42 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth Warnock FerneaGuests of the Sheik
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1965A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Female Relationships
The centrality of female relationships is the primary theme of this book. Friendships among women in El Nahra are “much more important and more intense in this segregated society than in our own” (255). Elizabeth is particularly struck by the fact that the women do not consider their husbands companions and do not emotionally discuss men. Instead, “long hours were spent in debates about the fidelity or indifference of women friends” (255). Elizabeth’s primary friendship is with Laila, and their friendship is recognized by all of the women of the tribe. When Elizabeth and Bob are visited by two male American friends, Laila immediately visits Elizabeth to keep her company, assuming that she will be bored and alone in seclusion.
In many cases, women, especially mothers, are revered as protectors. On numerous occasions, the women of the tribe lament the fact that Elizabeth is so far away from her mother. Elizabeth witnesses distraught and inconsolable mothers whose daughters are married and taken out of their households, severing a mother-daughter protective bond. Elizabeth eventually regrets being far away from her own mother when she visits a bereaved friend who has lost her own mother and undergoes an exhausting but cathartic process of mourning. Though they are not mothers, some of the wives of Haji Hamid shelter women of the tribe within their harem and offer them advice on things like pregnancy and birth control.
Throughout the book, women are also portrayed as fellow laborers. Elizabeth describes the all-female household of Moussa, the father of her friend Laila. She notes that the women truly run the household and are its economic lifeblood, sharing work and generating income. The women recognize and appreciate that they share the work and labor as a unit.
Literate women in this culture are portrayed as disseminators of crucial knowledge through their spiritual work as religious leaders or their educational work as teachers.
Poverty
Poverty is ever-present in the book, and it links El Nahra to the greater historical context of European imperialism in the Middle East and the Cold War. Elizabeth often mentions poor rural farmers and their inability to support their families, often due to the salination of the soil in the Iraqi countryside. While some of the farmers are able to garner the support of landowners such as Haji Hamid, others are oppressed and exploited by their landlords.
Within El Nahra, Elizabeth reveals that the tribespeople suffer especially during the winter because they lack adequate, accessible, and affordable medicine, clothing, and housing. Elizabeth notes that the disparity in wealth between urban and rural Iraq is one reason that future revolutions took place and impacted the country. Poverty in Iraq is clearly capitalized on by the Soviet Union, and it helps communist propaganda circulate throughout the country.
In the book, poverty is endemic, and it influences other groups such as the Roma people living in Iraq. When Elizabeth visits a traveling Roma tribe, she is struck by the tribe’s abject poverty and malnutrition. She contrasts her romanticized image of the Roma people as colorful and carefree with their actual poverty and exhaustion.
Modernity versus Tradition
The battle between modernity and tradition is a theme that manifests throughout the book. One such battle surrounds marriage in the tribal settlement of El Nahra. Elizabeth notes that modernity fails the tribal women of El Nahra, who are forced to abide by tradition, while their male counterparts have access to more modern attitudes about marriage. Because their marriage options are limited to relatives and fellow tribesmen and because of the gender disparity within the tribe, tribal women often end up never getting married. Moreover, some of the elite tribesmen who have access to a modern education choose to marry outside of the tribe, leaving their intended spouses behind. Regarding marriage, tradition and modernity limit tribal women.
The battle between modernity and tradition takes a surprising turn in the case of polygamy. Elizabeth notes that though modern, urban Iraq frowns upon and does not practice polygamy, it still persists in the countryside “partly out of tradition, partly because it still fills a social and economic need” (165). Though it is eschewed and looked down upon by modernity, this tradition still plays a crucial role in rural areas of Iraq that are more traditional.
This theme is also prominent in discussions about regional and Shia religious customs. More modern Iraqis worry that Elizabeth and Bob will find traditions such as self-flagellation primitive and that they will tell other Americans that Iraqis are barbaric and backwards. Here, we see a real concern about being perceived as backwards. The more privileged and educated Iraqis who consider themselves modern demonstrate contempt for their traditional, rural counterparts, “the ignorant people” (195).
Lastly, this theme manifests in attitudes toward women. Some women, mostly those who are wealthy and have access to education, are able to shed some of the more traditional expectations of womanhood, like living in seclusion and not socializing with men outside of their family. However, even women with tribal backgrounds such as Aziza are able to eschew tradition. Some tribal women who have more progressive and modern husbands are able to access things like birth control. Other women such as Laila, however, cannot defy tradition. If they do, they face the very real danger of being alienated or killed by their tribe because defying tradition raises questions about a woman’s respectability and besmirches the reputation of her whole family. Elizabeth recognizes that she exists outside of these expectations, but she still realizes that she was only deemed a respectable woman in El Nahra because she conformed to the traditional expectations of tribal women in that community. If she had not, she would not have garnered the respect of prominent community figures such as Haji Hamid. In that sense, societal expectations for women are a ripe battleground for the fight between tradition and modernity.
