Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 661-1257.

• Author: Cheikh, Nadia El

Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 661-1257. By TAEF EL-AZHARI. Edinburgh: EDIN-BURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2019. Pp. xix + 449. $140, [pounds sterling]90.

As outlined by the author, the main purpose of this book is to answer a large number of questions about how diverse Muslim societies through the period from 661 to 1257 CE viewed women; why there is not one extant book written by women throughout this period; why there are generally no Islamic queens, etc. Taef El-Azhari states that this book "will examine and analyse the diverse political and socio-historical context from the Umayyads to the Ayyubid Turkicized Kurds in the thirteenth century Middle East" (p. 3).

The book is comprised of seven chapters, in addition to an introduction, three appendixes, a glossary, and a bibliography.

The introduction provides a literature review of some of the main publications pertaining to women, eunuchs, and concubines as well as a summary of the status of women in Quran and hadith, including a section on the Prophet. It ends with an overview on ancient Egypt, Iraq, and the Mediterranean.

The first chapter, entitled "The Umayyad Empire and the Establishment of a Royal Court, 661-750," looks at powerful women in political and social life under the Umayyads. This relatively short chapter provides a listing of the women of the Umayyad oligarchy, bringing up their anecdotal influential role without an overarching analysis to explain why and how they managed to populate the surviving texts. Moreover, historians know that the material on the Umayyads clearly reflects Abbasid bias. This factor ought to have been emphasized for a better understanding of some material in this chapter.

The second chapter on "Princesses, Concubines and Qahrmanat under the Abbasids: Gender and Politics, 749-1055" and the third chapter on the "Kingdom of Eunuchs under the Abbasids" cover a long period that witnessed major political, religious, socioeconomic, and cultural developments. They feature female characters who have already been examined in the extant scholarship at some length, such as al-Khayzuran and Shaghab as well as salient eunuchs, such as Mu'nis, who has similarly benefited from analyses in the secondary literature. This chapter is mostly a work of synthesis with little original research or new analysis. Missing from the bibliography is the multi-authored volume Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court: Formal and Informal Politics in the Caliphate...