Guests of the Sheik

This chapter begins with the Ferneas’ train trip from the Iraqi capital of Baghdad to the remote southern village of El Nahra. Elizabeth relates that Bob has already been living and collecting anthropological research in El Nahra for three months. He has been studying the people who live there, and he informs Elizabeth that they are “of the conservative Shiite sect of Islam” (3). Aside from her general nervousness about moving to a new and unfamiliar place, Elizabeth is especially troubled by the fact that she will have to fit into a conservative tribal society that practices the seclusion and veiling of women. She emphasizes at various points in this chapter that these practices vex and disgust her, but she participates in them to maintain her anonymity and to help her husband with his work. Elizabeth and Bob arrive at their house in El Nahra, and they are welcomed as honored guests of Sheik Hamid Abdul Emir el Hussein, or Haji Hamid, the chief of the El Eshadda tribe. Although the state of their house is unsatisfactory to Elizabeth, she begins to accept it and, as her husband had hoped, to spruce it up with the help of a servant and a new friend, Mohammed.

In this chapter, Elizabeth is invited to lunch at the home of Haji Hamid. She is apprehensive about visiting the women of the household while Bob has lunch with the men. Elizabeth and Bob discuss the fact that she has become a local curiosity. Many people are eager to find out more about her and to see her. Bob encourages Elizabeth to gather as much information as possible about the women for his research because only she can visit the harem, or the women’s quarters. At the sheik’s home, Elizabeth is led to the harem, and she meets the large number of women who are living in the sheik’s household, three of them are his wives. She is struck most by Selma, the sheik’s youngest and favorite wife. Elizabeth ascertains that Selma is the authority figure among the women in the household and that there is some tension between her and the sheik’s oldest wife, Kulthum. The women of the household are curious and excited by Elizabeth’s arrival, and they openly ask her questions about her life, marriage, clothing, and figure. Elizabeth strives to learn as much about the women and the family as possible. She learns that the women own their own property, most often in the form of jewelry, and that this ownership is respected and protected. She also learns that women, especially mothers, are powerful, and they form a protective network of kinship over other women in the family. 

In this chapter, Elizabeth meets other women of the tribe. She becomes a comfortable and regular guest of the women of Mohammed’s family, particularly his mother Medina and his sister Sherifa. Bob encourages these friendships “to help him complete his picture of tribal and village life” (40). Elizabeth learns more about the role of Sayids—descendants of the Prophet Muhammad—in Iraqi and Islamic society at large. She learns that Mohammed’s family is impoverished but respected in society. According to the culture of hospitality in the region, every household that Elizabeth visits, even if it is impoverished, has to spend large amounts of money to properly welcome her as a guest. She laments this fact, and she tries to get around it by inviting the poorer women of the village to visit her. She and Bob also visit the house of a family of weavers and dyers. There, Elizabeth feels more at ease than she did when she visited the house of the sheik. This may be because she and Bob are allowed to remain in the same quarters and because the women feel freer to interact with her directly. 

In this chapter, Elizabeth introduces the women she meets at the other end of El Nahra, the teachers and wives and sisters of civil servants who live on “the fashionable, the ‘right’ side of the canal, and the tribal settlement was obviously on the wrong side” (51). She reveals that many of these women do not understand why she and Bob choose to live among the tribe rather than among them, the tribe’s social superiors. In her descriptions of these women, Elizabeth reveals many of her own prejudices. She admires and praises some of the women but judges others openly and harshly. She has little but contempt for Khadija, the sister of an engineer named Jabbar, and believes she lacks potential as a white-collar wife. However, Elizabeth expresses admiration for the town’s teachers, Hind, Aliyah, and Um Saad. She finds them adequately intelligent and believes that their education goals are noble. While observing the women on this side of the town, Elizabeth gets caught up in their social politics and gossip, revealing some of her own limitations. At the same time, she reveals an increasing sensitivity to the issues that affect women in El Nahra. At the end of the chapter, she concludes that there are key differences between the women of the town and the women of the village, but both groups are united in their fixation on reputation. They also exercise great power and influence in their respective spheres.

As “a troupe of traveling gypsy entertainers” passes near El Nahra, Elizabeth encounters them on two separate occasions (57). On one occasion, she is in a car with Bob, Khadija, and Jabbar. She is entranced by the Roma people, whom she refers to as gypsies, and by the glimmering show that they perform. Elizabeth is fascinated by their caravan and by the way in which the gypsy women use their abayah cloaks to dance and entertain: “I had already began to think of the abayah as a sheltering cloak, a symbol of modesty” (58). Elizabeth’s second encounter with the troupe is very different. She visits them with Bob, Jabbar, and another irrigation engineer named Abdul Razzak, who accompanies them to visit and bring presents to his mistress. On this visit, Elizabeth comes face to face with the poverty, malnourishment, and exhaustion within the camp, and she becomes disillusioned. 

Elizabeth struggles with the feeling that she has not been accepted by the tribal women in El Nahra. Though she and Bob have settled into a routine after living together in the tribal settlement for two months, she still feels that she has not made much progress with the women. Though she visits them regularly, her visits have become formulaic and bear little fruit. Plus, the women never visit her. This changes after the sheik assigns one of the women of his household, Amina, to watch over Elizabeth while Bob is away. Amina opens up to Elizabeth about her struggles with poverty and about being sold into slavery by her father. The next day, she brings some of the women from the sheik’s household to visit Elizabeth. Though Elizabeth is initially elated, she deflates when the women begin to subtly jab and berate her about her cooking and housekeeping skills. Though slightly traumatic, the incident brings other women to her doorstop who are looking to help, and she begins to find more allies.

Elizabeth is surprised when the reputedly garrulous sheik of a neighboring tribe visits their house. In order to respect the local custom of seclusion and because “it would make a mockery of our avowed desire to abide by local custom,” Elizabeth refuses to let him in, and she is praised by Bob and Mohammed for her refusal (83). Sheik Hamza, however, refuses to give up, and he invites Bob, Jabbar, and Elizabeth to visit him under the pretense that Elizabeth will visit his harem and remain in seclusion. However, when the party comes to his home, he claims that the women of the house have gone “on pilgrimage to Karbala,” effectively tricking Elizabeth into unveiling and taking off her cloak in his home (86). After a lackluster afternoon filled with awkward conversation, bad food, and the sheik’s constant stares at Elizabeth, the party returns to El Nahra. 

In this chapter, Bob tells Elizabeth that the sheik Haji Hamid, his brother Abdulla, and his oldest son Nour will visit them for lunch. Elizabeth, Bob, and Mohammed begin frantically preparing for the occasion, especially for the food. Elizabeth lays out a full menu, including “Lamb cooked with Beans and Onions and Fresh Dill…Whole Roast Chickens (2)…Fried Chickens, American Style (3)” and various other appetizers and desserts (95). The entire household stresses over how Haji Hamid will be received and whether he will approve of his visit. In the end, Elizabeth finds the sheik to be kind and dignified, and he is impressed by the amount of food that she has managed to prepare. Overall, the visit ends up being very successful.