In 1965 Elizabeth Warnock Fernea joined her husband, a social anthropologist, in a southern Iraqi village. Her time there is recorded in Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. Although balking at first, she decides to wear the “servile garment” [or abayah] in order to be “well thought of in [her] new home.” She discovers that in this society “an uncovered woman is an immoral woman” and “women don’t appear in the market.” These same women are often illiterate, make camel dung pancakes for fuel, may be one of the many wives of the sheik, and prepare food for any guests that appear since “tradition decrees that any guest may expect food and a bed for three days without any questions asked.”
Fernea also learns that “a Shiite Moslem . . . would not eat food which had been touched by Christians, and any dish from which a Christian guest had eaten or drunk was smashed so that the infidel wouldn’t contaminate the faithful.” Since she and her husband were Christian, no one in the village would do their laundry.
In addition, “paternal first-cousin marriage was the preferred marriage arrangement.”
One young girl, Amina had been “married to a sixty-five year old man when she was fifteen. Her marriage brought nothing but grief for she nearly died delivering a stillborn son.” When her husband died, she was purchased for twenty pounds and given to the sheik’s wife. Yet, Aimna considered herself very fortunate since she could “have as much bread as she want[ed] every day.”
Fernea describes the period of deepest mourning in the Islamic month of Muharram. In the seventh century, Hussein, grandson of the prophet Mohammed was slain in battle on the plains of Karbala. His death contributed to the split into Shiite and Sunni sects. During this month, the Shiite communities in Iraq, Iran and India commemorate Hussein’s martyrdom. Though some Iraqis found the ceremonies, i.e., flagellation, uncivilized and backward, the ritual persists to present day.
Fernea explains that while every Moslem hopes to visit Mecca, the Shiite Moslem has an additional duty to visit the shrines of the twelve imams of the Shiite sect and “the essential character of the pilgrimage has not changed much in a thousand years.
Fast forward to Mahtob Mahmoody’s book entitled My Name Is Mahtob where the reader learns of the events following the daring escape of Betty Mahmoody recounted in Not Without My Daughter. On August 1, 1984, Mahtob’s father took his wife and daughter back to Iran for a two-week vacation. But it was not until 1986, that Betty and her daughter would escape the tyranny of her husband and return to America. Now in 2015, Mahtob writes about the trials and triumphs that have colored her life. She describes how “the women wore black chadors . . . revealing only a portion of the face. The chador was held in place from the inside, so even the skin of their hands was hidden.” She had a glimpse of her future when her father stated “you are in Iran until you die. Now you’re in my country. You’ll abide by my rules.” Betty and Mahtob constantly feared for their lives.
