Review by Choice Review
We forget too easily that the Hijaz, that part of the Arabian Peninsula in which both Mecca and Medina are located, was indeed the cradle of Islam. It was only in 1932 that King Ibn Saud forcibly incorporated the Hijaz into the Saudi Arabian nation. Though political power, buttressed by Wahhabi fundamentalism, continues to reside in the hands of the Najdi-oriented monarchy, the Hijazis retain their own powerful cultural identity and practices. An examination of these striking differences is at the heart of Yamani's fascinating study. Focusing on the culture of the Hijazi awai'l--the select, elite families--the author explains the roots of Hijazi cultural resistance and the efforts of their leaders to preserve Hijazi identity, including the importance of ceremonies of birth, marriage, and death, and the customs of conversation, dining, and dress. Hijaz native Yamani, the first woman from Saudi Arabia to obtain a PhD from Oxford and a research fellow at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs, also notes that while the Saudi state has consistently attempted to alienate and marginalize the Hijaz to "subvert any sort of regional distinctiveness," its efforts have met with energetic resistance. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. W. Walt Simpson College (IA)
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
