Synopses & Reviews
This groundbreaking collection of fifteen essays provides a greater understanding of the history of the Gulf and the Arab world as well as the history of Muslim women and women everywhere. The result of a project aimed at finding sources and studying the history of women in the Gulf, the articles are presented in a thematic and chronological order starting with ancient history, and then moving on to the medieval, early modern and contemporary periods. These present womens history before and after the coming of Islam, discourses regarding the life of women in early Islam and the contrast with their lived experiences, womens work and the diversity of jobs they performed, the family - and how it changed from one period to the other - and the legal system and laws dealing with women and family from the pre-modern to the modern periods.
About the Author
Amira Sonbol specialises in the history of modern Egypt, Islamic history and law, women, gender and Islam and is the author of several books including Women, the Family and Divorce Laws in Islamic History and Beyond the Exotic: Muslim Women's Histories. Professor Sonbol is Editor-in-Chief of Hawwa: the Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World. Amira Sonbol specialises in the history of modern Egypt, Islamic history and law, women, gender and Islam and is the author of several books including Women, the Family and Divorce Laws in Islamic History and Beyond the Exotic: Muslim Women's Histories. Professor Sonbol is Editor-in-Chief of Hawwa: the Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World.