Much of the lively and often heated debate on the role of women in Islam and Middle Eastern society is grounded in different readings of the primary Arabic, Persian, Turkish and other sources and historical precedents. Yet these key texts remain inaccessible to English-speaking readers. Women in Islam and the Middle East fills this gap by gathering material from a wide range of sources, from the early Islamic period to today. The readings cover various aspects of women’s experience: legal, domestic, political, religious, and cultural.

Ruth Roded is senior lecturer in the history of Islam and the Middle East at the Institute of African and Asian Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.