This pioneering collection of essays, edited by Amira El-Azhary Sonbol, fills a gaping void in the literature on women and gender in the Gulf, and will be much appreciated by scholars in that field and those covering women and Islam more broadly. The book's contributors shed light on the lived reality of Gulf women from antiquity to present times and dispell stereotypes and inaccuracies rife in the scant historical sources. Gulf women, Sonbol argues, were hardly absent from public life; they worked as midwives, vendors, priestesses, shepherds, healers, teachers, and political leaders. The theme of women's political, socioeconomic, and religious centrality is woven throughout the essays. The topics covered include Gulf women in pre-Islamic times, their education, religious practices, status within the tribe, forms of work, and roles within the family.
Hatoon Ajwad al-Fassi analyzes vestiges of women's pre-Islamic presence in eastern Arabia, using coins, inscriptions, and figurines. The mother goddess Ninhursag figures prominently in the fourth millennium BCE paradise myth of this region. Al-Fassi argues that “the representation of females in the myths is very strong and telling” (28). Ancient female figurines suggest the worship of female deities during this era.
Hoda El Saadi and Hibba Abugideiri both discuss the history of Gulf women's vocations. El Saadi notes that the West has projected an erroneous image of Gulf women as rendered “helpless and secluded at all times and in all places” (148). Women, however, worked as pearl divers, fish sellers, carpet weavers, and hairdressers. Abugideiri focuses on midwifery, arguing that Gulf women midwives were not simply working in the “private” realm: They preserved tribal identity through their labor and contributed to the “complex socioeconomic organization of Gulf societies themselves” (200). While Marxist scholarship has devalued midwifery as domestic, private, and ultimately not part of production, Abugideiri holds that it is important to focus on its social worth and not solely its economic importance. Gulf midwives were “active social agents” and held “distinguished roles as women medical professionals” (169).
Of particular interest is Omaima Abou-Bakr's chapter on the history of women's religious activities in the Gulf. She considers women's agency as relational and “embedded within indigenous structures” (203). Women gave religious advice, issued fatwas, led study circles, and served as jurisprudents, preachers, scholars, and Qurʾanic teachers. Ironically, modernity limited the religious participation of women who had “possessed very specialized and profound knowledge of specific branches of the shariʿa sciences” during the pre-modern period (221). It was not until the modern era that girls’ curriculum focused on sewing and cooking (215).
Several of the essays treat the dynamics of family life. Sonbol argues that Gulf family life was never static or the product of fixed Qurʾanic rules. Only recently have women's contributions been made invisible; in the past, “the difficulties of life required that all hands participate in the running of daily life” (332). The post-oil period witnessed the weakening of the extended family in favor of the nuclear family, casting the husband as the head “recognized by the state” and granting him the capacity to limit his wife's behavior and employment (332).
Lynn Welchman examines the codification of family law in the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain, shedding light on women's participation in the construction of these laws and on the ways in which their lives are affected by them. Welchman warns that codification sanctifies family laws, enabling the state to enforce patriarchy. In the UAE, for example, a woman who claims injury by her husband must now see a Committee of Family Guidance before being allowed to go to court. Yet new codes have also limited the applicability of a husband's unilateral proclamation of divorce: If it is made “under duress” or if the husband is drunk or enraged, it is invalid. The three states have also created provisions for women to petition to extend their rights to custody of children in cases of divorce.
Overall, this book makes a remarkable and sorely needed contribution to our understanding of Gulf women's lives. Strikingly, many of the authors note that modernity has at times served to restrict women's agency instead of playing an emancipatory role. Some propose alternative and groundbreaking understandings of women's agency, and I wondered whether the authors focused on cases of exceptional women or if these histories reflected common realities. Overlooking the occasional typographical and citation error, this work is stunning in its dismissal of the stereotype of the invisible Gulf woman.
