3 Review(s)

This innovative book outlines the great complexity, variety and difference of male identities in Islamic societies. From the Taliban orphanages of Afghanistan to the cafes of Morocco, from the experience of couples at infertility clinics in Egypt to that of Iraqi conscripts, it shows how the masculine gender is constructed and negotiated in the Islamic Ummah. It goes far beyond the traditional notion that Islamic masculinities are inseparable from the control of women, and shows how the relationship between spirituality and masculinity is experienced quite differently from the prevailing Western norms. Drawing on sources ranging from modern Arabic literature to discussions of Muhammad's virility and Abraham's paternity, it portrays ways of being in the world that intertwine with non-Western conceptions of duty to the family, the state and the divine.