Nine Parts Of Desire Essay Research Paper

Nine Parts Of Desire Essay, Research Paper

Islam is a religion that I have not learned much about before now. I knew that the women wore scarves covering their face, but I did not know why. I knew that Muslim.s celebrated Ramadan, but I did not know what that was. I have recently become more interested in learning about the Muslim religion because of a speech I heard in one of my other classes, and the book Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks is a great insight into the world of Islam and into the lives of Muslim women.

In the prologue I found it interesting that the author/narrator was denied a room in a Saudi Arabian hotel and taken to a police station because she did not leave the lobby. I would think that the man at the desk would be willing to help her even though it is against the law, seeing as she is a woman traveling alone, and obviously didn.t know any better. The author, I think, started the book this way to ease us into the idea of what women in the Middle East went through. By telling a personal story she lets us know that the information in this book has been seen and experienced first hand by the author and is not just the result of a group of researchers who may never have been to the Middle East.

The first Muslim practice we are introduced to is prayer. On page 3, the narrator is awakened at sunrise by the call .Come to prayer! It is better to pray than sleep!. Since prayer is one of the Five Pillars of Faith, it is something that all Muslims do (five times a day facing Mecca), and is one thing that remains constant throughout all the variations and interpretations of the religion that are discussed in this book.

Another effective method of story telling that the author used is giving the reader some background information about the origin of the Muslim religion and some of the customs. She tells us that Muhammed is the prophet and what he did basically became the precedent for the entire religion. Muhammed relayed messages from Allah (God) and what he said was written down in the Koran (Muslim holy book).

From the prologue, we see that women are segregated from men because that is what Muhammed did he kept his wives inside. Muhammed.s wives were also required to cover themselves from head to foot, as we saw on page 5, the ancient Assyrians began to have wives of upper class men .veiled. and the custom was adopted by Saudi Arabia (which was known as Islam.s heartland).

The first woman we meet in the book (aside from the author) is Sahar, the author.s friend and translator. At first I admired Sahar for daring to be different and western and not conforming to Islam; I was disappointed when she showed up for work one day wearing hijab and no make up and her hair completely covered. On page 8 we understand that adopting the hijab means accepting the following things:

.A legal code that valued her testimony at half the worth of a man.s, an inheritance system that allotted her half the legacy of her brother, a future domestic life in which her husband could beat her if she disobeyed him, make her share his attentions with three more wives, divorce her at whim and get absolute custody of her children..

Why would any woman want to do that. The way I see it all people should be free to believe what they want to believe. If Sahar believes in Islam, that.s fine, but why should she have to change her appearance and become inferior to her husband when she seemed to be doing just fine as an independent woman.

I compared this section of Nine Parts of Desire to a similar section from Bound Feet and Western Dress. There is a difference between the way Muslim.s regard western dress and the way the Chinese regarded western dress. While the Chinese value tradition and family, it seemed to me that they did not despise western dress as the Muslim.s did. Although, a comparison can be made between Chinese foot binding and Muslim women having to always be covered from head to toe. A Chinese woman without bound feet was many times less desirable to a prospective suitor.s family, just as a woman who did not wear the hijab was less desirable to a Muslim.s family.

.The Holy Veil. is the first chapter in the book and it describes the treatment and expectations of women. Page 14 tells us that not all men treated their wives as servants. One example of this is Khomeini, who seemed to have a soft side and enjoyed spending time with his children, when they cried in the middle of the night, Khomeini did not wake his wife, he simply took care of the kids himself. He never asked his wife to do anything for him, .not even to bring him so much as a glass of water..

I admire Khomeini for that. It is very easy to kick back and let someone else take care of you, and even though it is an accepted custom, Khomeini did not rely on his wife to be his servant. It seems that he and his wife, Khadija, lived a simple life and they loved each other very much. Khadija wears hijab and covers herself from head to toe, but there are many different interpretations as to what is acceptable when it comes to covering up. Guinean women for example wear tighter fitting clothes that sometimes expose their shoulders and toes (p20).

As far as clothing goes, I think that Islamic men are hypocrites. They tell women to wear chadors and won.t even allow them to swim without wearing them, while young men in the Gulf wear .