Rating: 
Summary: Should be required reading for women
Review: While it is true that the degree to which women are oppressed around the world varies considerably, it seems to be a common thread throughout the Islamic world. It is disingenuous to suggest that the second class citizen role accorded to Islamic women is really a reflection of their importance, and other such blather. And it is at best disingenuous for Islamic women who voluntarily took on the hijab and the chador and that second-class citizenship in some burst of revolutionary fervor to pretend that many or most of them don't continue to do it out of downright fear, long after they've lost their zeal.The pervasive theme that runs through the stories of the women in this book is, in fact, fear. It manifests itself even in the more liberal segments of the Muslim world. To pretend otherwise is not naive, it's dishonest and dangerous. Too many people want to keep their heads in the sand on this. The accounts in this book are a wake up call.
Rating: 
Summary: There are better
Review: I suppose I have read both better and worse books about "women and Islam". I suppose I had high hopes for this book, given the general descriptors. My main complaint is that the author presents many heavy handed stereotypes and the standard misinformation, and that is that. Since there are many long reviews of this book, I will simply state that as a parallel format book, Price of Honor will educate those who really desire accurate information more than this book will ever. And by the by, I have TONS of books on the subject!
Rating: 
Summary: So Good I Didn't Return it to the Library
Review: Yes, it's true, I bought this book from the library rather than return it to them. Isn't that awful! I have much contact with Muslim women and was intrigued by this book. It made me want to do as the author did and go live with them to experience their rich culture. The author shows, not a society of repressed women, but a society of women that have a wonderful life. Of course, each family is different. Some of the things in the book did not hold true for some of the Muslim women that I have talked to. However, this book does help in a great way to reveal the mystery behind the veil in a positive way, removing many of the stereotypes that the west generally has of women in the Middle East.
Rating:
Summary: A must read!
Review: Frustrated at having to stay in the office while her journalist husband explored the exciting, adventurous, and dangerous sides of the Middle East, Wall Street Journal correspondent Geraldine Brooks eventually realized, through her assistant Sahar, a door that was open only to her: the world of women. Literally overnight Sahar changed from a fun-loving Cairo sophisticate in make up, mini-skirts, and stilettos, to a devout believer in hijab. Of the many questions that whirled around in Ms. Brooks's mind as she watched Sahar struggle with her new identity, one in particular stood out: "Why?" Using her own words: "To find the answers, I did something so obvious I couldn't believe it had taken me a year to get around to it. I started talking to women." Ms. Brooks spent the next several years traveling around the Middle East and North Africa, talking to women. Through the voices of women she addresses issues such as hijab, polygamy, female genital mutilation, education, careers, and voting for women. She shares poignant interviews and conversations with Ayatollah Khomeini's daughter Zahra, Queen Noor, and wives of the heads of fundamentalist groups. Sprinkled throughout are fascinating vignettes of the wives of Mohammad. Far from being biased or stereotypical, this book gives a realistic picture of the world of women in the Middle East. Ms. Brooks shares the bad: such as Rahme who was forced to live with a co-wife in order to keep her children, and Margaret, an American who became the virtual slave of her mother-in-law, and the good: such as a woman who chose Iran over the United States because of the love and support of her husband's Iranian family, and Faiza who managed to become a prominent journalist in Saudi Arabia. She discusses the Islamic revolution in Iran not only in terms of repression, but also the ways in which it liberated women. She portrays the Islamic world as neither bad nor good; instead a mixture of both, as is anywhere else in the world. This book is a journey to discover the women living in the modern world yet bound by law centuries old. Ms. Brooks states that clearly and at no time is the purpose of the book construed to be anything greater or lesser than a quest for understanding. She does not claim to be a feminist or an Islamic scholar, and any criticism of her for not living up to either title is completely unwarranted because neither were the purpose of her book. Through her press badges, friends, connections, and sheer determination, Ms. Brooks was able to gain access to many places in which most of us will never venture. From remote villages in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian refugee camps to the rocky hillsides of Eritrea, Ms. Brooks has given Islamic women a voice. She has given us the gift of their stories, so that we too may come to our own understanding of the question "Why?" To those who question the validity of the stories she shares about Mohammad and his wives, I would like to point out that one does not become a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal by using faulty sources. I have read many of the books in the bibliography inserted in the back of the book, and it's all there. If you do not wish to take her word for it, by all means do some extra reading. As Mohammad's life was heavily documented, it is not hard to find relevant materials. I recently bought a book by Mumtaz Moin, entitled "Umm al Mu'minin A'ishah Siddiqah, and virtually every account given by Ms. Brooks about Aisha is in there: Ms. Brooks's superb writing however, gives life and vibrancy to the centuries-old accounts. "Nine Parts of Desire" is one of my favorite books. Geraldine Brooks is an extremely talented writer, and it is a joy to read. There are few books I could recommend more highly; it deserves 10 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Disregard this book
Review: I believe that some of the information is accurate, however, I suggest reading about women in Islam from a Muslim woman. A secular feminist is not going to give the proper picture about a woman in Islam. It is like asking a dog what it is like being a bird. Also, most of her discussion is about "cultural" norms. It doesn't relate to Islam at all. I suggest going to Islamic web sites and Islamic bookstores for real answers...
Rating:
Summary: Interesting book, highly recommended
Review: One of the best books I have read on the subject. Truly interesting reading for us westerners in light of the world today. I felt it helped to understand how the people of this religion live, how the women are treated is very interesting! A big difference from our western freedom, which we often take for granted.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Having travelled similar turf as the author as a vagabond of the sixties, I have followed the cultural and political happenings of this area avidly. This is the best book I have seen on this subject. Her objectivity struggles with her emotion in a Hesse-like manner throughout the book. I hope her work brings attention to the scandalous, inhumane treatment of women of Islam. As she states in the last paragraph on page 231 of her conclusion. "It becomes insuffient to look at Islam on paper, or Islam in history, and dwell on the inarguable improvements it brought to women's lives in the seventh century." I could just see her stuggle over which adjective to use, finally compromising to go with "insufficient".<
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, but Superficial
Review: This book makes for a very smooth and enjoyable read, but its analysis of the lives of Muslim women is faulty. First of all, like many books of its type, it falls into the trap of Muslim women= Arab women (the only non Arab country given any attention is Iran). In fact, as less than 20% of the world's Muslim population is Arab, no book purporting to deal with "Muslim women" can be complete if it ignores that other 80%. This book has also been accused of "tabloidism" in its search for facile conclusions and the way in which it seeks out the more "sensationalist" aspects of Muslim women's lives. The accusation has a lot of truth in it, and the way in which Ms Brookes promotes herself as an intrepid foreign correspondent is also a touch annoying. I'm not saying she is not a brave and competent journalist, just that it would be a bit more informative if the book dealt less with herself than with the women she interviews. All in all, I would say that Jan Goodwin's "Price of Honour" is a considerably more thoughtful and informed introduction to the same complex subject.
Rating:
Summary: A balanced view
Review: I thought this book presented a very well balanced view of life for muslim women, and it has tempered my understanding of issues in the news today. Not all Muslim women feel oppressed, which shocks the feminist I am, but it is their life to live, not mine. The varying degrees of freedom described allow me to see that Iranian women are really much better off than their Saudi counterparts. The chapters (alternating with the interviews of women) which follow the use of the Koran and Haddeth to justify women's treatment, and the various interpretations of these help me understand the situation better than anything else I've heard so far.
Rating:
Summary: Uneven, but implies some interesting questions.
Review: As a non-Muslim western woman with very little knowledge of either Islam or the Middle East, I cannot judge the accuracy of this book. I do feel that anyone who simply jumps on the bandwagon of "oh, look how oppressed Islamic women are" is missing the point of the book, even if Brooks doesn't doesn't communicate that point very effectively. As other reviewers have pointed out, we Westerners - or at least American women like myself - aren't as equal as we'd like to think. It's true that Muslim women in the Middle East are denied or discouraged from dress and behaviors that Americans take for granted. But how do we reconcile that with the shameful fact that there has never been a woman President, that there aren't even any female candidates? We may be allowed to dress scantily and have all the affairs we want, but the public still seems unwilling to grant us a position of real power.
More than her (perhaps suspect) personally observed "facts", I find some of Brooks' ideas provocative. Using slavery as an example, she suggests that "...most Muslims now accept that conditions have changed enough since the seventh century to allow them to legislate against a practice that the prophet probably would have chosen to ban outright, if his own times had allowed." Predicting what Muhammad may or may not have done is risky and of course totally irrelevant to literalists. But it is still interesting to consider in context what seem to be sexist laws. For example, the Koranic tradition that when estates are divided up, women inherit half of what their brothers do. By modern American standards this seems an outrageous restriction, but at the time it was tremendously progressive to recognize women as people who could own, rather than simply be, property. This practice was enacted in the seventh century. Compare it to England, where it's been less than 150 years since women were given the right to own their own property.
I guess my main point is that the situation is far too complex to cover in the span of this small, highly subjective book. It's really more a collection of anecdotes about personal experiences with Middle Eastern culture and politics; to describe the topic as women in Islam is very misleading. However, it has caught my interest and I'm looking forward to reading more recent and comprehensive works, preferably by Muslim women.
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