In her new book titled Veiled Honor, author Mary Laurel Ross chronicles her years living in Saudi Arabia. Though her husband's work as a career U.S. military officer had taken her to many far-flung locations around the world, what Ross found in the Middle East was, in her own words, a land "exotic and disarming… a world apart from any place I had ever been." The inhabitants of that "world apart," Ross discovered, had customs and practices unlike any she had ever experienced.
A prolific letter-writer, Ross began to document her experiences in letters to friends and family in the U.S. These letters became the basis for Veiled Honor. Being a foreigner, Ross was not subject to many of the harsh restrictions enforced on Saudi women under Saudi Arabia's strict system of Shari'a (Islamic law). But, being a woman, she was particularly shocked to see that Saudi women were required to be veiled, were subjugated to men in all aspects of society, and were denied basic civil liberties and legal protections afforded women in the West.
In the introduction to Veiled Honor, Ross writes, "As an American, I had taken for granted the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution until I saw the incredible contrast between our rule of law and that of Shari’a." For my part, as a father of three daughters, one of whom lives in Israel, I could not help but think while reading the book of the great disparity between the rights of women in Saudi Arabia — and, indeed, much of the Arab world and Israel.
The contrast could not be starker: In Israel, women serve at the highest level of state government, serve alongside men in the military, and play key roles in business and academia. Equality between men and women is written into Israeli law and enshrined in Israel's Declaration of Independence. In Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, women cannot drive cars or ride bicycles on public roads. They cannot vote, travel abroad, or work without the permission of a male relative. Veiled Honor’s account of life under strict Islamic law makes it clear that Israel is an oasis of liberty and freedom for women in the Middle East as well as a country where human rights in general flourish as they do nowhere else in the region.
Veiled Honor provides a fascinating, and at times disturbing, firsthand look at a culture about which most Americans, and indeed most Westerners, know very little — other than what they see on television or read in newspapers or on the Internet. The book's insights into the Arab and Muslim world, its struggle with the challenges of modernity and religious radicalism, are valuable to anyone who seeks to better understand this complex region of the world. Veiled Honor
February 18, 2010
