Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Well, that is unfortunate.  I was this close to dropping a big wad of cash on an ARC of “Jewel” on Ebay, too.  I’ve read too many simplified, anachronistic historical fantasies about important religious figures, and although I had hopes that “Jewel” would be fun and educational, it seems that it is not.  I have limited patience with costume dramas featuring TSTL heroines wanting to gad about waving swords, so I don’t think I really dig this.  Thanks for the great review, Sarah!

I guess I’ll just reread my copy of “Introducing Muhammad” by Ziauddin Sardar.  It’s got lots of good info, and is nicely illustrated as well.

Thanks for the heads up.  Your interpretation of a book is usually pretty close to my opinions, so I know I won’t want to read this one!!

That’s quite sad, because I was listening to a radio program about Aisha and other famous Muslim women and they were pretty awesome. It could have been great!

Sarah, as usual your review was well thought out and detailed.

With all the controversy surrounding the book that ended with Random House pulling the contract just weeks before its release date, I have to say I’m surprised it wasn’t more historically rich. They paid big bucks for it originally.

Of course, I’m also still amazed they yanked the contract based on rumors. I know plenty of Catholics who were mad as hell and vocal about DaVinci Code and Golden Compass (books and movies). That just increased its sales. I guess the perceived difference to Random House is that Muslim = Terrorist. Sigh How sad they didn’t let the world decide about this book for themselves.

I think the apology to Muslims was unnecessary. There have been plenty of fictional works (books and film) about Christ’s life, and I don’t remember reviewers profusely apologizing to the readership about their opinion of a work of fiction.

You didn’t write the book. No apology necessary.

The majority of people get that it’s a work of fiction. An author’s opinion or made up story.

Would you have done the same for ‘The Red Tent’? Probably not.

Throughout the first two-thirds of the book, Aisha holds onto a fantasy of personal liberty, riding, fighting, and living the life a man would - without any explanation as to why she felt it could possibly be an option for her.

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why she expected this raging freedom, when certainly as a runaway wife of a religious prophet with a slowly growing collection of followers, she’d be immensely vulnerable to any number of factions.

Huh.  Sounds as if some modern Western sensibilities and social mores crept into this.  If there was context or explanation (at least one that made sense) that would be one thing, but to allow it to be such a large part of the story framework given the subject matter seems a fatal flaw in establishing the setting in a way that would really allow the reader to feel the tension and high stakes of the story.

This is actually quite interesting to me.  I studied Islam a bit, and it was my understanding that the edict that women be veiled is actually more of a cultural thing rather than a religious thing.  I believe that even Christianity has the same sort of rules; St. Paul wrote that women must have their hair covered while praying or making prophecies.  I was under the impression that the “women must be veiled” thing came about from similar cultures living in the same place in the same period of history.  I could be completely wrong—I am not Muslim and I can’t claim to have much of a real understanding of the religion.  But it does make me wonder whether the book is very historically accurate.

I agree with Mel-O-Drama that “Muslim = Terrorist” seems to be the order of the day.  Ever since 9/11 that’s been the case.  It’s like people believe all Muslims to be like the hijackers.  I guess if I thought all Christians were like Timothy McVeigh, a self-proclaimed Christian, I’d be pretty damn scared too.

Possibly Random House was thinking of incidences such as the Danish cartoon portraying Mohammed a few years ago, which prompted death threats and could have led to war.

Or maybe they just decided the book was a D- too.

Once again, a thoughtful and insightful review.  Thanks for sharing with us.

Kathsan, I’ve only studied a little about Islam, too, but as I understand it, Muhammad did receive revelation/give an edict about his wives being removed from men’s eyes, although it had more to do with them staying behind some kind of room divider rather than wearing a veil.

There’s more information here about the religious/cultural/historical traditions of veiling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab. Interesting stuff.

And now to the part that always baffles me:

Why do places such as Random House fork over stunning advances for shoddily written books?

I mean, I can understand the insider books by celebrities and what not, those have a following already built in. But for this type of piece?

Hmmm, methinks I know the reason. This book, like others, are sought after for their “shock” value. They know the content will cause an uproar, in fact, they are banking on it. Whether the writing or characterizations are worth the moola dished out makes little matter.

Then, in this instance, Random House chickened out on the deal. Boo to them for not being able to back up their “alligator mouths with their hummingbird asses.”

Thanks for the review.

Lizzie (greeneyedfem), thanks for the information!  I’ll check that out.

Why do places such as Random House fork over stunning advances for shoddily written books?

Anon76, if you ever find the answer, let me know.

It’s a shame Random House had to whine about “ooh, ooh, potential threat, we might get HURT!” when they could have just said, “Sorry, it turns out the book sucks, and she can’t write.  We made a mistake, and we’re just going to suck it up.”  I could have respected that.

Yeah,  tracykitn, that would have been just fine.

Pubs use that clause all the time. I call it their “oops” clause. Dang, we purchased this but it’s not what it was supposed to be when all was said and done.

But, I still can’t forgive that historian asked for a quote for stirring the pot a bit. She pushed the “egads, this will cause a Jihad” button, also.

She could have just said, “In my opinion, this book is poorly researched and the writing is atrocious. Please do not include me as an endorser.”

I believe that even Christianity has the same sort of rules; St. Paul wrote that women must have their hair covered while praying or making prophecies.

I just read last night that the veiling of women at Christian church came about in an effort to appease the pagan Romans, who kept their wimmin hidden from the lustful eyes of other men, lest their property value be damaged.

The newly-Christian Roman women would be veiled everywhere outside their husbands’ houses, then go to church and unveil, and shock and offend the Roman men.

Thus, women had to be veiled in church.

Things that make you go, huh.

All that drama for a “D” book?

toruble43 is right!

@Kathsan:  Modern scholars are also unsure about when hijab entered the hadith.  The oldest manuscripts don’t mention it.

This books seems to be lovely. Historical books which let us get a glimpse of the lives of the women from the East, are great and usually sad.

* book seems to be - sorry!

After reading the introductory chapter that was posted on this site, my first thought was the real issue with this book was that such a poorly characterized novel came really close to being published.  I am glad that your review backs up my snap judgement :-)

It troubles my sensibilities that Random House would pay a huge amount for a D+ manuscript. Did they think they were getting something similar to Rushdie’s Satanic Verses?

As others have noted, many cultures, both European and Middle Eastern, have required respectable adult women to cover their heads in public.  This is not peculiar to any religion;  the custom has existed in paganism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam (at least).  Hairstyles and headdresses have traditionally been one of the aspects of costume used to differentiate between the young girl and the woman. 

Even as recently as the 1940s, people of both sexes (in Europe) normally donned a head-covering of some kind before leaving the house:  in the case of women, look at any wartime photograph of patient British housewives queuing for their tiny portions of rationed meat or other foods, and you will see that they all wear hats or headscarves.  Traces of this custom still survive even today in UK society, where the very formal day-wear considered appropriate for rituals such as weddings, or occasions when Royalty is present (e.g. Royal garden-parties or investitures), still require hats to be worn.  And there are still those who wear hats (and gloves) to attend church services - that was universal in the 1950s, but has not totally died out yet.

This is not like the extremes of concealment practised in some Moslem groups today, of course, where the whole face is concealed, with only a slit permitted for the wearer to squint out, but it is a mistake to think of the headscarf concept, in its many varieties, as specific to Islam.

Anon76 and rest—it constantly amazes me the inner workings of the book industry.How DO they decide that writer A is going to be a bestseller versus writer B and then proceeds to pour money into Advanced Reading Copies, author tours, ads in PW or LJ or other reviewing media.  Libraries know to buy multiple copies of even bad books with a huge print run and a major advertising budget.  Meanwhile excellent books make their way on their own.  Too bad that the judgement of publishers has been so bad lately—with all the revelations about author trickery.  I say stick with a well written and well plotted novel and forget the hype.  I hope with blogs like this one that quality books will find appreciative readers.  Maybe I’m being naive but hopeful.

Off topic just a hair.

I say the reason men of all cultures have wanted their women to cover their hair is because…men go bald.

Now, some women have hair problems as they age, but not in proportion to the number of guys that go cue-ball-ish.  IMHO, men covet long, thick tresses.

Most guys I know who shave their heads have the receding thing going on, or else have the huge empty patch on the top. The few I know with full heads of hair who shave it down to nothing are just lazy SOBs who don’t want to take care of the stuff.

Joykenn,

I listened to a big time agent at a conference a couple of years ago, and he said flat out that a House could buy and push a book into the stratosphere, whether worthy or not.

A pet project can get the author tons of initial publicity, huge advance, and placement in the primo spots in bookstores. Not including the fallout media hype from all of the above.

Think “The Davinci Code”.

It troubles my sensibilities that Random House would pay a huge amount for a D+ manuscript. Did they think they were getting something similar to Rushdie’s Satanic Verses?

I think stumbling on the next ‘great writer’, the one that wows and awes is a bit of a gambling thing, like spinning a wheel.  The editor can see the promise of a win, but it’s not guaranteed until the wheel actually stops.

Maybe the more they spin, the better a chance they’ve got of finding that next big one.

Those who are interested in veiling should check out the Tuareg People of the Sahara.  The women don’t veil although they wear head covering. The man dons a veil at age 25 which covers everything but his eyes and is not removed even in family situations—or at least this is the tradition.  As a result the eyes assume great importance.  I remember a film I saw in 1974 about this people showing male dancers who was quite sexy because of the emphasis on the eyes.  I tried to find something on Youtube but the videos I saw there were all shot with hand-helds by amateurs and not very good.

you will see that they all wear hats or headscarves.

True, but the prime reason for a hat was fashion/social custom; the prime reason for a scarf was to keep your hair from flying all over the place. (I got all this from my older female relatives.)

Women washed their hair only once a week (ew!) or went to the beauty parlor to have it washed and styled, then topped it with a scarf to keep it looking nice. I recall there was a 1960s spray shampoo product you used between washings called Psssst. You sprayed and combed it out so you’d have clean(ish) hair in between your weekly wash. (Ew-ew-ew-ew-EW!)

In my case, a heavy scarf was to keep the wind off my head as my mother was convinced I’d have a sinus attack if I stirred out the door. I got the attacks regardless, but still treasure a lovely soft cotton scarf my sister made me that had a sassy looking pony embroidered in one corner. It was a spiffy thing for a first grader in them thar days!

But that aside, in Western culture hats and gloves had less to do with leftover religious custom than fashion. A pre-1960’s lady would never think of leaving the house without her figure trussed into a stretch girdle, her hat pinned in place, and clean gloves on her hands. The latter were so important that the earliest autos had a special compartment for them!

I’m rather glad we’ve dumped the lot. They look bloody awful combined with my slogan T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Short on style, but by heavens, they’re more comfortable.

As a little bit of side note, some time in the 80’s I poked my head into the entry of a famous downtown church and in the middle of one wall was not a big picture of a famous Diety, but a large sign (dating from the 60’s to just by the art style) declaring “No pants in the sanctuary.”

If the art had not shown a lady in a pantsuit, I might have joined that church. The pants-free services promised to be interesting!

Does anyone know of good historical fiction about the Muslim religion? Religion in fiction in general, but I feel like the Muslims get such bad press lately that we could really use some less Western-biased “Muslim=terrorist” portrayals out there.

I agree The Red Tent was great!

The irony in Random House’s decision is that they raised the profile of this book such that the next publisher can push the book based on its taboo status alone (i.e. ‘we have the guts to publish the book RH won’t’), so regardless of whether it’s a good book or not, it will sell to a certain point on the curiosity/scandal factor alone.  If RH published it, there might also have been some scandal factor, but the book might also have had a better chance of rising or falling primarily on its literary merits.

I would love to see a variety of scholars of Islam analyze JoM based on Muslim history and principles.  This review suggests that there are overlapping issues of writing, religious and historical interpretation, and gender and cultural issues more generally.  It would be interesting to see how these issues play out over a cross-section of readers who possess an expertise in Islamic history and principles.

I gotta admit I was sorely disappointed when the Catholic church dropped the veil requirement.  All my childhood, I was waiting to be able to wear one of the beautiful mantillas my grandmothers and mother wore.  As a kid, we just got what amounted to a doily stuck on our head.  You had to be “young woman” to get the lacy veil.  Then they did away with them!  The nerve.

I wanted to say that I’ve learned tons by hanging around for this particular story (so thanks to all the smart bitches out there).  Also, strangely enough, this book and its attendant issues came up in a mock scholarship interview of mine, so thanks also for that assist.

In return, I wanted to share two hugely recommended books that flesh out issues and questions that popped up over the past couple of weeks (especially since it looks like Jewels is not a very good go-to book).

First, I love “Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran” by Fatemeh Keshavarz.  Prof. Keshavarz came and spoke to my campus’s Persian Circle.  She was the first person whose spoken Farsi I kind of understood, so naturally I ran out and got her book, too.  A fortunate chance, since the book is absolutely fascinating.

Part of the book is Keshavarz’s memories of her childhood growing up in Iran and her adult life spent living and working abroad.  These sections are really lovely and contain short portraits of the people in her life who instilled in her from a very early age a love of poetry and literature.

Another focus of the book is cross-cultural (mis)understanding and how easy it is to loose a sense of what other people’s lives may be like.  Some of these sections specifically deal with experiences Muslims and Iranians have had living in the west.

The rest of the book is a short but lively examination of Persian female authors (focusing on the rebel poet Forough Farrokhzad and Shahrnush Parsipur, author of ‘Women Without Men’) and a final chapter on what is problematic about the book “Reading Lolita in Tehran.”

The other uber-recommended book is Michael Sells’s “Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations” (full disclosure: I took two courses with Prof. Sells and loved every second).  This book received a lot of public scrutiny when University of North Carolina made its incoming freshmen read it.

Sells sets out to translate the shorter, earlier suras found at the back of the Qur’an.  He argues that most people setting out to read the Qur’an in English translation hit an immediate wall- after the short initial sura the text launches into a long legal-historical account of the early faith community.  Sells compares this to reading the Bible for the first time and starting with Judges.  It just doesn’t work out too well!

Sells delivers excellent translations of the early suras that convey the beauty and power of the text.  The feel of these would be more akin to Psalms.  These suras are very focused on the intimate relationship between people and God and thus give an excellent sense of what many believers would find most powerfully intimate about their faith.  Sells also really delves into all the small and perfectly worked details found in Arabic that are too often obliterated in translation.

I hope someone out there finds one or both of these recs of use!

Sells sets out to translate the shorter, earlier suras found at the back of the Qur’an.  He argues that most people setting out to read the Qur’an in English translation hit an immediate wall- after the short initial sura the text launches into a long legal-historical account of the early faith community.  Sells compares this to reading the Bible for the first time and starting with Judges.  It just doesn’t work out too well!

I can actually agree with this.
In my country , Muslim children learning to read the Quran, actually started with those shorter surah first.  They started back to front until they reached the beginning of 30th juz and only once they are proficient with these surahs, only then they started reading the whole thing :)

...the prime reason for a hat was fashion/social custom; the prime reason for a scarf was to keep your hair from flying all over the place.

Well, yes.  That’s what I said.  ;-)  A head-covering was, indeed, a matter of social custom, not religious rule.  In the early-to-mid 20th century, hats were the more formal head-coverings, and headscarves (for women) less formal.  I still wear a headscarf in some circumstances, although I wear my hair too short to worry about it blowing about.

Frequency of hairwashing:  in the 1940s and 1950s,  liquid shampoos of the now familiar type were not available.  During and just after the war (in the UK), there was a chronic dearth of all sorts of goods.  You washed your hair with ordinary soap.  As anyone who has tried it will know, this does not work at all well;  it is harsh on the hair, and very difficult to rinse out, leaving the hair dull, limp and slightly sticky.  By the early 1950s, shampoo normally came in the form of a powder, packaged in little paper sachets.  This powder was tipped out into a saucer and mixed with water to a suitable consistency and applied to the hair.  (This is not hearsay - this is how I washed my own hair as a girl).  These shampoos cleaned the hair very well, but were still extremely harsh and drying.  Washing the hair more than a couple of times a week would have made it unmanageably dry and brittle. 

Sorry, I know all this is a bit off the point, but hey, if I can’t bore people by explaining what things were like 60 years ago, what’s the point of being old?

:-D

anon, may I ask what country you are from?  I’m always interested in learning about the different ways the Qur’an is studied/learned in different communities.
Thanks!

This review is one person’s opinion.  An educated reader, perhaps, but still everyone should make up her own mind.  After all The Jewel was read by many people who liked it a great deal. It was sold to Random House in an auction so other editors read it and liked it; it was a Book of the Month Club and Paperback Bookclub selection; and there are quite a few endorsers like Asra Nomani who broke the story in the WSJ and had read the novel.  There are quite a few other readers out there including the editors and publishers in a dozen other countries who bought the rights to publish the book even before the controversy broke.  I understand it is now a bestseller in Serbia the only place where there were real threats and an online article says over 10,000 copies are now in print and being read by both Christians and Muslims with the publisher going back to press.  If they can be brought to discuss anything like this publicly in an area where there has been a long history of hatred and violence over religious differences, that alone is remarkable.  I am sure there will be lots of discussions worldwide when the book is in stores in two weeks. 

I have to say I read the Red Tent and thought the opening was great but the ending after she went to Egypt sucked because there was no real plot and she became really unsympathetic and there was a great departure from the original story.  Still it was worth reading and thinking about because it made us consider about the role of women in history and what their inner lives together might have been like.  I found the claims that Muhammad is a pedophile somewhat laughable in light of the fact that Jewish girls of that time were betrothed at 12 and half and married by 13.  Mary had Jesus at 14, right?  A’isha wasn’t pregnant at so young an age.

Robin had a very good point that there are issues here of writing and free speech involved but also religious issues as well—in part mutual understanding a respect which was apparently Sherry Jones intent—but also how we perceive religious figures.  Were Muhammad’s visions convenient ruses or is it that spiritual leaders do have visions at times of crisis and do solve problems by praying and acting on what they believe to be God’s will?  Prof. Spellberg commented in an interview that Salman Rushdie was satirizing Muhammad and suggested it didn’t matter whether one believed that he had visions or not.  But if one believes it was all a fake and he was not a genuine Prophet then Islam is based on nothing.  I don’t see how she can be a Professor of Islamic studies and make that kind of statement!  It would be like saying Jesus was just another common criminal executed by crucification as many were at the time by the Romans so his death was no more significant than anyone else’s.  Perceiving this book in political terms or spiritual terms (I personally believe he was a Prophet but also a human being who had flaws exactly as he claimed) it is interesting to read about his relationship to the women in his life which is so little known in the west.

Finally, there are two books.  Random House and Beaufort Books and Gibson Square press bought The Jewel of Medina and also a sequel that details her life as an adult who preserved the hadith, participated in the battle of the Camel and also caused the split between Shia and Sunni so that she is revered by one and castigated or cursed by the other (according to Publisher’s Marketplace).  I know very little about this history and think a novel is a valuable way of gaining and introduction to these events that today affect all of our lives.

We don’t actually know if there were unrevealed threats that lead Random House to believe their employees and the author could be endangered by the publication of this book.  If they are right, then we have to admire Sherry Jones commitment to get the book resold and published even if her life (or her family) might genuinely be at risk.  It certainly seems that Prof. Spellberg’s comments that this is porn about Muhammad was designed to endanger her particularly since this isn’t remotely true!  I admire her courage in taking this risk for a novel she spent five years researching and writing.

I saw this available at my library as a request, so I thought I’d drop in here and see if there was a review.

I feel bad that I’m slightly happy about the D review. After you posted the prologue, it seemed like this was venturing very far from what actually happened. It also seemed to ignore the culture back then.

Thanks for the review Sarah!

There’s a BBC news report here of a terrorist attack on the publishers in London who are publishing the Jewel of Medina in the UK -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7639249.stm

The few I know with full heads of hair who shave it down to nothing are just lazy SOBs who don’t want to take care of the stuff.

My little brother is one of these lazy SOBs.  He says he doesn’t like the way hair itches when he’s out sweating in the summer, and he’s also starting to go grey and definitely doesn’t want to muck about dying it.  (He’s starting to go grey, at age 39.  I started at age 19.  Also, his teeth have always been perfectly straight and white, and his eyesight has been 20/20 his whole life long, and he has excellent hand-eye coordination.  And he always has a really funny comeback in any conversation, whereas I don’t think of them until days later.  Grrrr.)

Does anyone know of good historical fiction about the Muslim religion?

Judith Tarr wrote some really good historical fantasy featuring a crusader knight and Muslim woman (except they were both elves that had somehow been born into the human world, and both stories strongly feature magic).

Alamut
The Dagger and the Cross

Tarr’s A Wind in Cairo is a delightful, YA-ish, magic-drenched story of a young muslim woman in a young Saladin’s court.  Featuring horses.  And magic.

I think they’re all out of print, but my public library has them.

Other books that give an outsider (like me) insight into Muslim women’s lives (and somewhat, why there are continual troubles between the West and the Middle East):

A Leap of Faith (memoir by Queen Noor of Jordan)
A Woman of Egypt (memoir by Jehan Sedat)

I have just read the Jewel of Medina and it is an inspiring, well written adventure that brings the early days of the Muslim religion to life.  This is my first exposure to the Muslim culture and it is a very positive experience.  Muhammad, A’isha and Ali become real people expressing honest human emotions and a genuine desire for creating a religion of peace, understanding and equality.  This is such a relief from their minimalist image portrayed by today’s Muslim extremists.  The Jewel of Medina held my attention from the opening prologue and never faltered.  It is fast paced, complex, emotional and even lighthearted as Muhammad, A’isha and Ali each evolve into powerful leaders for their faith.  Read the Jewel of Medina for entertainment, understanding and compassion.

it is so sad what ignorance could create, and it created a tool for the shiaá to attack the sunna muslims through an offensive book to the honour of our religion and prophet- may allah’s peace be upon him.  One thing someone like this author should know is that all the facts that she gathered are from people who hate Aisha the prophets wife and that is why they have historically tried to taint her image.
It is even more pathetic that an author would use a topic like this to write about in order to get famous.  pre 9/11 nobody even cared to know what Islam was all about.  We are about peace not terrorism, we are about saving lives not the shedding of blood.
I urge everyone before reading the book to get facts straight. just google sunna vs. shiaa and you will know why such a book was created.
P.s. to the person who said many books and movies were made about jesus christ and noone ever apologized.  I would like to say that if muslims have respect to their prophet and his personal lives and would never allow ignorant ppl to redicule him or make a joke out of him, then i do apologize coz that is your problem that u allow that to be made of jesus who btw we respect alot coz he is afterall a prophet to Allah like Mohammed (saaw) :)

May peace be upon believers.
N.M.

I have had the ill luck to read this Jewel of Medina and I have to say it is one stupidly written book about Muhammed and Aisha.

This low rate journalist has no clue on fiction writing. She should have also got her facts right by staying in an Arab culture and soak in their way of life. Worst of all she should not have portrayed the prophet in this manner—that he is looking for women company all the time as if that is what drove him.

In the Asian culture people do not use tongue to kiss women folks. It is the Western culture and people who see movies originating from there over a period of time may want to experiment. In the first few pages, the author talks of prophet using his tongue to kiss the child bride:( Very very stupid indeed.

The other fiasco is that in the Arab culture, mingling one’s lady folks with strangers is a big no-no. More so in the case of prophet’s wife. No one will dare even approach them or even be in the same room as prophet and wife. In fact I would be interested to know if you know of any Arab men who will allow you to be in the bedroom of his/her!!

If she had to write a book on Aisha, she should have done it in a poised manner with good historical background. If she had to write a love story, she should have picked up some other historical figures where more data are available.

Overall I will not even give this a D!!

And I had asked a colleague to pick up the freshly minted copy on the day of launch all the way from the US:(

I would like to say that if muslims have respect to their prophet and his personal lives and would never allow ignorant ppl to redicule him or make a joke out of him, then i do apologize coz that is your problem that u allow that to be made of jesus

Christians do not have final say-so in American media relating to Jesus. If they did, then America would be forfeiting its right to freedom of speech.

I think it’s wonderful that I am “allowed” to say what I want about religious figures without being censored by that religion. I personally wouldn’t want to live in a culture where I couldn’t do that.