Review of Book on Pukhtun Women by Michael Caroe s/o Sir Olaf Caroe
The Pukhtuns, a famed group of tribes never subdued never absorbed by any people, are largely understood anthropologically for a code, strange to the West, Pukhtunwali. Essential to that code we think primarily of rugged masculinity and the strong masculine sense of honour, but in terms of the male gender only.
Dr. Amineh Ahmed, researching mainly in Swat and Mardan,
can now describe in detail how the Muslim women of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, make Pukhtunwali their life's work.
Until the author's refreshing study no analysis as detailed and as
accurately insightful as hers has been made of a Pukhtun woman's role in
society, a social structure dedicated to support and strengthen what may be termed Pukhtunism, that is to say the culture of the Pukhtun. In that
culture, through her implementing Pukhtunwali, the Muslim woman meticulously obliges herself to arrange for the observations of every rite of passage to be conducted with due propriety, to observe for example death with gham, that is to say sorrow, and birth with khadi, joy. Preparing for those ceremonies and their careful implementation create the debt of honour owed the Pukhtun lady. Her honour thus developed among her families, friends and associates, high and less high, determines her identity and her family's just as oxygen strengthens the human body. GHAM-KHADI, "life-cycle gatherings", form the nature of her life's work.
How has Dr. Ahmed had access to conduct research into this quintessence of Pukhtunism? A Muslim herself, the author is descended, through her mother, from the late Wali (i.e. 'Badshah' or King) of Swat and through her husband to another eminent family, the Hotis of Mardan. Thus intimately connected and of the gentler gender, she took her fieldwork into the heart of the social structures in Mardan and Swat. Her familial connections enabled her to talk with 258 people of whom 242 are from the Frontier Province. Her work in the province itself extended over the years of 1996-1998, 1999-2001, and 2005. After her recent visit to Islamabad in April 2006, she returned to her current residence at Cambridge University where she heads the Society for Dialogue
and Action and teaches as Visiting Scholar at Lucy Cavendish College.
Readers who know the inestimable value of a careful picture of a people
dominant in Pakistan's strategic North-West Frontier will be intrigued by
her fascinating study of Yusufzai Pukhtun women and of their extraordinary contribution to the Pukhtun's abiding respect for honour.
Until I read Dr. Ahmed's vividly fresh and vigorously detailed study, I had thought from discussions with my father Olaf Caroe that I fully understood that the Pukhtun male alone used his rugged masculinity to enforce Pukhtunwali. Dr. Ahmed has excited me with her fresh picture, a picture of Muslim women in Northern Pakistan dedicating their energies to strengthening the bonds that make Pukhtuns, male and female, unique in their regard for what is honorable.
Michael Caroe is the son of Sir Olaf Caroe, the last British Governor of the North-West Frontier Province before partition of the South Asian subcontinent. Sir Olaf Caroe wrote inter alia an important history published in 1958 "The Pathans: 550 B. C. - A.D. 1957". Michael has inherited from his father his loving concern for peoples of the North-West Frontier during these troubling times there. Michael has served in the British army in World War II and now lives in the United States, where he entered upon a teaching career. Amongst family and friends he spends his retired years learning instead of teaching. A stimulating friendship with a Pukhtun family, the father of whom is Dr. Akbar. S. Ahmed known throughout the world for his invaluable work helping all peoples to understand Islam, has helped Michael feel his own father's strong influence is still present.