Henny Harald Hansen, Daughters of Allah: Among Moslem Women in Kurdistan, translated from the Danish by Reginald Spink (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960; reprinted by Routledge in 2018). Nonfiction.

Discussed at our Book Club on December 6, 2022. 

Henny Harald Hansen (1900-1993) was a Danish anthropologist and ethnographer.

In 1957 Hansen was invited to take part in an archaeological expedition to the site of the projected Dokan Dam on the Little Zab River in northern Iraq. Although her initial responsibilities were ethnological, she became a guest of the local sheikh and later of her interpreter’s family. As a result, the doors of many Kurdish homes were opened to her that normally would have remained closed to foreigners. She traveled widely among the mountain villages of Iraqi Kurdistan and was able to see up close the everyday life of women. First published in 1958 and translated in 1960, this book contains the intimate account of Hansen’s encounters with Kurdish women. 

We discussed Orientalism in the book and speculated about reasons for the author’s positive valuation of gender segregation.

The 2018 edition of Daughters of Allah is available for purchase from Routledge.