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Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women (Paperback)
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- Paperback $12.64
Short Description for Nine Parts of DesireWhen her poised and sophisticated yuppie assistant at the Cairo bureau of the "Wall Street Journal" suddenly 'adopted the uniform of a Muslim fundamentalist', the author sets out to discover the truth about women and Islam. Talking about the different lives women lead under Islam, here, she gives a diverse portrait of a little known world.
Full description- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
- Published: 22 February 2007
- Format: Paperback 272 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Gender Studies: Women | Islamic Studies | Sociology: Customs & Traditions | Social & Cultural Anthropology | Islam
- ISBN 13: 9780141029405 ISBN 10: 0141029404
- Sales rank: 3,460
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Reviews for Nine Parts of Desire
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IF YOU WANT TO KNO ABOUT ISLAM, READ "Nine Parts of Desire"
I'm a muslim man, but i cant deny this, there are a thousand of muslim women are say Geraldine Brooks, author of "Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, it's real and true story, thank you by mohammad
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Top review
if you only read one book about Muslims, do not make it this one.
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 Jordan, or Dubai, 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? 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. by Lindsey Griffith
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