ISBN:
9780815651703
,
0815651708
Language:
English
Pages:
Online Ressource (344 p.)
Edition:
1st ed.
Edition:
Online-Ausg.
Series Statement:
Project MUSE
Series Statement:
Middle East studies beyond dominant paradigms
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als Fay, Mary Ann Unveiling the harem
DDC:
305.4096216
Keywords:
Households History
;
18th century
;
Egypt
;
Cairo
;
Harems History
;
18th century
;
Egypt
;
Cairo
;
Mamelukes Social conditions
;
18th century
;
Women Social conditions
;
18th century
;
Egypt
;
Cairo
;
Harems History 18th century
;
Mamelukes Social conditions 18th century
;
Women Social conditions 18th century
;
Households History 18th century
;
Women Social conditions 18th century
;
Mamelukes Social conditions 18th century
;
Households History 18th century
;
Harems History 18th century
;
SOCIAL SCIENCE ; Discrimination & Race Relations
;
SOCIAL SCIENCE ; Minority Studies
;
HISTORY ; Middle East ; Egypt
;
Harems
;
Households
;
Mamelukes
;
Manners and customs
;
Women ; Social conditions
;
History
;
Cairo (Egypt) Social life and customs
;
18th century
;
Cairo (Egypt) Social life and customs 18th century
;
Cairo (Egypt) Social life and customs 18th century
;
Egypt ; Cairo
;
Electronic books
;
Electronic books
Abstract:
Reimagining the harem: from orientalist fantasies to historical reconstruction -- Egypt in the eighteenth century: the transition from the medieval to the early modern -- Slaves in the family: Islam, household slavery, and the construction of kinship -- The Mamluk household: how a house became a home -- Mamluk women and the Egyptian economy: a comparative perspective on women's property rights -- The city as text: space, gender, and power in Cairo -- The architecture of seclusion: in search of the historical harem -- Everyday life in the harem -- Changing the subject: gender and the history of the Mamluk revival -- Epilogue.
Abstract:
There is a long history in the West of representing Middle Eastern women as uniformly oppressed by Islam, by Islamic law, and by men. Stereotypical views of Middle Eastern women today maintain that they are without legal rights, do not attend universities or have jobs outside their homes, and are not full citizens of their countries because they cannot vote or hold public office. Similar misinformation circulated in the eighteenth century when European male travellers to Egypt, documenting their observations, depicted harem women as sexual objects, deprived of autonomy, and held captive by their husbands. Fay's Unveiling the Harem offers a persuasive corrective to this distorted view of Middle Eastern women. Instead of the odalisque of nineteenth-century painting and the fevered imaginings of European travellers, historical research reveals that elite women in powerful, wealthy households exercised their rights under Islamic law, property rights in particular, to become owners of lucrative real estate in Cairo as well as influential members of their families and the wider society. One such woman, Sitt Nafisa, who was literate in several languages, commissioned a public water fountain and a Qur'anic school that still stands today. She played a pivotal role as the intermediary between French officials and her husband, who was leading the revolt against the French from Upper Egypt. Based on documents from various archives in Cairo, including records of women's property ownership, repeated visits to eighteenth-century palaces and their family quarters, and textual reconstruction's of the elite residential neighbourhoods of the city, Unveiling the Harem presents a lucid and historically grounded portrait of Egyptian women, stripped of the powerless victim narrative that is still with us today
Description / Table of Contents:
Reimagining the harem: from orientalist fantasies to historical reconstructionEgypt in the eighteenth century: the transition from the medieval to the early modern -- Slaves in the family: Islam, household slavery, and the construction of kinship -- The Mamluk household: how a house became a home -- Mamluk women and the Egyptian economy: a comparative perspective on women's property rights -- The city as text: space, gender, and power in Cairo -- The architecture of seclusion: in search of the historical harem -- Everyday life in the harem -- Changing the subject: gender and the history of the Mamluk revival -- Epilogue.
Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index. - Description based on print version record
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