Price of Honor: Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World
Author:
Genre: Nonfiction
Book Type: Paperback
Author:
Genre: Nonfiction
Book Type: Paperback
From Publishers Weekly
Spurred by her experiences as a young girl's mentor in Pakistan, American journalist Goodwin ( Caught in the Crossfire ) here surveys 10 countries in the Islamic world, interviewing hundreds of women and many men, concluding that the treatment of women is a barometer of the twin forces of modernity and Islamic extremism. Her book is solidly researched (she relates that Islam originally enhanced women's rights) and stylishly written, though her dependence on long quotes makes a few sections ponderous. Some of her stories are shocking: the sad fate of a girl bartered in marriage at age 11; the sexual abuse in jail of numerous women in Pakistan arrested for sex outside marriage ; the death threat against a Jordanian television commentator who criticized a smear campaign against women. Goodwin's account also includes thoughtful interviews with an Afghan resistance leader trying to use Islam to fight fundamentalism and an American-educated woman in the United Arab Emirates trying to balance freedom and faith. Goodwin suggests that the United States, overly dependent on imported oil, should beware of Islam's growing fundamentalism.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In this astonishing book, the product of four years of living in the Islamic world, journalist Goodwin ( Caught in the Crossfire , LJ 3/15/82) examines the movement that is aggressively spreading a fundamentalist version of Islam throughout much of the world. Her interviews with Muslim women in ten countries both fascinate and disturb, for their candor reveals the movement's profound and often devastating effects on them. Maintaining that Muslims understand the West far better than Westerners understand Islam, Goodwin warns against the Western ethnocentrism that could jeopardize both security and energy resources. Instead, she urges greater understanding of "the world's fastest growing religion" and of its treatment of women, who "are the wind sock showing which way the wind is blowing in the Islamic world"--or as one interviewee put it, "the canaries in the mines." The work itself enhances this understanding. A necessary purchase.
Spurred by her experiences as a young girl's mentor in Pakistan, American journalist Goodwin ( Caught in the Crossfire ) here surveys 10 countries in the Islamic world, interviewing hundreds of women and many men, concluding that the treatment of women is a barometer of the twin forces of modernity and Islamic extremism. Her book is solidly researched (she relates that Islam originally enhanced women's rights) and stylishly written, though her dependence on long quotes makes a few sections ponderous. Some of her stories are shocking: the sad fate of a girl bartered in marriage at age 11; the sexual abuse in jail of numerous women in Pakistan arrested for sex outside marriage ; the death threat against a Jordanian television commentator who criticized a smear campaign against women. Goodwin's account also includes thoughtful interviews with an Afghan resistance leader trying to use Islam to fight fundamentalism and an American-educated woman in the United Arab Emirates trying to balance freedom and faith. Goodwin suggests that the United States, overly dependent on imported oil, should beware of Islam's growing fundamentalism.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In this astonishing book, the product of four years of living in the Islamic world, journalist Goodwin ( Caught in the Crossfire , LJ 3/15/82) examines the movement that is aggressively spreading a fundamentalist version of Islam throughout much of the world. Her interviews with Muslim women in ten countries both fascinate and disturb, for their candor reveals the movement's profound and often devastating effects on them. Maintaining that Muslims understand the West far better than Westerners understand Islam, Goodwin warns against the Western ethnocentrism that could jeopardize both security and energy resources. Instead, she urges greater understanding of "the world's fastest growing religion" and of its treatment of women, who "are the wind sock showing which way the wind is blowing in the Islamic world"--or as one interviewee put it, "the canaries in the mines." The work itself enhances this understanding. A necessary purchase.
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