Women, Property and Islam: Palestinian Experiences, 1920-1990

by Annelies Moors

Overview

According to Islamic law, women are entitled to inherit property, receive a dower at marriage, and to manage their own income. In practice, however, this is not always the case. In an anthropological study of Palestinian women from different stratas of society, Annelies Moors examines under what circumstances they claim property rights and when they are prevented from doing so. The combination of oral history and written legal sources presents an informed and sophisticated challenge to the conclusions of existing literature on the region.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521483551
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/29/1996
Series:	Cambridge Middle East Studies , #3
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: women and property; Part I. Politics, Economy and Kinship: 2. The lives of four women: introducing property and politics; 3. Women and inheritance; Part II. The Power: 4. The dower: marriage, gender and social stratification; 5. Marriage: the prompt dower; 6. Repudiation and widowhood: the deferred dower; Part III. Paid Labour and Property: 7. Poverty, wage labour and property; 8. Gender and garment production; 9. Education, professional work and property; 10. Women and property revisited.

Editorial Reviews

"...this is a well-written, engaging study—useful to social scientists, Middle East scholars, and specialists in gender studies." Choice

"Engaging, convincing, and brilliantly crafted, Women, Property and Islam is one of the best scholarly books I have read in some time....The ten chapters of this book provide ample detail and a most useful level of specificity. They allow readers to appreciate the need for analytic caution before translating legal prinicples into data, and they quietly but effectively show the need to put any "ethnographic present" in a historical context." Virginia R. Dominguez, American Anthropologist

"The strengths of Moors's study lie in its detail and in the ways this detail is linked to issues of larger theoretical substance....this is in many ways a fascinating and suggestive ethnographic study that raises questions about the relationship between written evidence and social practice that are useful for historians to consider." Ylana N. Millar, American Historical Review

"Combining detailed examination and broad theoretical framework, Moors' study is an important contribution in understanding the position of women in a rapidly changing society." Rachel Simon, Ph.D., DOMES

From the Publisher