While this book is not meant to be an anthropological analysis of Muslim women, it does give insight into the Muslim world at large. It is broad in scope and should cite information more, but it can be an excellent choice to begin the journey to understanding. It should not be considered the final destination. I suggest this book to all.

This is just one of the facts that I learned from this book. It became not just a fact but an insight as I continued reading it.

The book's excellence is demonstrated in that 13 years after its publication it is still being read. Its continued relevance is evidenced by so many current reviews here on Amazon. Since its publication there have been many books on this topic, including social studies and personal narratives, but this one still stands out.

Brooks spent 6 years in traveling to Middle Eastern Islamic countries covering the plight of women. While there is a chapter on Queen Nour, the book is primarily on the many anonymous middle class women who must submit to decisions about their lives, their health, their time, their children, where they can travel and even their dealth, all made by men. These men are not required, and most are not conditioned to, value her or consider her opinions or needs. They seem to be driven by their "honor" which is reflected by how well she masters the art of submission.

Brooks gives the clearest presentation I've read on the origins of the anti-woman practices that are permitted. She describes Mohammed's relations with his wives and the aftermath of his death which set the stage for others to interpret and misinterpret his words and actions.

The last chapter, where the author summarizes the issue and the lack of attention it receives world wide is pithy and strong.

Geraldine Brooks takes us inside her personal trip trough the Islamic world and gives as close to an UNBIASED view of the treatment of Islamic women that i could imagine. she is careful to point out the reasons that are given for wierd practices. She doesn't shy away from her disgust for certain treatments.

For example the propagation of so-called "honor killings" that still take place all over the world, as well as many other ways women are opressed in the mainstream Islamic world.

O by the way the writting style is smooth and easy to read. You can really enjoy this book even though the topic is sad the way it is told is great!

Geraldine Brooks's book, while written before the "War on Terror" era, allows for a much better insight on Islamic life (specifically the treatment of women under Islamic law) than watching the evening news. Her panorama of experiences in the Middle East allows for the reader to see the tremendous variation that exists in Muslim countries. The background that she provides on Islam is also very useful for a Western understanding of the social climate in that part of the world. This book is an excellent starting point for anyone seeking to learn about the Muslim world.

I read this book for the first time well before 9/11, and I think it could be a useful read for a lot of people exactly for that reason- it was not written with the hindsight of 9/11. A lot of other reviewers have described Brooks' standpoint, so I won't go there, but I will say that her writing itself is beautiful. She does not use clunky language to get her point across, and this gives her writing a great deal of eloquent power. I found myself re-reading it several times over the course of a couple years.

Using her six-year experience in the Middle East, Geraldine Brooks wrote her first book entitled "Nine Parts of Desire," which was published in 1995. The author spent sex years researching the status and the role of women in several Middle East countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The book is broken into thirteen chapters, which describes the journey and the observation of the author in the Middle East countries. She writes about the history of Muhammad and his wives, the purpose for the veil and hijab, the Islamic marriages, the women in military, politics, business, and entertainment, and the author's experience with Queen Noor in Jordan.

In part, this book explores the women's social status as defined by the Islamic culture and the words of the prophet Muhammad. Since Muhammad's death, the Islamic culture has been defining women according to their Koran, which became part of Islamic law (p. 190). The Muslim traditions and customs, such as hidden faces, hairs, or exposed skin of women, seems to came from the book of Koran that expresses Muhammad's accounts with his wives and his revelations. The Islamic laws seem to require women to wear hijab, cloth covering all of their skin expect for hands and eyes, and restricted social interaction between men and women who are not related by blood. In this book, Brooks mentions that the prophet, Muhammad, had a revelation from Allah that required women to be put in seclusion and to wear hijab when in public to avoid the sight of men who might feel temptation or desire to them for their own (p. 4-5, 20-1, 83). The Koran's accounts of Muhammad and his wives seem to show examples of why women needed to be covered and how this gives men ideas of being pure-hearted.

Throughout this book, one can comprehend why the repression against women became intensified in the Islamic societies in the 1970s to the 1990s through the defined social status of women in Islamic culture, Muhammad's interpretation of women's status, the rise of the fundamentalism and its mission, and their reasons for repressing women. With her extensive experience interviewing Muslim women in the Middle East, Brooks has written a fascinating book which expresses an unique perspective about the lives and tradition of Muslim women of the Islamic culture.

Everyone woman in the USA should read this book to understand how very lucky we are. The book was written well before 9/11 and I think I finally understand what was in the mind of the terroist.

The author conveys immense respect, honour, and friendship towards her subject, and towards the individuals she writes about. Very fine journalism, one has to admire the courage and hard work it took for her to put this book together.

It was an enjoyable and informative read. It saddens me to learn of those who may not simply be trapped by a literal veil, but who are trapped in such entrenched cultural dogma that they would come to accept or even welcome abuse and suppression as a norm, and who would even fight against efforts to have freedom. I see this sort of phenomenon also in those who have grown up in an abusive home, who come to expect mistreatment as a norm.

The reason that the average rating for this book is not "5 stars" is naturally because of the various extremely low ratings, which are entirely predictable given the subject matter here. I would invite the reader to take a look at those reviews, which are for the most part fundamentalist rantings; it will make them easy to dismiss.

When I picked up this book, I could not put it down. Everything about this book fasinated me: the connections to ancient Islamic hadith, the lives of specific women, and the overlying comparisions on treatment of women in the Middle East. One by one, Brooks takes issues she encountered while living there and address each on its own. She laces individual stories with greater events and observations, trying not to make judgments - until the end. Then she sets forth with a fury and I can't help but admire the way in which she puts forth her arguments.



The book was clearly written for a Western audience unfamiliar with most Islamic traditions and that happened to work out nicely for me as I just happened to be that kind of audience. This book was not meant for people very familiar with Islam and the Middle East, if you are and plan to read this book, I would suggest patience as Brooks explains many things you might already know.



The biggest flaw is the structure of the book, which seems to jump around alot and isn't bound by a central theme or string (other than Islamic women, of course). Each chapter stands on its own and address a different topic, which makes it nice to read, but negates the impact of the conclusion. The other problem is one of age. The book was written over ten years ago and most of the interviews took place during the late 80s, early 90s. This impacts the discussion of nations in the book, especially for Afghanistan and Iraq (of course). However, I did not find it that distracting as most of the book discusses the women and their every day life.



In all, I would recommend this book, especially to people interested in Women's Studies or the Middle East. It's light reading and fasinating, so anyone interested in those topics should get around to reading it sooner or later.

When I picked up this book, I could not put it down. Everything about this book fasinated me: the connections to ancient Islamic hadith, the lives of specific women, and the overlying comparisions on treatment of women in the Middle East. One by one, Brooks takes issues she encountered while living there and address each on its own. She laces individual stories with greater events and observations, trying not to make judgments - until the end. Then she sets forth with a fury and I can't help but admire the way in which she puts forth her arguments.

The book was clearly written for a Western audience unfamiliar with most Islamic traditions and that happened to work out nicely for me as I just happened to be that kind of audience. This book was not meant for people very familiar with Islam and the Middle East, if you are and plan to read this book, I would suggest patience as Brooks explains many things you might already know.

The biggest flaw is the structure of the book, which seems to jump around alot and isn't bound by a central theme or string (other than Islamic women, of course). Each chapter stands on its own and address a different topic, which makes it nice to read, but negates the impact of the conclusion. The other problem is one of age. The book was written over ten years ago and most of the interviews took place during the late 80s, early 90s. This impacts the discussion of nations in the book, especially for Afghanistan and Iraq (of course). However, I did not find it that distracting as most of the book discusses the women and their every day life.

In all, I would recommend this book, especially to people interested in Women's Studies or the Middle East. It's light reading and fasinating, so anyone interested in those topics should get around to reading it sooner or later.

I have read many books related to Islam and this is one of the best. Many writers approach Islam with a political axe to grind, either intentionally seeking to defame the entire Muslim world or serving as apologist's for the religion's tendencies towards misogyny and violence.



But Brooks, in contrast, comes across as an open minded journalist attemping to report honestly on her experinces living and working in the Middle East for six years. Yes, she's a Western secular feminist and she makes no secret of that being her personal perspective. But still she strives to maintain her journalistic objectivity and report on the wide range of differing opinions among Muslim women themselves. For instance, she describes her conversations with Muslim women that prefer to stay veiled as well as her talks with Muslim women that see veiling as oppressive and confining. She doesn't offer a blanket condemnation of the women who prefer to be veiled. But instead explains the cultural and religious basis for veiling while articulating her own liberal Western perspective that finds it to be a disturbing practice. She doesn't pull any punches in explaining some of the worst excesses of Middle Eastern Islamic culture, such as the Saudi Arabian father who murdered his own daughter for not being a virgin on her wedding night. But she also recognizes that early Islam, at least while under Muhammad's leadership, generally improved the status of women in the Arab world.



Still Brooks makes it clear that it isn't so much what a religion claims to believe in but rather the real life actions of it's followers that truly matters. Islam has some admirable beliefs, such as its emphasis on helping the poor and needy. But still it's indisputable, at least from my liberal Western perspective, that women in the Muslim world are far too often treated as second class citizens and Brooks does a fine job of articulating this as well as many other aspects of life for women in the Middle East. Highly recommended!

I have read many books related to Islam and this is one of the best. Many writers approach Islam with a political axe to grind, either intentionally seeking to defame the entire Muslim world or serving as apologist's for the religion's tendencies towards misogyny and violence.

But Brooks, in contrast, comes across as an open minded journalist attemping to report honestly on her experinces living and working in the Middle East for six years. Yes, she's a Western secular feminist and she makes no secret of that being her personal perspective. But still she strives to maintain her journalistic objectivity and report on the wide range of differing opinions among Muslim women themselves. For instance, she describes her conversations with Muslim women that prefer to stay veiled as well as her talks with Muslim women that see veiling as oppressive and confining. She doesn't offer a blanket condemnation of the women who prefer to be veiled. But instead explains the cultural and religious basis for veiling while articulating her own liberal Western perspective that finds it to be a disturbing practice. She doesn't pull any punches in explaining some of the worst excesses of Middle Eastern Islamic culture, such as the Saudi Arabian father who murdered his own daughter for not being a virgin on her wedding night. But she also recognizes that early Islam, at least while under Muhammad's leadership, generally improved the status of women in the Arab world.

Still Brooks makes it clear that it isn't so much what a religion claims to believe in but rather the real life actions of it's followers that truly matters. Islam has some admirable beliefs, such as its emphasis on helping the poor and needy. But still it's indisputable, at least from my liberal Western perspective, that women in the Muslim world are far too often treated as second class citizens and Brooks does a fine job of articulating this as well as many other aspects of life for women in the Middle East. Highly recommended!

I have read many books related to Islam and this is one of the best. Many writers approach Islam with a political axe to grind, either intentionally seeking to defame the entire Muslim world or serving as apologist's for the religion's tendencies towards misogyny and violence.

But Brooks, in contrast, comes across as an open minded journalist attemping to report honestly on her experinces living and working in the Middle East for six years. Yes, she's a Western secular feminist and she makes no secret of that being her personal perspective. But still she strives to maintain her journalistic objectivity and report on the wide range of differing opinions among Muslim women themselves. For instance, she describes her conversations with Muslim women that prefer to stay veiled as well as her talks with Muslim women that see veiling as oppressive and confining. She doesn't offer a blanket condemnation of the women who prefer to be veiled. But instead explains the cultural and religious basis for veiling while articulating her own liberal Western perspective that finds it to be a disturbing practice. She doesn't pull any punches in explaining some of the worst excesses of Middle Eastern Islamic culture, such as the Saudi Arabian father who murdered his own daughter for not being a virgin on her wedding night. But she also recognizes that early Islam, at least while under Muhammad's leadership, generally improved the status of women in the Arab world.

Still Brooks makes it clear that it isn't so much what a religion claims to believe in but rather the real life actions of it's followers that truly matters. Islam has some admirable beliefs, such as its emphasis on helping the poor and needy. But still it's indisputable, at least from my liberal Western perspective, that women in the Muslim world are far too often treated as second class citizens and Brooks does a fine job of articulating this as well as many other aspects of life for women in the Middle East. Highly recommended!

As its subtitle suggests, Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Geraldine Brooks' (YEAR OF WONDERS; MARCH) fascinating study, NINE PARTS OF DESIRE, reveals the "hidden world" of Islamic Women. Having spent six years covering the Middle East for the Wall Street Journal, and two years living in the Middle East as a news correspondent, Brooks (a secular feminist) immersed herself in Islamic culture, studied the Koran, and interviewed both fundamentalist and feminist women to reach a well-informed understanding of the often confusing and seemingly incomprehensible Islamic practices that have disempowered women from Mohammed to the present. In her examination of Islamic gender politics, Brooks not only explores why Islamic women are prohibited from wearing any clothing that would arouse desire in men and why they are prohibited from praying aloud in public, but why they submit to such practices. This book will provide readers with an informed understanding of Islamic practices relating to women.

G. Merritt

This book gives the reader an excellent way to obtain a view into the lives of woman living in the middle east; with readable definations and historical prespectives that explain middle eastern ways. Geraldine Brooks real life accounts make this a valuable resource and interesting read.

This is a book likely to make almost any reader angry - whether Muslim or not. It portrays the Islamic world as essentially hostile to women, and it puzzles over the power that fundamentalist Islam holds over younger educated women living in Middle Eastern countries. With a journalist's eye and ear tuned to the incongruous, contradictory, and mean-spirited in the many cultures that make up the realm of Islam, she sometimes reacts with irony, dismay, and outrage at what she observes, especially when it takes the form of defiance against internationally recognized women's rights, a dogmatic and misguided effort she finds little support for in the teachings and practices of the Prophet.

At the same time, readers will become familiar with the "family values" of Islam in its extremist forms. The enforced modesty of head-to-toe drapery is a mild constraint compared to the rigid restrictions that confine women to their homes, their behavior modified by beatings, as needed, their husbands free to take multiple wives, and divorce any of them merely by pronouncing the marriage over. Meanwhile, contact with any male outside the family constitutes dishonor so profound that it is grounds for murder. Brooks also devotes a horrific chapter to the widespread practice of genital mutilation.

Written before 9/11 and the War in Iraq, this book was a clear warning to any western politician who failed to grasp the rage of the Islamic world against the evil that the West represents there. It's not too late to read and ponder it now.

In Nine Parts of Desire the author brings us face to face with a range of Muslim women from various countries - Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Eritrea, etc. - and gives us vivid sketches of what life is like for these women.

Some of the women are educated (though what education means for a woman varies from place to place); others are barely literate. Some work outside the home; others rarely leave. Both married and unmarried women feature in the pages of this book - some from rural areas, others from large cities.

What I chiefly liked about the book is that it doesn't shy from showing painful, vicious and puzzling things. Nor does it try to conceal beauty or positive circumstances. The portrait it paints of these women is not simple, but complex. Take one woman whom the author got to know well. She is from Iran, well-educated, who can readily discuss Persian poetry and her country's politics; she also calmly proclaims that Salman Rushdie should die and that Israel should be obliterated. One woman is married, has kids, and wears a veil; yet her husband, rather than keep her home as is his prerogative, is rearranging his business so that she can travel abroad and complete post-graduate work.

More often than not, though, the women worry about whom they will marry. What was often the most painful to read were sections about women trapped in stifling marriages. Even when there wasn't physical abuse, there were limited or nonexistent personal choices (regarding work and travel outside the home, for example), opportunities denied, crushing housework, and pressure to have children, particularly male children. For the vast majority of women in these societies, personal advancement and fulfillment depends on how understanding and progressive their husbands, fathers, brothers or other male relatives are; an opportunity - for work, study, travel - can usually only be available if a man chooses to permit access to it.

The author tries to make sense of what she sees, relating it to the Koran, and attempting to show how, in most cases, the strictest and most oppressive interpretations of the Muslim holy book are adopted, when there could be room for more openness, tolerance, and freedom for women. She also tries to understand why some horrid practices, such as female genital mutilation, that existed prior to Islam were taken up so readily in some parts of the Islamic world. Arguing that these practices were not originally Muslim does not mean that they can be ignored or that criticism is not warranted.

The book offers a very complex portrait of the Muslim women that it presents, and the contradictions within the societies in which they live. Some of the women whole-heartedly defend their societies and support further adoption of fundamentalist religious rules; some try to rebel. There are women who accept and won't go too far in changing the status quo in their lives... yet they have their worries and private criticisms as well, or wish for things that they cannot, in the places they live, have. It's eye-opening to read, and it's wonderful that the author chose to give voice to these various women and, through them, illustrate the societies in which they live. It's also important to learn more about these societies, as more and more Muslims move to the western world; the author raises one example of a British trial case in which a man who murdered his wife got off on a lesser charge rather than premeditated murder, because the jury failed to understand that what he had committed was an honor killing rather than a spur-of-the-moment "crime of passion".

This is the third book that I've read that outlines the plight of Muslim women as a whole. Yes I'm sure, there must be plenty exceptions to the brutality and inhumanity that is outlined in these books and the stories that are depicted are most likely, the worst cases the authors came across but what comes through with disturbing clarity, is a systemic, religious, abusive, misogynistic undercurrent against all women of Islam, which varies in intensity from country to country (infidel women don't even count).

Nine Parts of Desire is written by prizewinning Wall Street Journal correspondent, Geraldine Brooks and is based upon her experiences during the seven years she was stationed in the Middle East. She gets the title for her book from an old Muslim proverb "God created sexual desire in ten parts; then he gave nine parts to women and one to men."

Brooks does try to provide a more balanced view of Islam than previous authors have presented, however the bottom line remains the same - that Muslim women, in most Muslim countries, live at the whim and total dependence of their husbands or their male relatives. Brooks tries to explain and I do believe her, that this untenable situation is not sanctioned by the Muslim Holy book, the Quran. In fact she maintains that the Quran and Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet) of Islam's original message actually gave women sweeping rights that were unheard of in the Seventh Century. These rights included the right of inheritance and the right of divorce.

Brooks claims that the rights of women started to erode early on as Islamic armies spread the word of the one true God in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries, by borrowing and adopting those anti-woman customs to which they were exposed. Islam adopted the royal Persian custom of veils, accepted gender mutilation from Egypt and when it found societies in which women had little or no voice in public affairs, its own traditions of lively women's participation withered. Women in the time of Muhammad rode camels and horses, ran businesses and even fought with the armies, yet woman of today are generally timid, fearful and backward, especially in the less progressive countries or the more primitive areas of large progressive countries.

Nine Parts of Desire tends to concentrate on those countries where the author spent the most time and had Muslim women friends, namely Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon and even Palestine.

CONCLUSION

Nine Parts of Desire is a laconic, well written book of 289 pages. Though it is a relatively short book, Brooks manages to disseminate a torrent of information. There is also a useful glossary of Arabic terms in the back as well.

Though Brooks does not make excuses for the troubling situation Muslim women find themselves, she does point out that those who condemn these practices in the West, tend to overlook parallel though less overt treatment of women around the world, including in the West. I agree that there are wife beatings, even killings in America but at least it is against the law. A woman could be stoned to death in Saudi Arabia if she has been found to have had sex out of wedlock. This requires testimony of four male witnesses, who in one case, I read about in another book, were the girl's accusers but were in realitly her rapists. Brooks on one hand show how Muslim women are discriminated against but also points out that many women claim to like their present status and point out the advantages of being anonymously cloaked. These tend to be older women who are afraid of change.

A by product of Brook's writing, though most likely inadvertently was the appearance that Islamic society appears to be grossly inefficient. Prohibitions against the full integration of women in most of these countries make some of the simplest tasks virtual impossibilities. As an example she tells of a surveyors inability to conduct a poll in Saudi Arabia for laundry detergent. Saudi women are forbidden from talking to males outside of the family and females if allowed to work at all are restricted to jobs such as medicine or teaching.

I think Nine Parts of Desire would be a good place to start for any reader that is interested in getting a balanced view of how women of Islam fair in various countries and the outlook for more liberal women's rights.

Final Rating 3.9 Stars

Brooks makes no secret of her own opinions about many of the oppressive practices women in the Middle East endure. That said, she allows them to tell their stories with limited interference. She does what most authors fail to do - allow the diversity of opinion and beliefs of Muslim women shine through. Never does she overgeneralize. As with any book about Muslim culture, readers must attempt to extract the story from the bias of the author. It's well written, easy to understand and read, and leaves you with the desire and resources to explore more on your own.

Oh, if it were only the veils. The subordination. The illiteracy. But being a woman in the Middle East is more like perpetual torture. Genital mutilation, stolen children, stonings to death, whippings, rape, and summary execution. Geraldine Brooks explains just how much of it is explained by religion, and when autocratic theocracy steps in to finish the job. A Wall Street Journal reporter assigned to Cairo, Brooks is a student of Islam, and of Arabic. She explains the rift between the Shia and Sunni sects, and opens our eyes to the Prophet's trials and tribulations with the women of his household. We learn how he made up the rules of Islam as he went along, in order to advance his own lust, and in the process, made slaves of Islamic women forever. Sometimes you will laugh, but it won't be for long, because unfathomable cruelty will crop up a few pages further on. Ms. Brooks has the journalistic talent of the young Norman Mailer; she sees layers of meaning behind every scene she describes, most of it lost on the scene's participants. She brings to life the ghastly reality of life behind the minarets and souks. She exposes the hypocracy and outright lies of Islam's apologists, and gives us the straight story, no matter how it hurts. You can read Bernard Lewis to learn the academic side of modern Islam. You'll have to read Geraldine Brooks to find out how it sounds, smells, and feels.