Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures ─ Family, Law and Politics

This is the second volume of six, each of which will focus on a cluster of topics (the sixth will be a cumulative index). Here over 360 entries are presented by scholars from around the world on such topics as adoption and fostering, honor, law: criminal, political-social movements: feminist, Sufi orders and movements, and Zoroastrian women. For some topics, only an overview is provided, but for most, three to six or more articles follow focusing on the manifestation of the topic in a particular region. Those regions include traditional Islamic territories such as North Africa, Turkey, the Persian Gulf and Yemen, Iran and Afghanistan, the Caucasus, and Indonesia; but they also include such areas as Europe, North America, and the Balkans. Some articles also consider the past, such as kinship and the state under the Ottomans. Each article is signed and includes a bibliography. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Suad Joseph, Ph.D., Columbia University, New York, is Professor of Anthropology and Womens Studies at the University of California, Davis. She has publishedIntimate Selving in Arab Families: Gender, Self and Identity (Syracuse University Press,1999), andGender and Citizenship in the Middle East (Syracuse University Press, 2000).