In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom

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Overview

Unexpectedly denied a visa to remain in the United States, Qanta Ahmed, a young British Muslim doctor, becomes an outcast in motion. On a whim, she accepts an exciting position in Saudi Arabia. This is not just a new job; this is a chance at adventure in an exotic land she thinks she understands, a place she hopes she will belong.

What she discovers is vastly different. The Kingdom is a world apart, a land of unparalleled contrast. She finds rejection and scorn in the places she believed would most embrace her, but also humor, honesty, loyalty, and love.

And for Qanta, more than anything, it is a land of opportunity. A place where she discovers what it takes for one woman to re-create herself in the land of invisible women.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

This memoir is a journey into a complex world readers will find fascinating and at times repugnant. After being denied a visa to remain in the U.S., British-born Ahmed, a Muslim woman of Pakistani origin, takes advantage of an opportunity, before 9/11, to practice medicine in Saudi Arabia. She discovers her new environment is defined by schizophrenic contrasts that create an "absurd clamorous clash of modern and medieval.... It never became less arresting to behold." Ahmeda's introduction to her new environment is shocking. Her first patient is an elderly Bedouin woman. Though naked on the operating table, she still is required by custom to have her face concealed with a veil under which numerous hoses snake their way to hissing machines. Everyday life is laced with bizarre situations created by the rabid puritanical orthodoxy that among other requirements forbids women to wear seat belts because it results in their breasts being more defined, and oppresses Saudi men as much as women by its archaic rules. At times the narrative is burdened with Ahmeda's descriptions of the physical characteristics of individuals and the luxurious adornments of their homes but this minor flaw is easily overlooked in exchange for the intimate introduction to a world most readers will never know. (Sept.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Booklist

Denied visa renewal in America, British-born Pakistani physician Ahmed, 31, leaves New York for a job in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where she celebrates her Muslim faith on an exciting Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca... After 9/11, she is shocked at the widespread anti-Americanism. The details of consumerism, complete with Western brand names .... are central to this honest memoir about connections and conflicts, and especially the clamorous clash of "modern and medieval, . . . Cadillac and camel."

ForeWord

Ahmed was saddened, distressed, and taken aback by her colleagues' excitement in reaction to the 9/11 attacks. Her friends talked about how America "deserved" this tragedy because of its support of Israel.

Kirkus

"Despite the restrictive customs of Saudi's religious rule, Ahmed found a vibrancy that left her hopeful. 'Saudi is much more heterogeneous than one would expect,' she says. 'Muslims themselves feel fairly lost in a country so caricatured and vilified for its severe austerity and Wahhabi theocracy, but it's also the cradle of Islam and the site of the Hajj-a symbol of what Islam could be.'"

Kirkus Reviews
A female doctor provides a uniquely revealing look at the hidden world of Saudi Arabian women. Denied a renewal of her visa in the United States, British-born, American-educated pulmonologist Ahmed accepted a position at a hospital in Riyadh. On rounds, the male residents she supervised would interrupt her, and female residents (what few there were) would cluster silently at the back of the group. All female doctors were required to be completely veiled. In surgeries, sons would supervise unconscious mothers, not to ensure the quality of their medical care, but to ensure that no parts of their faces were revealed by slipping veils. With such evidence around her, Ahmed began to think of these women as the wretched of the Earth. "I wouldn't be corrected in my simplistic views," she writes, "until much later, when I had befriended more Saudi women." When she did, she learned that the lives of these women under veils were no less complex and rich for being largely unseen. At her first party, she was astounded by the elegance and confidence exuded by professional women who had struggled immensely to achieve their positions. She began to understand how respect and love for women were expressed in her adopted society. Despite the strict monitoring of their clothing and behavior and the edicts against showing even the smallest scrap of skin in public, the Saudi women she met were neither so silent nor so helpless as their formless presence suggested. However, her friends were wealthy and educated; the vast impoverished majority could not even afford to visit doctors, let alone become one. Though never ceasing to be dismayed by the uglier aspects of regressive Saudi orthodoxy, Ahmed also found herown Muslim faith deepened and her conception of Islam broadened by her sojourn there. If she never learned to love the veil, she at least learned to understand it. A big-hearted examination of the extreme contradictions in a society very different-yet not so different-from our own.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781402210877
  • Publisher: Sourcebooks, Incorporated
  • Publication date: 9/1/2008
  • Pages: 464
  • Sales rank: 113,575
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 8.90 (h) x 2.00 (d)

Meet the Author

Dr. Ahmed is currently an assistant professor of medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and Assistant Director of the MUSC Sleep Disorders Laboratory. She is a quadruple boarded in internal medicine, pulmonary disease, critical care medicine, and sleep disorders medicine. She continues to practice intensive care medicine. She became a fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, a Diplomat and member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Read an Excerpt

I returned to Khalaa Tarfa, my first patient in the Kingdom. She was a Bedouin Saudi well into her seventies, though no one could be sure of her age (female births were not certified in Saudi Arabia when she had been born). She was on a respirator for a pneumonia which had been slow to resolve. Comatose, she was oblivious to my studying gaze. A colleague prepared her for the placement of a central line (a major intravenous line into a deep vein).

Her torso was uncovered in anticipation.. Another physician sterilized the berry brown skin with swathes of iodine. A mundane procedure I had performed countless times, in Saudi Arabia it made for a starling scene. I looked up from the sterilized field which was quickly submerging the Bedouin body under a disposable sea of blue. Her face remained enshrouded in a black scarf, as if she was out in a market scurrying through a crowd of loitering men. I was astounded.

Behind the curtain, a family member hovered, the dutiful son. Intermittently, he peered at us . He was obviously worrying, I decided, as I watched his slim brown fingers rapidly manipulating a rosary. He was probably concerned about the insertion of the central line, I thought, just like any other caring family member.

Every now and again, he signaled vigorously, rapidly talking in Arabic to instruct the nurse. I wondered what he was asking about and how he could know if we were at a crucial step in the procedure. Everything was going smoothly; in fact soon the jugular would be cannulated. We were almost finished. What could be troubling him?

Through my dullness, eventually, I noticed a clue. Each time the physician's sleeve touched the patient's veil,and the veil slipped, the son burst out in a flurry of anxiety. Perhaps all of nineteen, the son was instructing the nurse to cover the patient's face, all the while painfully averting his uninitiated gaze away from his mother's fully exposed torso, revealing possibly the first breasts he may have seen.

I wondered about the lengths to which the son continued to veil his mother, even when she was gravely ill. Couldn't he see it was the least important thing for her now at this time, when her life could ebb away at any point? Didn't he know God was Merciful, tolerant and understanding and would never quibble over the wearing of a veil in such circumstances, or I doubted, any circumstances?

Somehow I assumed the veil was mandated by the son, but perhaps I was wrong about that as well. Already, I was finding myself wildly ignorant in this country. Perhaps the patient herself would be furious if her modesty was unveiled when she was powerless to resist. Nothing was clear to me other than veiling was essential, inescapable, even for a dying woman. This was the way of the new world in which I was now confined. For now, and the next two years, I would see many things I couldn't understand. I was now a stranger in the Kingdom.

Table of Contents


The Bedouin Bedside     1
A Time to Leave America     7
My New Home, a Military Compound     21
Abbayah Shopping     27
Invisible and Safe     33
Saudi Women Who Dance Alone     43
Veiled Doctors     73
The Lost Boys of the Kingdom     83
A Father's Grieving     91
An Invitation to God     111
The Epicenter of Islam     123
Into the Light     131
The Child of God     139
The Million-Man Wheel     147
Committing Haram     153
Calling Doctora     165
Daughters of the Desert     177
Next Stop: Absolution     183
Prayer under the Stars     189
Between the Devil and the Red Sea     195
Mutawaeen: The Men in Brown     205
Single Saudi Male     217
The Calm before the Storm     221
Wahabi Wrath     229
Doctor Zhivago of Arabia     249
Love in the Kingdom     259
Show Me Your Marriage License!     271
An Eye for an Eye     281
Princes, Polygamists, and Paupers     291
Divorce, Saudi-Style     301
The Saudi Divorcee     309
Desperate Housewives     323
The Making of a Female Saudi Surgeon     335
The Hot Mamma     359
The Gloria Steinem of Arabia     371
Champion of Children     385
9/11 in Saudi Arabia     395
Final Moments, Final Days     413
Afterword: Rugged Glory     431
Endnotes     439
Bibliography     445
Reading Group Guide     447
Acknowledgments     451

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3.5
( 61 )

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 61 Customer Reviews
  • Posted February 23, 2009

    I Also Recommend:

    What a wonderful book!

    I found "In the Land of Invisible Women" absolutely compelling reading. The perspectives of a woman who is a physician, a world traveler, and also deeply religious allowed me views of Saudi Arabia and its women that were intense and memorable. I expect that men readers would find this just as interesting as women readers. As a physician, Dr. Ahmed gives a scientist's-eye-view of life in the Kingdom. As a woman who speaks fluent Arabic, she was welcome in the inner circles of other women and could provide a rich picture of these women's lives and interests as well as their views of the difficulties they face as women in such a stern, difficult society. As a sincere woman of faith, she took me vicariously on her own spiritual journey that, as a non-Muslim, I can never experience directly but as another woman of faith I can relate to intensely. I LOVED this book and recommend it with great enthusiasm.

    12 out of 17 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted July 12, 2009

    I Also Recommend:

    Great Book for the Everyday Reader and for Anyone Interested in Arab Cultural Issues

    As a practicing American Muslim woman, I am oftentimes skeptical of commentary on the lives of Muslim women, or of Muslims in general. Dr. Qanta Ahmed's eye-opening memoir helped ease some of my concerns on such commentary. I had only known of Arab women's lives from a distance - through television and radio media. Dr. Ahmed's book exposed an intimate look at what it means, for a practicing Muslim woman, to live as a Muslim woman in Saudi Arabia. It is, as is often portrayed, a tough life for Saudi women. Yet the society as a whole is not to blame - this is the genius of the book.

    So many times you will hear Muslims saying "Muslims are to blame, not Islam" - Dr. Ahmed proved it in this book through the Saudi men and women themselves. She is able to portray Saudi's as an enlightened, patriotic, religious, and progressive people who are struggling to rid the shackles of some decadent societal norms.

    Another point to consider is that the author is a British born, now American based, physician who is also a Muslim. Dr. Ahmed's narrative is itself proof of not only the possibility, but plausibility of loving co-existence between the West and the Muslim world.

    I hear the book is being translated - I really can't say I'm surprised!

    10 out of 14 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted October 17, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    Great Insight

    Thought provoking. Great for learning and understanding women behind the veil without westernized biased filters.

    8 out of 10 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted May 5, 2010

    Good Read

    The story of Dr. Ahmed's journey was both fascinating and frustrating. Through her beautiful writing and strong spiritual perspective I learned a lot about Islam. At the same time the culture of Saudi Arabia angered me immensely. Its a country I enjoy reading about but could never live in. It is a book that brings forth conflicting feelings and inspires much thought.

    7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 15, 2009

    Dr. Ahmed shares, with humor and humility, her life-changing experience in Saudi Arabia...all in captivating fashion.

    My best friend and I each purchased this book for our next book club discussion. We each had our own reasons for choosing it - she, because she is staunchly feminist and the title and concept appealed to her; I, because of my intense pull to broaden my cultural horizons. Dr. Ahmed's writing style pulled me in, capturing and holding my attention, as I read about her life-changing decision to practice medicine in the Kingdom. I felt her fury and contempt for the rampant bigotry that exist(ed) during her years there, the anxiousness and butterflies associated with a forbidden school-girl-like crush, and the admiration for the many strong, supportive men and women who fought in their own ways for equality (be it in the ICU, a public restaurant, or by the Ka'aba during Hajj). I am notorious for starting a book and leaving it for weeks or months (yes, at times even years) before returning to finish it, but her vivid style had me turning page after page until, a mere 5 days after starting it, I finished the last sentence. This is truly a captivating piece of literature!

    7 out of 8 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted April 8, 2011

    fascinating

    This is a first-person account by Dr. Qanta Ahmed, a female Muslim physician. She spent two years practicing medicine in Saudi Arabia and offers a fascinating view into Saudi society and culture. Agreat read!

    4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 11, 2009

    A New Insight

    One of the best books I have read! I really enjoyed reading about Qanta's experiences while she was in the Kingdom. She really didnt hold anything back. I got a new insight on what women experience in Saudi Arabia, and its not necessarily what you would expect.
    I would defeinetly recommend it!

    4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 4, 2011

    Highly Recommended!

    This book was wonderful. It was a fun and easy read, but also managed to be insightful and educational. I felt like I got a good personal look into the lives of women in the Kingdom. Well worth the low $7.99 eBook price!!

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 7, 2012

    Horrible

    This book is too enrichlng

    2 out of 14 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 16, 2012

    Very informative; worth reading.

    The author surprised me with her spiritual openness and descriptions of the difficulties of living a "double life" in male-dominated Saudi Arabia. At first, I struggled to connect with her. But her hajj is fascinating, and I was hooked after that! Reading the book in a post-9/11 world helped me learn about that far-away land with it's old-world society.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 13, 2012

    Wonder-ful.

    Compassionate, observant, intelligent, an insider and outsider simultaneously, Dr. Ahmed has written a thought-provoking book about some of her experiences as a western-raised Muslim woman and US-trained scientist working in Saudi Arabia. She explains some of the political-religious background of the country, shows the varying opinions of the people she came to know, and tells it all as a good story. She describes her own spiritual journey also as a story to be explained to outsiders, not as an intellectual process, but as an emotional encounter with faith.

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  • Posted May 11, 2012

    Highly Recommended

    A good look behind the veil. If you've always wondered what it would be like to be invisible but don't want to travel to other cultures in order to understand this type of society then this book is a must read.

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  • Posted May 9, 2012

    For those who want to learn more about other cultures

    I love these kinds of books, we live in such an open society that it is interesting to me to see those who are so controlled by the men of their countrys. How these women can live under such barbaric rules and be thought of so little by the men of their country is indeed foreign to us who live in a country where women are treated almost as equals as men, except for maybe in the workplace, is so sad. I love to read these kinds of books. And these women have my sympathy. I thoroughly enjoyed this book at the same time I was appalled at how they are treated.

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  • Posted May 9, 2012

    Fascinating read

    I learned so much about the religious right of Saudi Arabia and the challenges faced by an American woman who, as a Muslim, thought she would understand the culture. I fist thought it would be more about the practice of medicine but it is so much more than that. Loved the book. Dr. Ahmed is an excellent story teller.

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  • Posted May 8, 2012

    Very good read

    As a healthcare worker it was interesting to read about how how healthcare could be so forward in Saudi Arabia, but women's independence could be so far behind.

    I couldn't wait to hear more of Qanta's adventures and relationships while in the Kingdom.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 7, 2012

    Great read

    Very interesting perspective. It was great to experience Saudi Arabia from Dr. Ahmed's vantage point. At times, a bit wordy, but overall, an enjoyable read.

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  • Posted May 7, 2012

    Fascinating

    First person perspective of a professional woman living and working in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s with observations on changes that she observed during visits after 9/11 2001).

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted May 7, 2012

    Not what I expected--but not bad

    I thought this was going to be a more medical book, with anecdotes about treating patients and what were common and unusual ailments in Saudi Arabia. Instead it was about a Muslim woman living in America who goes to Saudi Arabia as a doctor. The book is really about the women's culture(s) in that country and how the experience deepened the author's Islamic faith.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 7, 2012

    Good Inside Look

    This is a good book for anyone interested in life behind the scenes for women in Saudi Arabia. I did get lost sometimes with so many colleagues, and would have liked to read what the author's family and friends thought during her time there. But overall, very interesting and well worth reading. Good education for those of us who are not Muslim as well.

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  • Posted May 7, 2012

    Culture shock, even from someone who thought she knew what she was getting in to.

    This book has become somewhat dated as womens freedoms have improved since her stint in the Riyadh hospital but one wonders how much personal attitudes have changed and how much was imposed from the outside. The more interesting parts of this narrative came from the idea that as a darker skinned Muslim doctor, the author apparently thought she would fit in to this culture with more ease than most American Expats. However it appears that her gender and her origins (Pakistani American) significantly overpowered this, and even her more liberal coworkers had significant biases. THe writing is a bit choppy and at times vicious (for instance in the way she describes the physical attributes of people she has less respect for or who have less social standing) which made the book harder to read. But the vignettes are revealing, of the authors admitted weaknesses and those of the people around her. The profound anti Semitism of some of her associates, even after years on fellowship to American and Canadian medical facilities where they worked and socialized with much admired Jewish professors and medical staff was shocking, as was the celebration of the fall of the Two Towers on 9/11 by female OBGyns. Worth reading, but a book by someone who is from the area might be better if you have to choose.

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