Guests of the Sheikh

An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village

By: Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

There are 800 million Muslims in the world today, yet Islam is one of the world's least understood and appreciated religions. The culture of Islamic women and the mystery of a veiled society have endured any number of uninformed or hostile interpretations. Elizabeth Warnock Fernea spent the first two years of her marriage in the 1950s living in El Nahra, a small village in Southern Iraq, and her book is a personal narrative about life behind a veil in a community unaccustomed to Western women. She arrived speaking only a few words of Arabic and feeling dubious about her husband's expectation that she adapt completely to the segregated society in order to accommodate his anthropological study. When she left two years later she was an accepted and loved member of the village, inspired for a lifetime of work in Middle Eastern studies. 

The story of her life among the Iraqis is eye-opening, written with intellectual honesty as well as love and respect for a seemingly impenetrable society. Although the book was originally published in 1965, it surfaced again during the Gulf War in 1991 when many small villages were destroyed in Southern Iraq. This book gives readers a fuller sense of those communities and brings home the cost of war waged against civilians.

Strategic Peacebuilding

A Vision and Framework for Peace with Justice

By: Lisa Schirch

So we'd all like a more peaceful world -- no wars, no poverty, no more racism, no community disputes, no office tensions, no marital skirmishes.

Lisa Schirch in her timely book sets forth paths to such realities. In fact, she points a way to more than the absence of conflict. She foresees justpeace -- a sustainable state of affairs because it is a peace which insists on justice.

How to arrive there is the subject of this book. Peacebuilding recognizes the complexity and the effort this elusive ideal requires. Schirch singles out four critical actions that must be undertaken if peace is to take root at any level) -- 1.) waging conflict nonviolently; 2.) reducing direct violence; 3.) transforming relationships; and 4.) building capacity.

She never imagines this to be a quick -- or an individual -- task. Her clear and incisive strategy encourages enabling many approaches to peace, honestly assessing who holds power, and persuading and coercing, but always with keen judgment and precise timing.

From Schirch's 15 years of experience as a peacebuilding consultant in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Arab Voices

What They Are Saying to Us, and Why It Matters

By: James Zogby

The Arab World is a region that has been vastly misunderstood in the West. Arab Voices asks the questions, collects the answers, and shares the results that will help us see Arabs clearly. The book will bring into stark relief the myths, assumptions, and biases that hold us back from understanding this important people. Here, James Zogby debuts a brand new, comprehensive poll, bringing numbers to life so that we can base policy and perception on the real world, rather than on a conjured reality.

Based on a new poll run by Zogby International exclusively for this book, some of the surprising results revealed include:

* Despite the frustration with the peace process and the number of wars of the past few years, 74% of Arabs still support a two state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And over one-third of Lebanese, Saudis, and Jordanians think that their governments should do more to advance peace.

* Despite wars in and around their region and the worldwide economic crisis, when asked "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" 42% of those polled say they are better off, 19% worse off.

* Arabs like American people (59% favorable rating), values (52%) and products (69%), giving them all high ratings. And Canada gets high favorability ratings everywhere (an overall rating of 55% favorable and 32% unfavorable).

* However, Arabs overwhelmingly rate American society  "more violent and war-like" (77%) or "less respectful of the rights ofothers" (78%) than their own society. Why? Because of the Iraq war and continuing fallout from Abu Ghraib,Guantanamo, and the treatment of Arab and Muslim immigrants and visitors to the United States.

* What type of TV show do Saudis and Egyptians prefer to watch? The answer is, "Movies", which draws over 50% of the first and second choice votes. In Morocco, the top rated shows are "soap operas" and music and entertainment programs, drawing almost two-thirds of the first and second choice votes. Religious programs are near the bottom of the list of viewer preferences, garnering less than 10% of votes in all three countries.

On the State of Egypt

What Made the Revolution Inevitable

By: Alaa Al Aswany

From one of Egypt’s most acclaimed novelists, here is a vivid chronicle of Egyptian society, with penetrating analysis of all the most urgent issues—economic stagnation, police brutality, poverty, the harassment of women and of the Christian minority, to name a few—that led to the stunning overthrow of the Mubarak government. 

Al-Aswany addresses himself to all the questions being asked within Egypt and beyond: who will be the next president, and how will he be chosen in a land where heretofore only simpletons, opportunists and stooges involved themselves with elections? What role will the Muslim Brotherhood play? How can democratic reforms be effected among a people used to such contradictions as the religiously observant policeman who commits torture? In a candid and controversial assessment of both the potential and limitations that will determine his country’s future, Al-Aswany reveals why the revolt that surprised the world was destined to happen.

The Taqwacores

A Novel

By: Michael Muhammad Knight

Set in a Muslim punk-house in Buffalo, New York, this novel explores the twin identities of punk and Islam in their many varieties and degrees of orthodoxy. The story here is primarily with the characters — Umar, the straight-edge Sunni; Rabeya, the burqa-clad riot grrl; Jehangir, the dope-smoking mohawked Sufi (who plays rooftop calls-to-prayer on his electric guitar) — and their collective articulation of a heresy-friendly, pluralist Islam. Full of punk references (real and invented) and enough Arabic phrases to fully deck out your skateboard, The Taqwacores is a great introduction to the cracks in the surface of mainstream Islam with a peculiarly American face.