Women were militant partners with their men in the time of Muhammed and the early Khalifat but later veiled and segregated in the tradition of Ancient Near East cultures and societies. "Respectable" women were soon closed off from any public or social life outside their own families, while other women filled the roles assigned to them by men. All come to life in these pages: passionate fighters and defenders of the faith, ardent lovers, behind-the-scenes politicians, gifted poets, submissive wives, slave dancers and singing girls, concubines, "boy-girls," twentieth-century students, and occasionally even career women torn between the allure of freedom and the security of the traditional. The Status of women and the culture of Islam are here examined together in a work that interweaves the history of Islam with the role of Moslem women in traditionally Islamic countries.
Islamic art is represented here through architecture, of which the Taj Mahal and the Bibi Khanum are famous examples, interior design and furnishings, miniature paintings, and handcrafts. The flowing text is lavishly illustrated with forty-six plates that are in themselves a treasure trove for scholars and art lovers who enjoy exploring. Together, text and illustrations are a rare synthesis of the exotic and the sober. This book excites, angers, amuses, dismays.