In this captivating book, award-winning journalist Geraldine Brooks offers an intimate, often shocking portrait
of the lives of modern Muslim women, and shows how male pride and power have warped the original message of a once-liberating
faith. "A valid, entertaining account of women in the Muslim world."--The New York Times Book Review.
Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women is the story of Brook's intrepid journey toward an understanding
of the women behind the veils, and of the often contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces that shape
their lives. In fundamentalist Iran, Brooks finagles an invitation to tea with the ayatollah's widow - and discovers
that Mrs. Khomeini dyes her hair. In Saudi Arabia, she eludes the severe segregation of the sexes and attends a
bacchanal, laying bare the hypocrisy of this austere, male-dominated society. In war-torn Ethiopia, she watches
as a female gynecologist repairs women who have undergone genital mutilation justified by a distorted interpretation
of Islam. In villages and capitals throughout the Middle East, she finds that a feminism of sorts has flowered
under the forbidding shroud of the chador as she makes other startling discoveries that defy our stereotypes about
the Muslim world. Nine Parts of Desire is much more than a captivating work of firsthand reportage; it is also
an acute analysis of the world's fastest-growing religion, deftly illustrating how Islam's holiest texts have been
misused to justify the repression of women. It was, after all, the Shiite leader Ali who proclaimed that "God
created sexual desire in ten parts, then gave nine parts to women."