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WOMEN IN THE MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC WORLD: POWER, PATRONAGE AND PIETY. Edited by GAVIN HAMBLY. (The New Middle Ages (6), 1998) New York, St Martin's Press, 1998. 566 pp., 16 figures, 2 maps.
Gavin Hambly's useful survey of previous work carried out in this field appears in the introduction which is followed by 21 essays on Islamic women in the pre-modern period. There are also two essays on women in pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia. The Islamic contributions range in space from Egypt to India and in time from the first century of Islam up to the nineteenth century. This last feature raises questions of periodization. Should we really consider Sudan in the nineteenth century, or even, for that matter Safavid Iran, to have been medieval?
Because of the nature of the available evidence, the contributions are heavily biased towards the lives of the princesses and other rich, powerful and beautiful women-- Sayyida Hurra, Radiyya hint Iltumish, Sitt Nasra bint `Adlan and so forth. At times, this may give the reader the impression that he is leafing through very old copies of Hello magazine, in which we are introduced to the lifestyles and domestic worlds of the rich and famous-so many medieval precursors of Jemima Khan-but from which we learn...