Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village

by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

A delightful, well-written, and vastly informative ethnographic study, this is an account of Fernea's two-year stay in a tiny rural village in Iraq, where she assumed the dress and sheltered life of a harem woman. This volume gives a unique insight into a part of the Midddle Eastern life seldom seen by the West.

"A most enjoyable book abouut [Muslim women]--simple, dignified, human, colorful, sad and humble as the life they lead." --Muhsin Mahdi, Jewett Professor of Arabic Literature, Harvard Unversity.

Genres: Nonfiction, Anthropology, Middle East, History, Ethnography, Travel, Memoir

368 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1968

About the author

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea was an influential writer, filmmaker, and anthropologist who spent much of her life in the field producing numerous ethnographies and films that capture the struggles and turmoil of African and Middle Eastern cultures. Her husband, the anthropologist Robert A. Fernea, was a large influence in her life. Fernea is commonly regarded as a pioneer for women in the field of Middle East Studies.

Reviews

[Rian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though the subtitle is "An Ethnography," I was pleasantly surprised to find this book didn't read at all like the dry, clinical anthropological commentaries I've read elsewhere. The writer is the wife of an anthropologist, who accompanies him to Iraq for his graduate work, and as such we see the entire story through her eyes. She lives and eats and works as the women of the village do -- in full hijab -- almost entirely secluded from her husband. I was expecting some sort of pitiable account of destitute Iraqi villagers, the author's Western prejudices lacing the narrative with heavy handed derision, scorn, or regret for the poor women. What I got was pleasantly, surprisingly different: the book was simple, easily read, but compelling. The women of the village were not the docile, subservient women Western stories have painted them to be, but lively, amusing, and very very real. I felt culture shock right along with the author, as well as her slow and trudging assimilation into their society (which was never a true assimilation, as she was a foreigner right up until the end). In short, I nearly flew through the book. The ending was a little slow, but as it wasn't a piece of fiction, I wasn't expecting it to be all the mind-blowing. Following it up with Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns really helped put everything in perspective as well. A highly enjoyable book.

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fitting In

You arrive there worrying, “Will they accept me?” It’s hard to make initial contacts because nobody understands why you’re there and your language skills aren’t the best. Slowly, over the months and years, you make friends, you become involved in people’s lives, you see their happiness, their tragedies. And then….you leave. It’s a blow, but you knew all along it would happen. I was lucky: I went through the initial phase as a Peace Corps Volunteer, so when I came back to the north Indian village to do research for my doctorate, I already knew the people and they knew me. In Goa, it was easier—they were more used to foreigners, many people spoke English, Hindi or bits of Portuguese—I fit in quicker. And two other points in my favor: I was a male foreigner and freer to move around, and my wife was Indian, not a strange person.

Elizabeth Fernea arrived as a new bride in an Iraqi village back in 1957. Her husband had come to do anthropological research there. They were both Americans. Though initially she felt reluctant, she soon realized that to fit in, she had to adapt to local behavior—in other words, wearing a black abaya when she went outside and avoiding all contact with men other than her husband and a servant. This book tells her experience in a most readable, interesting and informative style. It tells how she set up her household, how she made friends with the village women (and there were two groups: tribespeople and town people). No one had any idea of life outside Iraq, nobody spoke a word of English. It describes the land and the weather, the cycle of agriculture, weddings, funerals, religious holidays, a pilgrimage, and some of the faux pas she made over the year and a half she spent in El Nahra. Above all, she tells of the life of women in an Iraqi village of that time, emphasizing over and over that contrary to Western opinion, the women did not feel oppressed and in fact pitied her because she had no children, no gold, her own family was far away, and she did not know the skills needed to live in a village. Their life seemed absolutely right and normal to them, just as our life feels normal to us.

The book illustrates cultural contrasts very well, but never didactically. You will have to notice them yourself. For example, when she fell sick, her village friends spent hours and days at her bedside, talking and taking care of her. That is what they knew was normal, while she just wanted peace and quiet, to rest alone. When she and her husband noticed a poor man living nearby, they wondered how he lived. The villagers were reluctant to talk about it. Soon they realized that he was living on the charity of others. The American husband told the servant that he would bring a sack of rice for the man. The servant suggested giving money instead. Bob, the husband, retorted that the old man would probably spend it all on cigarettes. “He is a man,” said the servant, “let him choose.” It proved a strong lesson in different ways of thinking. Above all, GUESTS OF THE SHEIK presents the dilemmas of entering and surviving in a different culture and the process of adjusting. It should be required reading for anyone hoping to do field work in Anthropology. If you ever do it, you will know how hard it is to leave. You go home, but there’s another world installed in your brain. God only knows what happened to the people of El Nahra during the reign of Saddam Hussein, the Iran-Iraq War and the two American invasions. In my case, the city of Lucknow, once miles away, expanded over half a century and swallowed the village: it doesn’t exist anymore, the people are scattered, the fields of wheat, potatoes, and sugar cane, the mango orchards, disappeared. But I dream of them still.

[Marci carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Guests of the Sheik” is a fantastic book. I even cried at the end as the women had developed such strong bonds and true friendship. I couldn’t stop reading it. This was the second book I had found at the University of Michigan bookstore for students to read. It was definitely worth the read. First book done for March 🍀

[Chana · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the back cover of the book:
"A delightful, extremely well-written, and vastly informative ethnographic study. Guests of the Sheik is an account of the author's two-year stay in the tiny rural village of El Nahra in southern Iraq."

Can you imagine? It is 1957 and Elizabeth (known as Beeja in the village) and her husband are newlyweds, Americans, and Bob is doing anthropology studies. They move to a small mud hut, Elizabeth dons the abayah, and they both start the struggle of understanding the language, fitting in, making friends and getting used to the practicalities of their new lives. What is interesting of course is that when you get down to it people are people, adapted to their physical and social environments, acting as they have been taught.
Sadly I don't think the differences between the middle east and the west are any less now than they have ever been. The tolerance is less. Understanding is pretty absent.

From page 313:
"How many years would it take, I wondered, before the two worlds began to understand each other's attitudes towards women? For the West, too, had a blind spot in the area. I could tell my friends in America again and again that the veiling and seclusion of Eastern women did not mean necessarily that they were forced against their will to live lives of submission and near-serfdom. I could tell Haji again and again that the low-cut gowns and brandished freedom of Western women did not necessarily mean that these women were promiscuous and cared nothing for home and family. Neither would have understood, for each group, in its turn, was bound by custom and background to misinterpret appearances in its own way."

I will say that there were a few times in reading this book that I wondered if she was being absolutely truthful, but I guess truth is subjective and with 2 years written into 331 pages a lot gets left out.

[Corinne Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the early 1950s, when Elizabeth Fernea was a young bride, she joined her researcher husband as he journeyed to a remote tribal village in Iraq, to live and study for nearly two years. As a Western woman, Elizabeth chose to integrate herself into tribal society by donning the traditional abayah (the long black cloak/veil), avoiding being seen by unfamiliar men.

Her time in the village is so full of learning, misunderstandings and bizarre experiences. She attends festivals and feasts. She lives in a mud hut and uses the same transportation as everyone else. She is bluntly honest about her short comings and blunders - as well as her wounded pride. I loved that she taught me as a reader so much about the lifestyle and nuances of the tribal culture but, yet, she didn't loose sight of herself as an occasionally anxious participant in the narration. There were no long explanations or interludes of "historical context," we just learned as she did.

Her need to have a friend and fit in, her concern about inadvertently causing offense, the way she purposely doesn't paint a perfect picture of the experience - these things made me trust her as a narrator and really connect with what she was going through. Most intriguing to me was the laws of purdah - the seclusion of women - and the intricacies of the relationships between women. There are so many social conventions to remember if you want to be a polite guest or hostess I loved to see the Iraqi womens' sense of self and their history, of their sureness of place in their family and in their society. I'd be interested in reading a follow up - to find out how women in this same part of Iraqi are faring today, nearly 60 years later.

Thank heavens for the "cast of characters" chart at the beginning! By the end of reading I maybe recognized ten out of dozens of names - they are just unfamiliar enough to me and similar enough to each other to take some patience. Despite my frustration at being unable to connect people on my own, I really did enjoy this very readable journey.

[LeeAnne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a late 1950s ethnography of a small shiite village in rural Iraq. The information in this book is 60 years old.

Elizabeth Fernea married her husband in 1956 and followed him to Iraq so he could finish his doctorate in anthropology. For two years they lived in a mud hut in a rural Shi'it village. Fernea did her best to assimilate into the local culture during her two year stay. She strictly followed their customs of gender segregation and always covered herself with the veil that left only her face clear anytime she left her tiny two-room mud house and always with a male chaperone at her side.

The shiite women in the village felt pity for Fernea because she had no children, no mother for companionship and worst of all, she had no gold of her own. In a society where women are secluded from the outside world and are completely subservient and dependent on men for everything, owning gold is a necessary life insurance should her husband abandoned her, divorce her or die. The women ask Fernea how much gold her husband paid her father as a bride price. They explain to Fernea that if a wife is very lucky, her husband will buy her a lot of gold jewelry while she is still young because... "you never know what might happen".

One aspect I found fascinating about this book is the striking contrast between Ferne’s reactions to living in a rural Shiite village in Iraq (1956-1957) compared to Sayyid Qutb’s, the father of radical Islam's, reaction to his two-year stay in the US (1948-1950). Although Qtub is never mentioned in Ferne's book, his visit and subsequent writings took place only a few years before Ferne's visit and subsequent writings. Where Fernea bends over backwards to assimilate and respect her host’s culture and later writes a sympathetic book to promote understanding between the two cultures; Qutb’s anti-secular, misogynist and antiSemitic writings promoted bigotry, prejudice and intolerance. Sayid Qtub’s writings become the theological foundation of radicalized Islam, which give birth to terrorist groups like Al Qaida.

Unlike Fernea, the harem women in the shiite village would never have the freedom to choose to decline wearing a veil. They would never be free to leave their tiny homes without their husband’s permission. They would be able to leave their tiny home without a male chaperone. They would never be free to choose a non-Islamic path of life without severe and dangerous repercussions.

While I applaud Fernea’s instinct to try to promote understanding and acceptance towards people who practice shiite Islam, I feel denying and minimizing that fact that fundamentalist Islam is very oppressive to women and very intolerant to other world views is, in many ways, more dangerous.

[Yusuf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Son zamanlarda okuduğum en güzel kitaplardan birisi. Roman-hatıra-etnografi arasında salınan bir anlatı var. Hiç kavram kullanılmamış ve hiçbir teorik çıkarım ve hatta teşebbüs dahi yok. Zaten yazar kitabın başında bir antropolog olmadığını söylüyor. Ama kitabı okurken Fernea'nın iyi ki bir antropolog olmadığını düşünüyor insan. 1950'lerde Irak'ın bir köyündeki yaşam ancak bu kadar canlı ve güzel anlatılabilirdi. Muhteşem bir kitap. Keşke okumasaydım da bir kere daha okuyabilseydim dediğim kitaplardan biri oldu.

[Aaron R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up per recommendation and was expecting a dry collection of academic writings about this rural Iraqi village. I was pleasantly surprised by the easy to read novelized experience of the author. And usually when reading a book pertaining to middle eastern culture it is either a strict condemnation or a pandering romanticization. The author was very intellectually honest and did not shy away from writing her experiences. She made an effort to understand their society and even admired their strong bonds amongst her fellow women. And she did not leave out the negative experiences. One that came to mind was her having to lie about her friends whereabouts so that she would be safe from an honor killing. And less dramatically her displeasure at constantly being kept separate from her husband in social interactions.

The book was slow at first, then it was alright, and it really grabbed my interest three quarters of a way through before slowing down again for an abrupt ending.
Solid read, pretty interesting

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was originally published in 1965, and is still in print. Many university students continue to study this book in anthropology courses. It is important to consider the time frame in which this book was written. Elizabeth Warnock Fernea traveled and lived in a small Iraqi village for two years with her anthropologist husband in the late 1950's. Her observations and experiences are the basis for this book.

My sensibilities were challenged early on, in the intro, as the author stated that all names had been changed, but she was fairly certain no one featured in this book would ever read her account, despite the fact that she was acquainted with several literate women in the village. The book then listed the "Cast of Characters", (a culturally insensitive phrase), which enumerated the people of the village and their occupation/kinship relation. However, once one begins to read deeper into the book, it is apparent that Fernea was ahead of her time, as she helps the western reader understand the culture,history, and traditions of this Iraqi village in the 1950's.

The women of the village, with their strong ties and supportive networks, felt sorry for the American woman who lived among them with no mother or children. In their culture, to be lonely and without kin was a most unfortunate fate. They take in Fernea and befriend her, which opens the door for understanding that this novel presents.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first couple of chapters were not that engaging for me, in fact I almost imposed the 50-page rule, but I'm so glad I didn't. Once the author's life in the village begins, you are drawn into to another world. I became attached to many of the people in this book, and when she and her husband left the village, I felt I too was saying goodbye to good friends. Here 50+ years later I wonder about them, who may still be alive, how much their way of life may have changed. One thing I envied about their lifestyle was the value women placed on their friendships with one another. They did not see their husbands as friends and companions as is the case in the western marriage, and they rarely saw them outside the bedroom. They spent pretty much all their waking hours in community with their female friends and family members, and it was these relationships which provided the sustenance, support and comfort for the their otherwise rather harsh lifestyles. I also very much admire their sense of community, hospitality, and care of elders - values rather foreign to western societies.

[Scout · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved loved loved this book!! The perspective and way the culture is described is both with accuracy and respect. It is easy to see the authors love for the people she lived among and her deep desire to learn from them and share their stories well.

[Emily Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looooooved this book. The author was so respectful and curious, while also being honest about the aspects of Iraqi village/tribal culture that were hard for her to adjust to. I loved the perspective of an outsider trying to immerse herself in a world that was so different than her own.

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea and her husband Robert spent a year and a half in 1956-57 living in a conservative Shia village in Iraq. The homes were were mud houses with reed mats on the floors, their own with a walled garden lent to them by the ruling sheik of the tribe. Robert was doing research for his Ph. D. dissertation in social anthropology and Elizabeth, who was not a trained anthropologist, joined him shortly after they were married. She knew little Arabic and nothing about the customs of the Arab world in general and the village of El Nahra in particular.

Robert could move freely about the village, but had almost no contact with the women. Elizabeth, on the other hand, had to don the abaya, could not go out unaccompanied, and spent most of her time in the company of women. The village woman felt sorry for her because she was skinny, had short hair, had no children, didn't have her mother with her, and had no gold jewelry. (Gold jewelry, which a woman receives as wedding gifts and later as gifts from her husband, is considered her own property and acts as insurance should she be widowed, divorced, or desirous of doing something like paying for the education of a child when her husband refuses to do so.)

Elizabeth, or Beeja as she was called because pronouncing her name was too difficult, was a curiosity in the village and had to put up with a lot of staring (abaya or no) and endless questions. But she was a good sport and steadily learned more Arabic, so bit by bit she was able to converse with the village ladies and ask them questions about their lives and customs. Gradually, she was included in that female society and began to understand its structure and the levels of relationships that involved.

She was able to attend krayas, religious readings held at different women's houses during Ramadan. These were conducted by female mullahs and concluded by all the women chanting and moving in circles, working themselves into a frenzy of religious fervor.

She went to the holy city of Karbala with some of her village lady friends (not an easy journey) where the tomb of the martyr Hussein (he was grandson to the Prophet Mohammed and it was his killing as he was returning to claim the Caliphate that caused the Sunni-Shia split) is located. The crowds are panic inducing and sometimes get out of hand. Elizabeth, a local nurse and her two daughters went to see a taaziya, a mourning ceremony for Hussein and Ali, both slain on the tenth of Muharram. This included a procession of groups of young men who, following the chant of a leader, marched and flagellated themselves with heavy chains. The entire crowd watching was crying and wailing. The young men themselves were so eager to march that competing groups nearly come to blows.

But all is not so dramatic. Much of the book describes the day-to-day life of the women: cleaning rice and flour (picking out sticks, stones and whatever else might be in there), cooking, having babies, family and social relationships and the proper etiquette for keeping them up, education for women and children (not all the women are literate; the younger ones want to go to high school and some to teacher's college), and, of course, the experiences Elizabeth had adjusting to and understanding what went on around her.

The style of the book is informal and it's a pleasure to read. I don't think villages like El Nahra exist anymore, but there's a lot of insight here into Shia customs and thinking. And it's just a great story.

[Micah Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enlightening spotlight on a culture I'm admittedly quite ignorant of. It's dated but a good entry. Surprisingly touching.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had several friends recommend this one to me, and I can see why. This was lovely, and even more impressive considering it was published in 1965. What Warnock Fernea does so well is describe the women of this Iraqi village completely on their own terms – how they see themselves, how they live their values, how they understand the outside world, how they face their challenges – while somehow still keeping herself fully in the narrative.

I think she accomplishes this through her humility, which is something I’m not sure I’ve ever praised an author in a review for, but it applies so well. She’s very quick to own times where she and her husband, with their western upbringing, completely failed to understand the people they were living among on their own terms, sometimes doing harm. But more importantly, rather than trying to romanticize or act superior to their culture, she does her best to understand how their way of living arose from their history and geography, and why things that don’t work in the west don’t always fit in that village, and vice versa. In areas where the values and practices differ from her own in ways that cause people pain, she is so good about letting them tell their own story about the experience, rather than swooping down moralistically on it.

What results is a warm, honest, and very human portrait of these women and the bonds that tie them together, and at the same time, of herself, and her journey to become a part of a community so different from her own. This one will stay with me.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was nice to finally read a book about life behind the veil that wasn't depressing! I had to read this book for an Anthropology class I'm taking and was very happy with what I gleaned from it! The veil was in no way portrayed in a negative, oppressive light. Instead, it was seen as practical in ways, protection in others, and as part of tradition! But in this little village, an American woman gained appreciation for not only the veil, but for the culture and women who she slowly grew to love. It made me see how much of my American freedoms I take for granted on a daily basis! It made me see why Americans have a certain stigma to these middle eastern cultures. It is always good to see life in someone else's shoes! Often we think if we could just change other cultures to be more like us then they will be happier and more successful but that isn't at all true. We need to respect that and appreciate our differences!

[Aryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marissa originally suggested this book to me after her trip to Turkey in the summer of 2007. I found a copy used, interested in expanding my knowledge of Islam and it sat on my shelf for a long time until a week ago. For some reason, perhaps the modern looking cover, I expected Guests of the Sheik to be a current ethnography, but it became evident very quickly that this narrative of life in an Iraqi village was published a long while back (in 1965 to be exact). It is an easy read and gives an interesting picture of village life in a rural Shiite community where there was no social communication between men and women, if only through the eyes of an American woman who has some questionably problematic things to say. I learned a lot, for sure, even if what I learned is decades out dated.

[Holly Celeste · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was assigned reading for one of my women's studies courses in college. I loved it. The author's husband is in Iraq on business, and she spends the time there living with the women and learning about the differences (and similarities) of their cultures. She is great at reserving judgment. Where she is horrified that they must hide their hair and limit their travel, they are equally horrified that she is so far from her mother and has virtually no jewelry. It made a strong impression on me then, during the first Gulf War. I'd love to re-read it.... and would have done so, but my mom never returned this book when I loaned it to her in the '90s. Ah well. ;-)

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

She warns you very clearly at the beginning, “I am not an anthropologist.” So it’s understandable that this book is more episodic than it is thematic. The life of the women is fascinating and beautiful, and many of her observations of it, especially of her own social gaffes, are acute and funny. But the book is a bit repetitive, I don’t care for her flowery descriptions of the landscape, and I really got tired of her long recountings of the ceremonies and feasts she attended. Instead I wish she would have gone way deeper into topics she just grazes over, such as the intense friendships and rivalries among the women. But she’s not an anthropologist!

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a required reading book for an introductory anthropology class that I took. It is probably one of my favourite books that I have ever acquired this way. In fact, it was so well-written that until almost halfway through the book, I didn't even notice that the story was 50 years old. I was a little deflated at the end when the story just suddenly came to an end, and I had to remind myself that it was an ethnography, a record of this one particular year, and not a novel.

[Regina Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love history. I love politics. I love current events. There were two seminal events that influenced that love. The Iranian hostage crisis was one of those two events. During those 444 days I was glued to the TV watching every unfolding moment that related to the attempts to resolve the crisis and the upcoming 1980 election. Lately, I've been reminded that I view those incidents through the lens of a pre-teen and wanted to delve into a study to understand the context more.

On November 4, 1979, five college students that included Mahmoud Ahmadinejad planned and executed the siege of the US Embassy in Tehran citing US "crimes" in admitting the Shah into the US for medical treatment. Bowden, also author of Black Hawk Down provides excellent context on the US-Iranian relations twenty-five years prior to this incident, the factions competing for power within Iran at the time, details on the behind-the-scenes negotiations to release the hostages, mecahnisms the hostages employed to survive the ordeal, the role the press played, how American citizens developed ways individually and collectively to support the hostages, how this incident changed the trajectory of Iranian history, and how Iranians today view those 444 days.

Some of the things I learned:

1. Some of the students atended Berkeley at a time that student demonstrations were impacting the view Americans held on the Vietnma War. Returning home these students employed many of the same strategies, assuming American citizens would have a similar resonse "once they learned the truth about American involvement in Iran." Due to this misguided assumption the students allowed incredible access to the hostages by media and clergy.

2. Even today we hear about Iranian misinterpretation of historical facts (i.e. Holocaust). It was amazing to see just how many other areas of history are skewed.

3. I was suprised to learn how many marines were on site and not allowed to defend the embassy.

4. Even though there is blatant bias (discussed more n a moment) on Bowden's part, I felt like I had a much better understanding of the severe missteps by Carter administration in the months leading up to November, the missteps in the decision making process during the crisis, and why the Shah's medical treatment in the US was such an issue. I'm not so sure I have a better understanding of the missteps in the rescue attempt, as Bowden seems to go against every other historian's view on this point.

5. How the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the war with Iraq influenced the negotiations and release of the hostages.

Bowden's overt bias kept me from rating this a 5 star book. Actually I'd rather the bias be this evident because it is then easy to separate fact from opinion; however, I still cannot bring myself to give a wok on history 5 stars when the author tries to push an agenda.

[Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I think this book was interesting, but it was definitely problematic. First of all the entire premise felt more like "white savior" than anthropologist observer. I get that Elizabeth herself wasn't an anthropologist and was there with her husband who was, but if you're going into a new culture your first thought shouldn't be "I'm going to change their ways because they're wrong and my western ideals are right." She obviously never directly says that, but that was the vibe.
Even in the beginning Elizabeth vehemently rejected the idea of donning the veil like the other women in the Middle Eastern world because it was against her own cultural ideals. While I get that and I don't approve of forcefully making women wear the veil (if its her choice on the other hand-hell yeah!), Elizabeth only started using the veil because she felt left out when she saw the rest of the women wearing it. That's gross.
There's a lot I want to say on this book, but I'll keep it short and finish. Her husband Bob reallllllllyyyyy bothered me. Especially that scene where their American friends come and visit and Elizabeth's Iraqi friends come to keep her company since they believe she's been living fully in purdah. Instead of Bob helping Elizabeth so she could rejoin their friends who had travelled so far to see them, he kept yelling for his wife to bring them tea and food. He was definitely enjoying the servitude of his wife so she could keep up appearances of purdah. He's gross. I just overall didn't like Bob (I know he's a real person and not fictional) because of the condescending way he talked to Elizabeth. I get that it was "a different time" or whatever but that doesn't excuse treating your wife like a servant. While Elizabeth most certainly left out other exchanges between themselves, the ones she did write about always felt like Bob criticizing her or telling her how to act.

[Abigail Bok · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got about halfway through this book, and if I had more time I might finish it; my abandonment is not a reflection on its merits.

Published in the mid-1960s, it is an account written by the newlywed wife of an ethnographer who joins her husband in a remote Iraqi village. He is doing a study of Iraqi tribal ways and has been invited by a regional sheik to stay at his guest house for a few years. Of course, the husband has no access to the women of the village, and that’s where his wife comes in. She’s not trained as an observer and early on expresses some unfortunate perspectives on the enterprise, but soon enough she has dived into the challenge and is learning how to be an observer without attempting to influence the culture she’s immersed in. She even develops some friendships among the women.

Despite the subtitle the book is not framed as an ethnographic study; it is more of a memoir, and a very readable one at that. It is a fascinating window into traditional Iraqi tribal culture, full of incidents poignant and humorous, and quite insightful.

Why did I not finish? I seized on a few distractions in my life as an excuse to evade the book. For me it was so painful and enraging to read about a culture that is entirely constructed around the commodification of females that after a couple hundred pages I couldn’t take it anymore. The women who spent their entire lives single, dependent, and extraneous because they were allowed to marry only their cousins, and there weren’t enough male cousins to go around—that was the straw that broke me. Such waste, such cruelty, physical and psychological, to exalt the privilege of men. Gaah! Too upsetting.

[Ru · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book in a wonderful bookshop in the lovely old village of Al bastakiya, Dubai. As an Iraqi whose first language is English, I was pleasantly surprised to pick up a book about Iraq written in English so did not hesitate to buy it.

Being familiar with a lot of Iraqi customs and culture I found it very refreshing to read it from the perspective of an "outsider". Elizabeth provided a very interesting, observant and respectful account of her lengthy visit to Iraq. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her journey accustoming herself to the Iraqi village culture in the 50s and establishing genuine friendships with Iraqi women. I found it fascinating to read about the village life in Iraq in the 50s (as somebody who is only familiar with city living in Iraq in the 21st century). I am not sure how different village life in Iraq is at the moment but I think regardless, this would be a fascinating and colourful read for anybody interested in Iraqi culture.

The misogynistic culture described in this book did anger me quite a bit but it was great to see the strong female characters resist on some occasions. I have real hope in Iraqi women to resist misogyny and fight for equality. To those reviewers labelling this as religious- it is cultural customs disguised as religious.

All in all, this is the first ethnography I have read and probably won't be my last as I enjoyed it very much!

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly absorbing, well-written novel. Elizabeth Fernea's entertaining account of her time spent in El Nahra in southern Iraq during the 1950's, is uniquely insightful.

Settling in a new land, learning the language and culture, the ways of the people, and hoping to be accepted would be frightening for anyone. Fernea handled herself with grace and humility and was quickly befriended by the women of El Nahra.

The descriptive narrative left me feeling, hearing, seeing and smelling the sites and sounds of El Nahra. I felt as though I knew well, the women Elizabeth had made friends with.

I was very interested in learning the words in Arabic and enjoyed looking them up in the glossary at the back of the book.

This was an excellent, excellent story that I plan on sharing with a friend.

[Gina Wilkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1965, this book is still studied today and for good reason. The title says it's an ethnography, so I was expecting it to be dry, but it seemed more like a memoir to me, and richer for that. The author, newly-wed American Elizabeth Fernea, lived in a small Iraqi village for two years with her anthropologist husband in the late 1950's, and this book chronicles her observations and experiences. I lived in Iraq myself, and was not surprised to see that the local women welcomed the author into their lives. I loved the insight into traditional life during that period, and the nuanced way that the author portrayed the women in the village, their unique personalities, sense of humor, and relationships.

[Rachel B · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

The outdated cover doesn't do this book justice. It was one of the more interesting memoirs I've read as of late.

Fernea details her time living with a rural tribe in Iraq in the late 1950s. Her husband is studying for a doctorate as an anthropologist, and she helps him by relating the stories of the tribe's women and their customs.

I enjoyed learning of the cultural differences between this tribe and my own society. It was also nice to see some similarities. I do wonder how much has changed in Iraqi culture in the 60+ years since the events in the book took place.

Worth a read!

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this strictly to help me get ready to edit some of our Iraq war coverage, wanting something personal about the Iraqi people. This was a mesmerizing account of a woman who married an American anthropologist and ended up living among women in southern Iraq for a couple years. Her tales of the initial contempt and suspicion they had toward her, and then the way she was embraced and the lives she learned about among these sheltered and tribal women, were vivid and seemed as though they could have been written about last week.

[Meen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This ethnography was required reading for an Intro to Anthro class. It is a lovely intimate portrayal of rural communal life in Iraq, and by the semester that I read it the U.S. had already begun the unjustified war in Iraq, which made it all the more poignant. I felt like I knew people over there who were being blown away as "collateral damage," and it was devastating. And that is the beauty of ethnography--its ability to show us what is universal in the human experience, despite all our differences, to make human connections across cultures.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

When he came home for Christmas vacation last year, my son (majoring in Middle Eastern Studies) gave each of the women in his life (siblings & mom) this book to read, and set an appointment for us to take some time to discuss before he went back to school. It's the story of a young American woman's first two years of married life living in a tribal settlement on the edge of a village in southern Iraq. It's non fiction, but very readable. A great window into Iraqi culture and history.