Middle East/North African Lit discussion
2013 readings (Regional tour)
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Women of Maghreb (May –June 2013) – non-fiction
I've already read Dreams of Trespass, think i'll go for Talk of Darkness
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Hi Hagar :)
Great ... I have "Dreams of Trespass" so I will be reading that one
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Marieke wrote: "oh gosh...decisions.... :/"
I made it even harder for you :p , I added some historical recommendation , in case anyone would like to take that path .
Also I added "An Algerian Childhood" from our main discussion ; that is an Autobiographical Narratives .
http://www.algeria.com/blog/an-algeri...
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I've enjoyed other books of hers and i just requested this from the library at work so i'll probably be reading this with you.
Wow! Great selection, more to add to my ever expanding TBR list
I am going with Dreams of Trespass
I am going with Dreams of Trespass
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I've read Dreams of Trespass and I loved it! I'm currently working on Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam but if I finish it up quickly enough I may also join in reading A Street in Marrakech since I own it and haven't read it yet.
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It's on my to-read list :)
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Marieke wrote: "This will happen a lot, Mal! :)"
I need 8 pairs of eyes to read every single book!! Long life too to get thru them all :D
I need 8 pairs of eyes to read every single book!! Long life too to get thru them all :D
Will these be added to the bookshelf for future reference?
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absolutely!
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I think I wull start after the holidays , it is Easter and Sham el-Nessim in Egypt .
Well I'm about half way through 'Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam' but in all fairness I started reading that a while back. I'm hoping to finish it up and start reading 'A Street In Marrakech' sometime this month.
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Only on pg. 25 of A Street, but I have started.
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Keep us updated :)
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I started " dreams of Trespass" , just the first chapters talking about borders ; political borders and borders between Men and women... very interesting/unexpected comparison !
the author childhood takes place in Fes that has a very long history .
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I’ve been meaning to read Talk of Darkness for a year or so, and avoided it because the subject matter is so harsh. However it’s a short book and it’s a valuable testimony of a female prisoner in the “years of lead” in Morocco. The most interesting part to me was actually in the very beginning:
“At that moment I recalled what my father used to tell me whenever I woke up as a little girl terrified by a nightmare, about the many tales from A Thousand and One Nights that he would recount in the evenings when he felt relaxed, stories of kidnappings and abducted women and girls. My father would say, ‘These stories happened hundreds of years ago.’ It never crossed his mind, God rest his soul, that they could happen again in our time.” (p. 1)
The experience of prison (torture, dehumanization, solitude, insults, etc.) challenged the author’s sense of reality. It reminded her of fantastic stories come true, in this case, horrific stories. I’m constantly amazed at the intersections of stories and human experience. They give us alternative worlds, a broader spectrum to our human experience, sometimes guidance, perhaps entertainment. In this book, they gave the author a way to mentally and emotionally process the horror that had become her life, and then as a way to understand it years later.
I am on pg. 75 now in A street and I am enjoying it, Right now the family is trying to get accustomed to living in the Rue Tresor, where they are not yet fitting in. As I am reading this I keep thinking and wondering how much has changed since this book was written. I think it has a 1973 copyright. My daughter has been to Morocco twice, she loves it. The first time was in Fez, with her college group and she was there for a month. She lived with a host family, and she loved it, they all spoke English, some better than others and she made friends who have become her facebook buddies. So many things have changed, so although I am enjoying this book I am thinking of it only as back history and I know I will want to read a more current book about this area to see how it has changed.
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Wow , Great to hear your reactions , but not sure I will be able to read the book , actually I haven't read any prison literature , I run away from each book I added to my to read list that represent this category -coward me !
Diane S. wrote: " so although I am enjoying this book I am thinking of it only as back history and I know I will want to read a more current book about this area to see how it has changed. .."
Good point ,I guess I can say the same about " dreams of Trespass" , we will have anther two months with Maghreb ( I guess August and September ) we will see if we can read books that reflect today more . .
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I'm almost done with Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam, I have I think 48 more pages to go. It's the last chapter and then the short conclusions section. I'm hoping to finish it up by the end of this week (if my children permit) and then I'm hoping to start up on A Street in Marrakech: A Personal View of Urban Women in Morocco which has been sitting on my bookshelf far too long not being read.
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Well I usually wait till I actually finish a book before I make many comments on it but so far I have mixed feelings about it. I really enjoyed reading the third Chapter "Inside the Palace Walls: Life at court" but I'm very much into music and dance ethnology. I find it very interesting to read about the ways people entertained and expressed themselves. Poetry tends to be a major example of medieval Islamic art but dancing and music were a very important part of entertaining each other in the harem (where most women spent a majority of their time living their in relative seclusion... at least royalty and upper class citizens).I suspect there will be some more enjoyable information in the chapter I have left to read on "Outside the Palace Walls: Daily Life" which I'm guessing will contain some similar information as to the Life At Court chapter.
I found it interesting the the role of women in Fatimid society in general as being sometimes elevated due to their loyalty to Fatima as view of her as the ideal model of Islamic Womanhood. Women's roles in the early da'wa and spread of Fatimid ideas was interesting since they apparently had a larger role than seen in other Islamic empires. This aspect was the focus of chapter one "Working the Propoganda Spindle". I didn't care much at all for chapter two "Family Ties: Women and Genealogy in Fatimid Dynastic History" which to be honest reads kind of like genesis in the bible. It's pretty much so and so begot so and so who begot so and so except that it also includes all of the known wives, mothers, aunts, sisters, female cousins, daughters and nieces. It took me a long time to get through and I'd recommend anyone who is looking to read through this book looking for any USEFUL information simply skip chapter two... unless genealogy is your interest. It contained almost no useful information in that chapter at all for me.
Chapters 4 "Battleaxes and Formidable Aunties" and 5 "Women of Substance in the Fatimid Courts" gave some history and context to some Islams more famous and powerful women such as Sitt al-Mulk and Queen Arwa which I found interesting. I don't know much about them in the first place and that's definitely something I've been wanting to increase my knowledge of, I'm guessing perhaps the Forgotten Queens of Islam would probably be a good place to start. So that's on my reading list for another time. Those chapters also addressed a lot of the ways in which women acquired and spent their wealth which often was used for archetectural projects which could also return an income. In other words, they donated something like a bathhouse but the bathhouse itself makes money which they then continued to receive a cut of so that they had continued revenue to fall back on. These projects in turn promoted their fame and stature and suggested to the public their level of piety... although I'm not sure how pious it is when everyone knows that your were the sponsor and your name is plastered all over the walls.
I can't say that it's better or worse than other books on the subject since there really aren't many books on the subject of Fatimid Women. I would say that as far as organization and writing style I preferred Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium which is a similar period of time but deals instead with Byzantine women. I'm personally less interested in Byzantium than in Medeival Islamic empires but I would say they format and writing were better in that book than this one. I have seen a few books on women in Medieval Islam in general but I've not yet read them so I can't really compare them in that way. Overall, I enjoyed the content but I think the authors tend to stuff the text with unnecessary things like continuing to explain genealogical ties (despite having devoted an entire chapter to it) and sometimes trying to ... over-explain(?) something that is actually fairly simple and needed no further explanation.
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I guess we have time and I am very interested in following "Children of the New World" discussion .
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Wow Cassandra ; that seems an analytic review , I will come back to read it , I have to go now :(
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Melanie wrote: "My favorite basic historical overview of the Arab peoples because I find it accessible, balanced, and a good combination of comprehensive and concise."I have never read this in entirety, I've only read and quoted passages from here and there in the text for research and papers. From the sections I've read it does seem fairly accessible and is both comprehensive and concise. I do own it and I started last year forcing myself to actually read cover to cover through all of my books. I tend to buy books specifically for a section that is covered that pertains to my research and papers but then I don't read the rest. So far my favorite historical overview though is actually Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes which is not only accessible but reads like a good novel, is also balanced and contains a good combination of comprehensive and concise. Obviously the size of the two overviews shows A History of the Arab Peoples is clearly more comprehensive but I think the story arc format helps to remember thing better than the more dry fact sort approach in A History of, not that Hourani's work isn't good or is overly dry just more so from the parts I've read in comparison with Ansary's work. From what I can tell both are excellent works and should be read.
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My research is largely on Dance ethnology and ethnography (which basically is the fancy way of saying I study dance history both in singular cultures and in comparison with other cultures) of the MENA region from ancient times to the present. So I research things like dance in Acnient Egypt, Mesopotamia, early pre-Islamic and post Islamic Amazigh(Berber) dance, Persian dance (past and modern), dance in early Islamic Empires, Byzantine Dance, Ottoman dances, Gypsy dances within the Middle East such as dances done by the Qawliya, Ghawazee, Luri, etc..., dances done in North Eastern India (which had some cross over with Persian dances especially during the Mughal period), and then of course modern folk dances like Saudi Ardah, Lebanese Debke, Moroccan Guedra, as well as modern performance arts like Raqs Sharqi.But I was also referring in general to research done for college papers. Those are a big reason why I usually only read one or two chapters that pertain to the subject since you only have so much time in a semester.
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Cassandra wrote: "My research is largely on Dance ethnology and ethnography (which basically is the fancy way of saying I study dance history both in singular cultures and in comparison with other cultures) of the M..."
Cassandra, I think your research sounds so interesting! I do hope you'll give us a chance to know a little bit more about your work. If my memory is right, this is for a Ph. D.? Did you write articles about your findings? If so, I would really like to read them!
Cassandra, I think your research sounds so interesting! I do hope you'll give us a chance to know a little bit more about your work. If my memory is right, this is for a Ph. D.? Did you write articles about your findings? If so, I would really like to read them!
Miss Juliette wrote: Cassandra, I think your research sounds so interesting! I do hope you'll give us a chance to know a little bit more about your work. If my memory is right, this is for a Ph. D? Did you write articles about your findings? If so, I would really like to read them!"Unfortunately it's mostly personal research. Most Dance programs require actual dancing so as a Muslim I'm not comfortable actually performing in front of non-Mahram people. There are very few dance programs that will allow for theory only study and they are unfortunately not an option as they are not in my current state and I cannot uproot my family to go study it. I don't believe I have any of my research publicly posted. I do have a more generalized web-site about "Bellydance" and Middle Eastern Folk dances which are generally consider sub-genres. Other than that I have a digital copy of a textbook I've written that I use to teach an on-line Middle Eastern Dance History course through my website. I'm currently revising it with some new information after which I'll be starting on a second volume. Of course being a textbook it's not as much original research as reporting on what other people have said and telling it as a cohesive story from those various sources without interjecting your own bias. It's currently about 160 pages without appendices and index before the new revisions and additions I'll be adding. I could send you a .pdf version of the 1st edition but it does have several errors in it (I believe in the later chapters mostly) that escaped proofing.
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Marieke wrote: "Would you be able to do that type of research in an anthropology program? Seems so fascinating. And I love dance, although I don't much dance myself."Kind of, but it's better to do it through a Dance History track as they actually have courses and resources that address dance specifically. The better anthropology programs are also not close enough and I can't uproot my kids and husband just to study them. I keep hoping one of the better programs will eventually make it open to on-line courses as is the current trend but they sure are taking their time.
Cassandra wrote: "Miss Juliette wrote: Cassandra, I think your research sounds so interesting! I do hope you'll give us a chance to know a little bit more about your work. If my memory is right, this is for a Ph. ..."
I just found your website, and the info about MEDU. I'll start there and probably will have tons of questions to ask you along my reading! :)
I just found your website, and the info about MEDU. I'll start there and probably will have tons of questions to ask you along my reading! :)
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Kind of, but it's better to d..."
that makes sense; it's pretty awesome, though, that you are able to carry on more or less independently to explore the things you are most interested in. :)
Enjoyed Dreams of Trespass. Left me wondering if much has changed in the harems to date. I was not surprised by the information that was shared but definitely feel more enlightened and educated on harems. Enjoyed the subtle voice of feminism throughout the story - fair and balanced not to mention respectful.
So I finally finished Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam and since I already commented on my thoughts from other chapters I'll mostly just focus on the last chapter and conclusions. First I'd like to comment on the relevancy of the book to the Maghreb in general. Although the Fatimids did control pretty much all of north Africa and their power extended even out to the Yemen where Queen Arwa was a staunch supporter of Fatimid power there is relatively little about the Maghreebi Fatimid women in this text. In fact most of it is within the context of dawah (proselytizing). Fatimid ideology essentially took hold in the Maghreb (or the outer reaches of dar-al-Islam) and grew outwards as Fatimid Shi'ism took hold and rose in influence. Women were a pivotal role in the dawah scene apparently but after this we don't here much about the women in the Maghreb which is a real shame. Of course it's not a surprise that much of the book focuses on Fatimids in Egypt since that was their power base but I had hoped to read a little more about Fatimid women in all parts of the Fatimid empire.As I expected the last Chapter was one I found interesting including what is the equivalent of 'Good Housekeeping' from the Fatimid period in which Ibn Ridwan recommends "that houses and living rooms should be spacious to allow good air circulation and sunlight, that they should be tiled with marble and paved or plastered with gypsum. Floors should be cleaned regularly and while in hot weather they ought to be covered with cool mats, in winter they should be covered with warm carpets, felts, silk brocade and wool. The less priviledged could use affordable lining such as tettered mats and pelts of rams. In hot weather , water should be profusely sprinkled around the house, fountains and pools should be filled and water-skin containers as well as silver, lead, ceramic, and earthenware vessels should be placed in different corners of the house. As a cooling device, the outside of the house should be sheltered with many fans and canvas tents. The living rooms ought t face north and furnishings should include cooling aromatics such as violet, rose, narcissus, wild thyme, and mandrake. The interiors should ideally be perfumed with camphor, rosewater, sandalwood and fragrant oils. In cold weather, rooms should be equipped with stoves and furnished with branches of warm flowers such as narcissus, thyme, citron, camomile, lily of the valley and jasmine. The most appropriate home deodorants would be ambergis, wood of aloe and spices like cardomom, frankincense and mastik."
So, how does everyone's home compare? I know mine certainly isn't the model of Fatimid housekeeping :)
Apparently women had quite a bit of freedoms up until the reign of Al-Hakim who put some severe restriction on their movements essentially confining them to their homes. Interestingly the Caliph's power was not absolute because there are records of women appealing to a qadi to makes exceptions for them. The book cites one example of a woman who wanted to go out after curfew to see her lover and tld the qadi it was to see her blind brother... her husband was not happy when he came home to find his wife not there and ended up complaining to the both the qadi and al-Hakim. The results were not pretty.
According to this book prior to al-Hakim it was the norm for many women to go outdoors unveiled, to drink wine and mix liberally with men" which was apparently reported in 415(hijri)/1024(gregorian) by al-Musabbihi. Christians and Jews lived in the Fatimid lands with relatively no differences some even obtaining high powitions and wealth until again al-Hakim imposed harsher restircitions including much like nazi germany requiring them to wear certain colors or uniforms almost to differentiate them so they could not use Muslim amenities.
This chapter also points out that women we're relatively literate. Many women were considered educated at the time because they were encouraged to recieve religious education meaning memorization of the Qur'an and hadith but there were a number of famous and well recorded women calligraphers who's calligraphy was so good it was said to be on par with the qadi's. Additional sources suggest that many common women were not just educated but were quite literate despite the fact that few poems, literary works, or scholarly works exist. However many women apparently worked at copying Qur'ans and hadith which they then sold or rented out. This literacy extended not only to the Muslim inhabitants but also the Christians and Jews who also appeared to have relatively high literacy rates.
So yeah, overall I felt the 3rd and 6th chapters dealing with daily life inside and outside the palace (i.e. courtly/noble life and commoner/peasant life) were by far the best and most interesting chapters. They gave what I felt was the best overall picture of women's lives in this period. The other chapters focused on things that were somewhat peripheral to the story of women's lives.
I'm looking forward to starting A Street in Marrakech: A Personal View of Urban Women in Morocco tonight and I'm hoping I can read through it a little quicker than this book since it's almost Summer vacation for my kids and then it's so hard to get quiet reading time to myself.
Mal wrote: "Enjoyed Dreams of Trespass. Left me wondering if much has changed in the harems to date. I was not surprised by the information that was shared but definitely feel more enlightened and educated on ..."Okay, granted I've never been to Morocco myself (yet) my understanding is that Mernissi grew up during a time when the traditional harem was essentially being phased out. Now from my understanding currently it's structured more or less like other places in which the harem exists really only as a psychological and social separation in which men and women segregate themselves when together but that there is really no physical harem in which the women retreat. In fact from what I hear mixing between genders at social functions is becoming more and more common especially in urban areas as Moroccan culture seems to be trending towards a more liberal social ideology. Although that could be reversing with some of the more recent waves of Islamic movements in the Arab world. I don't have enough relevant material to draw conclusions about current trends.
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Yes Cassandra, I can confirm your thoughts, having lived and conducted research in Morocco for varying amounts of time pretty much every year since 2000. The home that Mernissi describes is a home of the past. It shapes peoples memories and ideals, but hardly anyone (even Islamists) would see it as a viable possibility for today. There's a great Moroccan film that shows this kind of home in Fes and explores social changes in Morocco of the 1990s. It's called البحث عن زوج مراتي / A La Recherche Du Mari De Ma Femme / Search for my wife's husband. It's available on Youtube here (in Moroccan Arabic with French subtitles--sorry I don't know of an English version--tell me if you find one!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7lLex...
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If you like the housekeeping details, then you might also really enjoy the descriptions in A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgment in One Volume. His work is such a treasure because it gives us a rare glimpse of daily life around the mediterranean in the middle ages, based on all kinds of manuscripts.
Also, I hope that you can travel to Morocco some day isa :)
I'll have to watch the movie sometime... my French is minimal as is my Arabic (especially Moroccan dilaect) but maybe between the two I'll be able to grasp the basic content of what's being said ;)I'm hoping to someday make it to Morocco, I've got a list of sites that I want to see (several historical mosques and such... I'm a sucker for Islamic Architecture too) and I'd absolutely love to go for the Marrakesh Folk Festival and hopefully see some fantastic Amazigh dance and music performances. I'll have to check out the book you mentioned. I'll see if my library has it first. It looks interesting. You could check out A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period it does cover a small section on the Fatimid and Zirid period specifically in Morocco. I've not read it but it's on my list to read someday. Women in Islam/from Medieval to Modern Times may contain references to the Maghreb but I don't know. I didn't find any on-line previews that allowed me to see what it covers a little better although it still looks fascinating to me and I'm hoping to read it soon... after I finish about a dozen other books I have lying around.
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How is everyone's reading going? Happy long weekend to those of you in the U.S.
Middle East/North African Lit
Books mentioned in this topic
Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan (other topics)A Border Passage: From Cairo to America – A Woman's Journey (other topics)
For the Living and the Dead: The Funerary Laments of Upper Egypt, Ancient and Modern (other topics)
Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (other topics)
A Street in Marrakech (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Fatema Mernissi (other topics)Nayra Atiya (other topics)
Qasim Amin (other topics)
Regarding members recommendations in our main topic , it seems that there was some intrest in reading about women in this region .
Here are the recommendations mentioned there , so please post if you can join this discussion by reading any of these books or a different one (please specify).
Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood
Return to Childhood: The Memoir of a Modern Moroccan Woman
Talk of Darkness
A Street in Marrakech: A Personal View of Urban Women in Morocco
Wounding Words
Algerian Childhood
Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity
Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
Historical recommendations :
Forgotten Queens of Islam
Feminist Traditions in Andalusi-Moroccan Oral Narratives
Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam
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2/5/2013
confirmed being read by some members so far
Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood
A Street in Marrakech: A Personal View of Urban Women in Morocco
Talk of Darkness
Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam
Forgotten Queens of Islam