This book left a huge impression on me. I didn't think I'd be able to give it up, but I think I can at least share it for now.

from Amazon:

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.

Bookring order:

babykittysmama, CA
Bulan-Purnama, OR
Megi53, VA
dancing-dog, TN
dospescados, NY
4everlostinbook, CA
tnelson99, MO
reader1107, WI
loveamystery, CAN
SqueakyChu, MD
Karenlea, CA
SeamonkeyofTVCH, CA
Guadi, PORT
Sternschnuppe28, GER
Hellie, UK (If pm not working, try [email protected] from her forum post...)
Purple-lilly, AUS
oceanss, IRAN
jessicaloveyou, SING
nynjagrrrl, WI
susanmrz, NJ
mrsordonez, MO

received today -- it's next on my TBR pile

Thank you for sharing this -- interesting to read before 9/11. Has much changed? Should it change?

Book arrived today. Will start right away.

Just to let all of you know, I am halfway through the book. I hope to finish this week and mail it out to the next person as soon as possible. A very interesting book and mesmerizing to say the least.

A very engrossing, intriguing book! Even though it was written several years ago, life for these women, in Muslim countries will never change. Thanks mrsordonez for sharing this informative book.

Will send to the next person within this week.

The book is on its way by media mail to Megi53 this morning. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Happy reading.

It has arrived! Looks like some formidable reading.

Very nice map at the front.

I have been faithfully reading this book since the day I got it; in fact, today and one other day I got up at 4:30 a.m. so I'd have time to finish an especially engrossing chapter before work.

So I don't have any idea why it took me so long to finish. Maybe because it was impossible to read it while eating ... every chapter had some unbelievably gruesome word-of-mouth torture descriptions. It's hard to fathom that human beings really do those things to one another.

Fortunately, while there were pages of violence, most of the book was purely educational. Goodwin interviewed some fascinating and unique women. The one who interested me most was Huda Awad, who owned and managed a subcontracting business in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I'd love to read an entire book about her!

Queen Noor's long explication of Jordan's side of the Gulf War was an eye-opener. I have her book, Leap Of Faith waiting halfway up Mt. TBR, and I feel like Goodwin's book has given me a solid background for anything I read in the future about the ten Islamic countries she analyzed.

(Too bad she didn't also visit Libya, Morocco, Indonesia, etc.)

Mailing off to dancing-dog after work tomorrow afternoon.

Just received - will get to it asap after I finish my current book.

First, I apologize that it has taken me so long to read this. I'm almost done with it, have two more chapters left. I like the way the book is organized, by country, although I think this made for slower reading since I have tended to want to read about one country at a time, lol!

Anyway, a great book - I have learned a lot! I was not aware of the situation of women in Pakistan at all and knew very little about the UAE. Things in Iraq have changed somewhat since this book was written. As I've gotten farther along in the book, it's interesting to compare policies/conditions in the different countries.
This kind of book always reminds me how lucky, privileged and wonderful my life is here. It is really hard for me to imagine having to live the way a lot of these Muslim women do - a testimony to the human spirit. Thanks for sharing this. :)

Off to read the remaining chapters so I can get it in the mail to dospescados this weekend ...

Thanks! This has a few rings in front of it but I'll get it read soon.

I just wanted to invite all of you who enjoyed this book to join my other ring, Woman at Point Zero. It is a more singular personal account of how women are affected by Islam, also very intriguing.... Click and PM if you want to join!

Woman at Point Zero

Ugh, I've had this for a month now. I will start reading it tonight.

I seem to think I read this when I was in high school. One summer I had to write a paper to get into an advanced world history class and I wrote on Muslim women. This might've been one of the books I read for it. But, of course, there is a huge difference in reading this book in '97 or '98 as a 14- or 15-y.o. and reading it in '05 as a 22-y.o. with a B.A. in international relations!

I'll also PM 4everLostInBook this evening for their address to get this out as soon as I finish.

I just finished a few minutes ago. Some parts certainly aged with the book but a lot of it sounds very fresh. I'd love for this author to do an update, now that 10-12 years have passed since she did her research. The time is certainly right for it.

I think perhaps the Israeli Occupied Territories chapter is the most important. Without it, someone could try to say that she was just writing what everyone hears about Muslim women. She told us a side of the story in that chapter that is very rarely heard and certainly does not follow our sanitised pro-Israel media coverage. I certainly learned a lot in that chapter and it confirmed my suspicions that there was a lot going on that wasn't being reported to us on TV or in newspapers, in fact an entire population's perspective.

Many thanks to mrsordonez for sharing this and to dancing-dog for passing this on to me. It will be in the mail to 4everLostInBook early next week.

The book arrived safely and I am just beginning to read it. Thank you for making this available for me to read and thank you dospescados for mailing it to me!

The book arrived safely and I am just beginning to read it. Thank you for making this available for me to read and thank you dospescados for mailing it to me!

I echo dospescados thoughts about this book and will add that I thought this is a powerful and moving book that will stay with me for a long while. I admire the women who have the courage to stand up and speak their mind despite the possible repercusions.

I will have this in the morning's mail (11/15/2005) to tnelson99.

Thank you again for the opportunity to read this book.

I received this one last week and will get to it soon. Thanks for sharing!

I have mailed this out today to the next person on the list. THANKS MUCH!

Received this book at a great time -- I just finished reading two connected fiction books (The Eyre Affair and Lost In A Good Book) that were a bit strange. Now I'm ready to move on to non-fiction again, knowing that the world I'm about to enter is as surreal to my life as the one in the fiction books! Thanks for adding me to your list!

RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to the next person in the book ring...

This book was really something! It's incredible that people really believe it's OK to treat women and girls the way they do. And yet the prophet Mohammed was the first religious leader to OPPOSE the mistreatment of women!

Arrived home from sunny San Diego today to find this book amongst my mail. Thank you for sending it reader1107 all the way from Wisconsin. Looking forward to reading it.

This is an excellent book, although I found it difficult to read. At times I felt very angry. I also appreciate even more the freedom that I take for granted. After reading this book, I feel very fortunate to be born in this country and to be valued for who I am. I have now become more interested in the Arab countries and will pay more attention to what is happening in them. This book is now on its way to squeakyChu. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

The book arrived today.

Thank you, mrsordonez for sharing your book with me (and maintaining your wonderful bookring website).

Thank you, loveamystery, for shipping the book to me all the way from the west coast of Canada and sending me a Vancouver bookmark as well.

It took me a while to read this book due to the density of information and its ability to make my heart increasingly heavy with sadness.

It stressed the growing movement of fundamentalism
within Islam as a frightening and silencing threat for Moslem women. I've always beleived that religion is a wonderful adjunct to secularism and humanism. There needs to be a balance, however, and this book explains what happens if there is very little or none. The few outspoken womens' right advocates speaking out within this book are truly strong and brave souls.

In the narrative, there are examples of violence, human torture, imprisonment both within jails and in one's own home, psychological imprisonment, physical mutilation, etc. There were times in which I simply had to put down the book to take a break.

My only complaint about the book is that it's already outdated, having been published in 1994, and therefore does not reflect the current political situation in the Mideast as Americans now know it (with Hamas having won the Palestinian elections and U.S. troops in Iraq again).

Thank you, msordonez, for having made this book available for me to read. I especially liked reading the parts about Nawal El Saawadi (Egypt) and Queen Noor (Jordan), both about whom I have done some other reading.

The book is in the mail to Karenlea in California.

Caught!!! I have a few rings/rays before this, but I should be able to start it soon. Thank you for sharing!!!

Caught!!! I have a few rings/rays before this, but I should be able to start it soon. Thank you for sharing!!!

I am so glad that I read this book. It really clarified the differences between the various Arab nations. I thought the book was very informative and though provoking. I feel that I now have a greater understanding of the middle east and the various cultures that comprise it. Even though the book is over ten years old, it is still very relevant and important. I will highly recommend this book to everyone.

I am mailing this off to the next reader within the next few days. I have finals Monday and Tuesday, but I am going to be ambitious and try to make a post office run!!!

Thanks for Sharing!!!

I received this in the mail today as part of a Book Ring. I was just ready to start a book so switched to start this one. Looks interesting.

Thanks, mrsordonez, for making the book available, and to Karenlea for passing it along.

======

07/02/2006:

I have finished this book and have PM'd Guadi to get the address to send this off to Portugal.


What a Tour de Force! I'd love to have an update by Goodwin. It seems she wrote only this book and a previous book (1987) about being a journalist in Afghanistan.

It was interesting to note how many of the major players had been killed or passed on.

Reading this book, well, I had read others that talked about the increasing takeover in the Muslim world by extreme fundamentalists and the effects on society, especially on the women, but of course this also extends beyond Muslims to the oppression and control of entire regions.

I'm also concerned about any sect or interpretation (e.g. fundamentalist muslims, christians, jews) who are moving toward control in various countries with the obvious desire of imposition of their rules on others.

Much of the control in some areas came from charities which had great control over essential commodities such as donations of food, water, money to stricken areas and populations but used that control to make religious/political inroads and to grip populations in a tight vice.

In the US, I've pulled back from donating to organizations with agendas (anti-gay, anti-birth control, anti-knowledge). No more money in the pot for the Salvation Army.

OK, end of rant.

Thank you SO much for this bookring and for others, Mrsordonez! May this book continue on about the world and return to you in good time.

I'll enter release notes as soon as I mail this off to Portugal.

RELEASE NOTES:

I mailed this off today to Guadi, who is next on the list.

Guadi, I did pay extra so that it will get there more quickly.. they say it will arrive in a week (the other option was $4 instead of $10 and would take SIX weeks. So, hopefully it will arrive soon! Hope you will enjoy the bookmarks I left in there for you.

mrsordonez, I did strengthen the covers and spine with some clear tape, since it was getting a bit battered.

Just received this book today from Guadi. I am a bit surprised, as she did not journal the book, but the book is here now in Germany - safe & sound.

I'm starting a new ring Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak... PM if interested in joining!

Eventually I am writing my JE, although it is almost two months ago that I read the book. Please apologize! Well, I certainly do not remember details, but I recall that I was impressed by the book and its biographies. Goodwin found a good way to put the stories of the different female lifes into the political and historical contexts of the countries. The book was published in the mid-90ties, so some things have certainly changed, but I just saw that there is a new edition of the book, which was published in 2004.

In the following I would like to quote a amazon reviewer who wrote this:
"THis book is not about Islam, this book is about the plight of women in the male-dominated, oppressive societies of the Middle East and Central Asia (and to some extent North Africa as well). To confuse this theme with an indictment of Islam is both ignorant and misleading. The book examines the cultures that foster oppression of their female population, and how those cultures have radically developed in the past few decades. Religion is NOT culture, but religion is part of culture. Since Islam is the predominant religion of the regions she studied, Goodwin does discuss its relation to the theme of her book.

Most importantly, Goodwin addresses how the Koran and Islam can be viewed as a feminist in the sense that they actually set up rights of women, equality of the sexes and implores men and women to treat each other well. Goodwin does juxtapose the Koran's views of women with how the radical-political culture of certain areas in the Middle East and Central Asia to show that some religious-extremists are using the banner of Islam to enforce their views which are not necessarily true to the religion.

Moreover, Goodwin examines how the oppression of women in these regions relates to their politics, and how the oppression of women is often a calculated political move (i.e. for the Taliban) to keep control of the society. Also, she examines how the status of women is often an indicator of a nation's stability. Very interesting.

If you really want to know what some women face in this world, you should read this book among others."
We really should keep that in mind while reading the book, especially in times where it is common to suspect in almost every Muslim a potential terrorist!

I already sent off the "Price of Honor" to Australia in the last week of May, so I really hope it will be there within the next days. I skipped Hellie, as I never heard of her and also did not find her on a forum search.

Obviously the book got lost on its way or with Purple-Lily :-((. Well, that is the bad news, the good news is that I bought a substitute copy: Jan Goodwin: Price of Honor - Muslim Women lift the veil of silence on the Islamic world , which has been newly updated in 2003. So the bookring can continue with a new book and BCID. I will mail it off to oceanss tomorrow.

Another update to the bookring: My substitute copy of the book seemed to have gotten lost again on its way or with oceanss *sigh*. I just hope that she did not get in trouble because of the critical titel, because she is from Iran. I had asked her before sending the book, whether it´s ok, and she said so. Since the beginning of the year I PMed her a couple of times without having any success.
Anyways I got another copy of the book: Jan Goodwin: Price of Honor - Muslim Women lift the veil of silence on the Islamic world , again the latest 2003 edition.

The bookring finally continues travelling again to nynjagrrrl today. I skipped jessicaloveyou, because she seems to be no longer active.