Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society, Updated With a New Preface Book

A popular work among undergraduate anthropology students, and for good reason. Like Karen McCarthy Brown's "Mama Lola", it contains reflexive anthropology, as the ethnographer is both friend and observer of her interlocutors. Feminists who view Islam as a religion oppressive of women should read this for an alternative perspective that comes from the heart of Muslim women themselves. The most fascinating segment of this ethnography is the discussion of Bedouin men and women's use of spoken poetry to cope with their disappointments and high hopes for love, relationships, sexuality and gender ideology. It is a bit romantic.