Guests of the Sheik

Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

On the library stacks: Adult non-fiction

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is the fascinating account of a newly-married woman who lived with her husband in a remote Shiite village in Iraq from 1957-58. Elizabeth's husband Bob was doing graduate work studying anthropology both in Baghdad and a rural community called El Nahra. In this book, Elizabeth details her time in El Nahra among the women.

While Elizabeth thought her presence might cause envy among the women, instead she found that they actually felt sorry for her. The city of Baghdad was much more progressive than the outlying areas during that time period, and Elizabeth did not wear the veil, or abayah, while she lived there. She was determined to stay true to herself and her cultural identity when they moved to the village. But after being stared at and somewhat ridiculed, she changed her mind and wore it all the time.

I love how this book made me think about how many of my strongly-held ideals are a function of my cultural traditions and how they could quite possibly be completely irrational in a different setting. One thing that really stuck out to me is how being separated from one's mother, either by death or by distance, was considered to be a life-altering sadness. I also liked when the women of the village came to stay by Elizabeth's bedside the whole time she was sick. To them nothing was worse than being alone while unwell. But really, Elizabeth just wanted to be left alone.

This book is written in a casual tone that I really liked. I enjoyed getting to know Elizabeth and the women of the village who became such an important part of her life. (She even named one of her daughters Laila after one of her new friends.) Elizabeth thought she would be teaching them her modern ideas, but instead her time there became a journey of self-discovery as she allowed them to teach her.

Source: Kindle purchase