Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives

In an age when Western feminism is continuously undergoing redefinition, the struggles of women in Muslim countries are often overlooked. This volume illustrates how women in Islamic societies have become more actively involved not only in learning their rights under the sharia (Islamic law) but in rereading this law to improve their status and gain increased equality and freedom. Surveying Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and Arab societies in general, the essays in feminism and Islam focus on such subjects as crimes of honor and the construction of gender in Arab societies; law and the desire for social control; women ad entrepreneurship; family legislation; and the political strategies of feminists in the Islam world.

Politics & Social Sciences

Yamani, Mai

Social Sciences

Ithaca Press

Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives (Ithaca Press Paperbacks)

Is Saudi Arabia really a homogeneous Wahhabi dominated state? In 1932 the Al Saud family incorporated the kingdom of Hijaz, once the cultural hub of the Arabian world, in to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The urban, cosmopolitan Hijazis were absorbed in to a new state whose codes of behavior and rules were determined by the Najdis, an ascetic desert people, from whom the Al Saud family came. But the Saudi rulers failed to fully integrate the Hijaz, which retains a distinctive identity to this day. In "Cradle of Islam", the product of years spent in Mecca, Medina, Jeddah and Taif, Mai Yamani traces the fortunes of the distinctive and resilient culture of the Hijazis, from the golden age of Hashemite Mecca to Saudi domination to its current resurgence. The Hijazis today emphasise their regional heritage in religious ritual, food, dress and language as a response to the 'Najdification' of everyday life. The Hijazi experience shows the vitality of cultural diversity in the face of political repression in the Arab world.

Cradle of Islam: The Hijaz and the Quest for Identity in Saudi Arabia

History

Middle East

I.B.Tauris

In 1932, the Al Saud family officially incorporated the Kingdom of the Hijaz into the new Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Hijazis became a people without a country of their own. Cradle of Islam focuses on contemporary Hijazi life and culture made subservient to the dominant national rules of Saudi Arabia, as dictated by a political and religious elite rooted in the central Najd region of the country. But centralisation was not enough to assimilate or tame Saudi Arabia's distinct regional cultures. The Al Saud family could rule but not fully integrate. This book is an insider's account of the hidden world of the Hijazis including their rituals which have helped to preserve Hijazi identity until now.

Cradle of Islam: The Hijaz and the Quest for an Arabian Identity

Structured around the themes of identity and change, this book examines the forces affecting the attitudes, motivation, and aspirations of the new generation in Saudi Arabia and explores the tension between perceptions of tradition and modernity. Crucial to this is an explanation by the youth of Saudi Arabia themselves of how they understand and explain this tension. How the ruling elite envision meeting the challenge of the new generation given the decline in the oil-based economy is central to this debate. While a redefinition of patriarchy is inevitable, globalization of identities represents a significant concern for the new Saudi Arabia in terms of modernizing an outdated education system and containing emerging Islamic trends among Saudi youth.

Changed Identities: Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia

Brookings Inst Pr