, including Queen Noor of Jordan, several of her female advisers and one of the daughters of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Not your average cross section of middle eastern women by any stretch of the imagination.My time in the Middle East usually involved living and working in fairly rural communities, although that said, I also lived in Aqaba for a fair period of time and the shores of Red Sea at Aqaba are graced with a pizza hut, a Radisson and a Movenpick hotel - not exactly small potatoes.The women I have met, like Brooks' group, came from a variety of backgrounds; young professionals who went sans headscarf in the city, young village wives newly married, family matriarchs and government officials. A gentleman who used to work for me had two wives; a town wife and a country wife. Country wife was the first wife and a marriage of love. She lived off the desert highway in a small freeholding with goats, sheep, chickens, vines and a lovingly tended vegetable patch. She was unable to have children so a second wife, the town wife had been acquired through an arranged marriage. Town wife was young, spangly and lived in a small modern air conditioned apartment with a big TV. Quite a stark contract to the beautiful but humble dwelling of the wife out in the country who drew her water from the well. Both wives knew of each others existence but chose not to live together in the same house. All of the men I have worked with have treated me with kindness, respect and deference. They have paid me what they believe is their highest compliment, often telling me that i'm "as good as man". As massively sexist as that sounds it is just the way they see things and I'm not about to cack-handedly try to alter their benchmark or world view. Through them I met their charming, erudite, spirited and happy wives and daughters who were knowledgeable and talented at things I was not. Sure I got my "good as a man tag" by being good at 4x4 off road desert driving and being a good marksman when handed a rifle or semi automatic, but I cannot sew, weave, bake bread, sing, dance or grow and maintain a magnificent garden in an arid desert environment. If I lived in the Middle East I think I would value those talents more too. As a woman who has lived and worked in these countries I can empathise with some of the situations that Brooks describes. Here are my top 5 "not great being a woman" experiences, in no particular order:1. Having my ass groped in Martyr Square, Damscus (I avenged myself by punching the offending busy-handed git by smacking him in the side of the head. The two French guys I was travelling with were very surprised by the sudden flurry of violence as they hadn't noticed what was going on. NB many local gents drinking tea in the vicinity applauded - apparently avenging honour is not just a male perogative).2. Having my breasts grabbed while walking along the Corniche in Alexandria. Strolling along, minding my own when a boy of about 13 ran up put out both hands, grabbed, squeezed and then legged it. Random.3. The Tampax Police, Amman - While departing from Amman I was searched in the ladies privacy booth by a female security guard who was lovely and polite and patient to my child-like arabic. She emptied my bag and out fell a cluster of tampons. She asked what they were. I tried to explain (cue basic arabic and a fairly graphic mime). No. She shook her head and called her supervisor. The supervisor turned up, opened all them all, snapped them in half and then gave them back to me. Uh, thanks, I kind of needed those. Needless to say they went in the bin.4. Narrowly escaping serious sexual assault on board a bus to Van Golu.5. Being chased by men on scooters near my pansion in Tripoli, Lebanon.See, none of those experiences were exactly great but they have never deterred me from returning to work in this part of the world because the good far outweighs any bad experiences perpetrated by a few ignorant individuals. I have worn many elements of Islamic dress and have an extensive collection of head scarves. There is more beyond the veil than many might expect.
Before writing Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks worked as a reporter (Middle East correspondent) for The Wall Street Journal and lived in numerous countries throughout the Middle East for almost a decade. She seems to have been personal friends with everyone: dinners with Queen Noor of Jordan, casual visits with Khomeini’s daughters in Iran, conversations with a woman who personally helped hold the American Embassy hostages at gunpoint in Iran in 1979—all are discussed in the book as though it’s completely normal, with absolutely no speck of a self-congratulatory “and I was there!” attitude.Throughout her years in these countries (Iraq, smack in the middle of the first Gulf War; Iran; Israel; Palestine, where she chases down the teenager who smashed her windshield with a rock and subsequently lives with his polygamous family for many weeks; Saudi Arabia; Egypt); throughout her years in these locales her consistent and determined goal is to understand the lives of Muslim women. In particular, she focuses on how each of these different cultures uses Islam to explain/justify vastly different treatments of women, despite the fact that the Koran is often either silent on the subject or actually says the opposite of what is being espoused. She goes to great lengths to explain precisely what the Koran says (as a speaker of Arabic, she’s able to explain many inconsistent translations) and with her vast reporter’s talent she gives a very clear overview of Islam’s beginnings, always explaining how these beginnings relate to current traditions.Many of the worst human rights abuses are actually not “in the Koran,” but rather than using this as a defense of the religion, as many do, she is outraged that its leaders are not speaking out against those who commit terrible crimes in the misguided name of the religion. For example, clitoridectomy is not mentioned in the Koran, and Geraldine quotes a female Muslim writer who is angry that people don’t know “this was an African practice that has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.” Geraldine’s well-thought-out response is to wonder why such people “turn their wrath on the commentators criticizing the practices, and not on the crimes themselves….could [the Muslim writer:] not have taken the trouble to reflect that one in five Muslim girls lives in a community where some form of clitoridectomy is sanctioned and religiously justified by local Islamic leaders?”Geraldine is highly skilled at providing an insider’s understanding of and respect for these cultures while simultaneously explaining all of the inconsistencies, hypocrisies, and outright lies. I was reminded often of Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven—partly because the writers are similarly talented at explaining a religion, but also because the two religions really are surprisingly similar, with their incredibly intense fear of women’s independence and their fondness for polygamy and child brides. Most eerily similar of all is the fact that both Muhammad and Brigham Young received “revelations” about polygamy that were oddly in tune to problems the prophets were facing that day. “Muhammad’s increasing number of divine revelations on women seemed more and more influenced by the need to achieve tranquility in his own household. Aisha, for one, wasn’t afraid to point out the coincidence. ‘It seems to me,’ she said tartly, ‘your Lord makes haste to satisfy your desires.’” This insightful Aisha, by the way, was the wife that Muhammad married when she was six. She is one of the most fascinating people in the book’s history section.The conclusion of the book—just the last fifteen pages—has a tone rather different from the rest and very, very similar to the end of Infidel. Suddenly, it becomes clear that Geraldine is trying to warn us. Though I was unaware of it at the time, the first 95 percent of the book was meant to be background knowledge so that I would understand and heed the message in the conclusion. Like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geraldine sees danger looming. What’s especially interesting about this message is that this book was written in 1995. Islamic fundamentalists had not yet hit the mainstream media and nobody had heard of any terrorist attacks; this book was ahead of its time.EXCERPT:“A United Nations human rights report finds Sudan’s Koran-based punishments in conflict with the international human rights agreements the country has signed. In response, the government of Sudan threatens the report’s Romanian-born author with death…. In Algeria two women are gunned down at a bus stop because they are not veiled…. Like the Rushdie fatwa, these incidents come at us from so deep in left field that we, as Westerners, have no coherent way to think about them. We shrug. Weird foreigners. Who understands them? Who needs to? And yet, as I made my home in London, gradually shaking the last few fine crumbs of Cairo dust from the pages of my books, I found that the background noise of Islam remained always there, in the distance, like a neighbor hammering. And eventually I accepted that it was neither possible nor right to ignore it.”
What do You think about Nine Parts Of Desire: The Hidden World Of Islamic Women (1995)?
Hmm... Personally it always makes me uncomfortable when an outsider criticizes and analyzes a religion that is not their own. There are enough people from Muslim countries who are scathingly critical of their own culture and write about it. When someone from the West does it, it always appears to be condescending even when they are trying to be objective. This book was written in the 90s, so while not all the information is necessarily dated, it's definitely not up to date. This was also the time period when I was traveling regularly to the Middle East and was reading a lot about the region, so there was really nothing new in it regarding the religion, history or culture that I didn't already know about. What was different of course were our personal experiences. I was traveling to countries that were stable at the time; Egypt, Yemen, Turkey and Morocco and my experiences were overwhelmingly positive. I never traveled to the trouble spots; Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Iraq. I did very much enjoy the chapter that takes place in Cairo where the author wants to learn to dance, finds a teacher, buys a costume and finally performs in the lowest of lowest class night clubs to make a statement about the treatment of dancers. It made me laugh! All and all, this book might be an interesting read for people who have never been to the region, however for those many Westerners who are already biased toward that part of the world, it would only further confirm all their negative feelings. What makes me so sad is that as I write this, in 2014, the situation is worse than ever, with ISIS making the Ayatollahs of Iran seem moderate in comparison! I do agree 100% with her assertion that the real villain has been Saudi Arabia ( the government and not necessarily the people themselves) all along and it is time for the Western countries to accept this. Although this book truly was well written, I am fed up with reading books "about" the Middle East or Islam from Western authors (memoirs excepted). If I am going to read anymore books on the subject, I'd rather read authors from the countries of origin.
—Jalilah
A very detailed examnation of first hand experiences with Islamic women in the Middle East. I hadn't read anything by Brooks before, though two of her novels are in my TBR pile, and picked this up at Borders going out of business sale because it looked interesting.Brooks is one brave mama, I must say.The presentation is rather interesting and it is somewhat surprsing, at least to the reader, that even women who are fundamentalist or anti-American (or Anti-Jewish even) are presented in such a light that while you dislike or hated thier politics (or isms), you like the women. This is a far more open approach than what it makes it on to American news, and reminds me of the International News Network before Al Gore brought it and turned it into Current. Thank God, for MHZ.At times the book will make you laugh, as when people show up to a college wanting to arrest St. Thomas Aquinis. At times, the book will frustate you, as when when talking about female geneital cutting (ruining, mutialating(and strangely timely for me, considering I know a woman who revealed that it had be done to her). Imensely readable.
—Chris
I live in Dubai and know a lot of people who have read this book, besides myself. I am an American, so you'd think my perspective would be similar to Brooks', but it's not. It is true, there are extreme, evil, awful and just wrong things that happen in the name of fundumental Islam, and I know I have shared stories with expat friends about them. But I and everyone I know who has read this book have been left with a bad taste. Brooks is a very good, engaging writer, and I did learn some things from this book, so I wouldn't disregard it completely. But I did find myself wondering why Brooks has such an agenda to convince the world of Islam's evil. Maybe she is bitter from her own experiences during the years she spent reporting in the Middle East. Brooks picks a lot of specific extreme examples and pretends to balance them with positive stories, but she alway ends on a negative note. I would have liked to see more discussion of the places in the world where Muslims live alongside other religions in relative tolerance. Places like the United Arab Emirates, where the government itself makes a concerted effort to inform people about the difference between the cultural traditions of Arabic lands and the practices which are actually drawn from the Koran. I felt the book omitted a needed discussion of the Muslim women (and men) who had left their home countries when fundamentalist regimes gained power. How many Muslim communities are there like this in the world? In Europe, for instance. And yet the book tries to pin the injustices it discusses purely on Islam, rather than the regimes in power in the middle east. Brooks seems to say, yes, there are Muslim countries where things aren't so bad, but still, all the problems they do have stem from Islam. If you are willing to do the work of reading a lot more to balance Brooks' perspective with more information, then it is probably worthwhile to read this book. On the other hand, if you only read one book about Muslims, do not make it this one.
—Lindsey
