Sorrow and Joy among Muslim Women
Subtitle: The Pukhtuns of Northern Pakistan (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications)
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: October 23, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780521861694
Subjects: Islamic studies; Women's studies; Sociology; Rites and ceremonies; Social Science; Archaeology / Anthropology; Pakistan; Women's Studies - General; Anthropology - General; Social Science / Anthropology / General; Psychology; Social conditions; Women, Pushtun
Description: "The Pukhtuns are numerically and politically one of the most significant ethnolinguistic groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This study of Pukhtun society concentrates on the lives, thoughts and gham-khadi (funeral-wedding) ceremonies of the women, especially of the elite, wealthy and educated women (Bibiane) who have largely been overlooked in previous studies. Contesting their conventional representation as idle, it illustrates their commitment to various forms of work within familial and social contexts. It challenges the commonly assumed models of contemporary Pakistan society, which make a simplistic divide between rural and urban, Punjab and non-Punjab, and feudal and non-feudal spaces and peoples.

It also contributes to broader debates about the nature and expression of elite cultures and issues of sociality, funerals and marriage, custom and religion, space and gender, morality and reason, and social role and personhood within the contexts of Islam in the Middle East and South Asia."--Jacket.