Preface
1. The Beginnings
Pre-Islamic Arabia
Terra Incognita?
Gender Roles in the “Age of Ignorance”
Muhammad and Women
The Prophet’s Female Companions
Wives and Daughters
2. Theology and Law
The Quran and the Hadīth
Quranic Regulations Concerning the Gender Relationship
Changes
Religious Equality?
Role Models and Interpretive Models
Early Images of Women
Quran Exegesis by Women
The Legal Situation in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
The Road to Modernity
Polygyny, Marriage, and Divorce Law
Whipping, Stoning, and Blood Money
Customary Law
Sharia and Human Rights — Are They Incompatible?
3. Sexuality and Love
Premodern Ideas
Procreation and Contraception
Circumcision
The Fear of Excesses
Homosexuality and Transsexuality
Piety Does Not Disapprove of Love
Masculinity and Femininity in Modern Times
From al-Ghazālī to Fatima Mernissi
Virginity and Chastity
Sexual Taboo Subjects
Masculinity and Power
How I Killed Scheherazade
Marriage and Kinship Relations in Ethnological Research
4. Literary Reflections
Pious Women and Slavegirls
Storyteller or Cunning Character?
“I Embraced Her, Then My Soul Wanted More”
Female Ways of Seeing Things
From Correspondence to the Novel
Autobiography as Processing
The Search for an Identity
Umm Kulthūm and Fairūz
5. Women and Power
Domination on Stage and in the Wings
Men Have a Degree above Women
Women in Power
Action on Behalf of Sons
The Age of Colonialism and the Search for a New Identity
Not Only Arrogance and Exoticism
A Look Toward Europe
The Beginnings of Reform
Feminism in the Nation-States
Three Ideal Types
Egypt: From the Charitable Association to Islamism
Iran: Regression and Progress
Morocco: Approaches to Emancipation
6. Education and Professions
A Glance at History
Educated Women
Fields of Activity
Emancipation through Education?
The Battle Against Illiteracy
The Conquest of the Universities
The Difficult Road to the World of Work
Women in Politics
Arab Spring or Arab Ice Age? The Role of Women in and after the Revolution of 2011
What Happened in Egypt
The Politics of the Body
The Voices of Revolutionary Women
Constitution and Law: Family Law, the Example of Egypt
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index of Names