Customer Reviews

A long overdue insight - By: , 21 Nov 2003
As a Muslim woman who has experienced lifein some of the countries covered by Jan Goodwinin her book, I was amazed at how she manages to put across a very honest & unbiased account of what amounts to reality for womenin the Islamic world. What truly astounds is the author's awareness of how far the social norms that are zealously upheld are so far divorced from original Islamic law & ideology. She opens the readers eyes to the very poor state of affairs for the majority of Muslim womenin so-called Islamic nations & identifies the causes of this staus-quo. Many of the real-life stories that unfold before us are heartbreaking & often grisly such as the real tragedies that are a byproduct of decades of war & upheavalin the middle east.
The book is gripping as it deals with a bizarre raelity that is stranger than fiction at times but also very informative as the history of the countriesin question is also covered so as to throw light on how the current climate of intolerance, ignorance & oppression has evolvedin countries like Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria & others. The author seeks the truth &in so doing takes us on a journey that should enlighten us & help us question our own prejudices. The one thing she has achieved is to finally, through carefully researched arguments, prove that these women are daily being cheated of the rights accorded to them over fourteen hundred years ago by their religion. She shows us that Islam gave women rights to property, rightsin matrimony, rights to engagein business & above all, a right to dignity. The western world has always been largely ignorant of these facts & the world view is that the religion itself is oppresseive. Jan Goodwin shows us how the true oppressors are those who have manipulated the religion beyond recognition. Hats off to her for underatking such a perilous task. Not a mean feat.