A collection of 18 essays that covers a wide range of material and re-evaluates women's studies and Middle Eastern studies, Muslim women and the Shari'a courts, the Ottoman household, Dhimmi communities, family law, morality and violence.

This study of modern Egypt aims to open the debate regarding new terms and methods for understanding the Middle East and Islamic societies. Sonbol shows continuity in the division of Egyptian society into two groups: the Khassa which tried to impose a hegemonic culture, and the opposing Amma.

An incisive study of the past, present, and future of Jordanian and Palestinian women women and issues of employment, education, human rights, Islamic law, and legal practice. Focusing specifically on Jordanian and Palestinian women, Amira El-Azhary Sonbol shows the legal constraints extant in a number of legal codes, namely penal codes that permit violence against Muslim women and personal status laws that require a husband's permission for a woman to work. Leniency in honor crimes and early marriage and motherhood for girls are other factors which extend the patriarchal power throughout an...

An incisive study of the past, present, and future of Jordanian and Palestinian women women and issues of employment, education, human rights, Islamic law, and legal practice. Focusing specifically on Jordanian and Palestinian women, Amira El-Azhary Sonbol shows the legal constraints extant in a number of legal codes, namely penal codes that permit violence against Muslim women and personal status laws that require a husband's permission for a woman to work. Leniency in honor crimes and early marriage and motherhood for girls are other factors which extend the patriarchal power throughout an...

This volume introduces new sources for the study of the past and present life of Muslim women that challenge paradigms about the ways in which "they" have been studied in the past. Most research has treated stereotypical images of Muslim women's outward manifestations, such as veiling, as passive and oppressive--"women were depicted as different. Exoticizing (orientalizing) Muslim women--"or Islamic society in general--"has meant that "they" are dealt with outside of general women's history and thus have little to contribute to the writing of world history or to the life of their sisters...