Amineh Ahmed’s “Sorrow and Joy among Muslim Women The Pukhtun’s of Northern Pakistan”
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, New York
University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 63
Year of Publication: 2006 Hardback ISBN-13: 9780521861694
Price $90.00
Based on Amineh Ahmed’s anthropological PhD thesis, Sorrow and Joy in the Muslim World is an analysis of the Gham-khadi: of the elite, educated and wealthy Yousafzai’s of Mardan and Swat. Her framework and fieldwork mostly takes into account the Royal Family of Swat and the Hoti Nawabs of Mardan, which both coincidently happen to be her maternal and paternal relatives.
Ms Ahmed's study covers the culture and traditions that surround the social aspect of a Pukhtun from Khadi (joy) birth till Gham (sorrow/mourning) death. It coves the rites and ceremonies of the social customs of the ‘dual lives’ role that women play in a segregated society where they are seldom seen but in which they carry out these practices.
Amineh takes us through our customs, rites of passage and ceremonies with the precision of her anthropological background. It is interesting to find our customs taken apart and explained in the light of the psychology behind them. This in depth look at the social networking of Pukhtun women focuses on the role women play in the household and the community. It proves that Pukhtun women are as actively participant as their male counterparts in making new friends/contacts as keeping up with them. Thus a woman’s worth can be ‘measured and quantified by production output in the form of social relations and transactions.’
Gham- Khadi is considered ‘women’s work’ the customs, ceremonies and rites being a ‘communal and reciprocal obligation’. This networking is crucial and significant to the society as a whole because unless they are carried out with proper due and respect, they can make or break a social relation. A woman can bring shame to her family if she can not skillfully carry out these social transactions, since her failure reflects on her family and the men of the family.
Sorrow and Joy in the Muslim World clearly reexamines and revises the older anthropological accounts that define Pukhtunwali as a predominantly masculine category because women can also “call the shots’ by utilizing their potential Gham Khadi networks.
Ms Ahmed clearly categorizes the heirachy that as gham taking precednce over khadi and descending through illness (najorthia), birth (paidaish) and relatively minor (tapos (enquiries) on moving, afsos (condolence) following an election defeat, or felicitations (ombaraki) to winners. Therefore a death Gham(condolence) would take precedence over a marriage etc.
The most interesting facet of the whole study is the modern educated Pukhtana and her Islamic faith’s impact on the thousand year old customs of the Pukhtun. These convent educated girls are challenging their rewaj customs in the light of Islamic teachings.
Another interesting aspect is the amount of money that is spent on keeping up with all these functions and how each one has to out do the other.
Overall the book is very interesting and a good addition to ones reference library, but the price of the book makes it a little inaccessible to most. Ms Ahmed's book sits on my shelf with Lindholm, Barthe, Grima and Caroe, but is by far the most I have paid for a non text book.
The book has been nominated for the 2007 Kiriyama Prize.
Other Reviews
'This work, based on extensive fieldwork in an area inaccessible to those without Dr Ahmed's formidable linguistic skills and cultural experience, is absolutely unique. It is the first major study of Pukhtun women, done with the trained eye of a skilled anthropologist, and obvious respect for her subject matter.' Tamara Sonn, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Humanities. College of William and Mary, Virginia
'This work is sensitive, timely and anthropologically sophisticated and will add considerable nuance to the understanding of the nature of life in Pakistan today.' Caroline Humphrey, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge
About the Author
Amineh Ahmed Hoti is a member of the Faculty of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and a Visiting Scholar at Lucy Cavendish College, where she leads a society for interfaith dialogue. She is the daughter of Akbar Ahmed (the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington DC.) and niece of Aishah Ahmed (Pashtun tales from the Afghan border).