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The Jewel of Medina
written by Sherry Jones
Studio : Beaufort Books, Inc.
by Beaufort Books, Inc.
Publisher : Beaufort Books, Inc.
Released : 2008-10
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780825305184
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 22 reviews)
List Price : $24.95
Our Price : $15.71
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Product Description |
From the Publisher
Born Aisha bint Abi Bakr in seventh century Arabia, she would become the favorite wife of the Prophet Muhammad, and one of the most revered women in the Muslim faith. Married at the age of nine, The Jewel of Medina illuminates the difficult path Aisha confronted, from her youthful dreams of becoming a Bedouin warrior, to her life as the beloved wife and confident of the founder of Islam.
Extensively researched and elegantly crafted, The Jewel of Medina presents the beauty and harsh realities of life in an age long past, during a time of war, enlightenment, and upheaval. At once a love story, a history lesson, and a coming-of-age tale, The Jewel of Medina provides humanizing glimpses into the origins of the Islamic faith, and the nature of love, through the eyes of a truly unforgettable heroine. |
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Jewel with 18 million cracks |
Aisha seems to be a fancy of the author... Laughable, childish, full of lies and fantasies, disgusting most of the time... provokes anger, tests your patience if you are a Muslim... Or if you do not have any understanding of History of Muslims, you may enjoy it... it could be considered as one of the stories of "thousand and one nights", just change the names of players, but then who would buy it...
Mixture of poison and honey rightly put by Ether El-Katateny (Egyptian writer)... We will need best alchemist to separate the truth from lie... Islamic personalities and circumstances presented with false and twisted facts and inaccuracies. Calling it a novel does not free the author of responsibility of defending herself of charges of libel and slender by the heirs of the prophet, Ali, Umar and even Aisha: the nation of Muslims...
What did not surprise me was Ms. Jones' mention of two Muslim self proclaimed Islamic feminists Manji (the lesbian) and Nomani ( had kid out of wedlock) as supporters of her novel... these were the experts she consulted before publication? Manji praised the book with words like "Mashallah"; I would say "Nauzobillah"... Ms. Jones ignores the fact that Random House declined to publish not just because of terrorist threat, mostly was because Denise Spellberg, the professor of history and Mid East Studies advised them to do so. The reasons he gave I mentioned above... Yes, marketing people of Beaufort Books would have loved it, even I ended up buying it...but rest assure the sequel may not meet the same fate...
It is a novel with a plot of premeditated murder of truth, a plot twisting the facts (just to mention one example, digging trench around
Medina was Salman Farsi's brilliant idea not Aisha's, but those who do not know the history would go along) and projecting other characters falsely and emphasizing on her heroin Aisha as a victim, a rebel, full of lust (13-year old on the night of consummation saying: waited my whole life for this moment), having an affair with her love of childhood, brave, courageous and independent, Ali the villain who did not like her from the beginning for no good reason and she hated him too (this hate will give rights to Aisha to fight him later in the battle of camel... that is going to be the main theme of the sequel. It would fly in author's face) and Mohammad the Prophet her husband not of her choice, with 13 wives, a womanizer... Nauzobillah
FINAL WORD: DISGUSTING
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Jewel of Medina Less than Brilliant |
Sherry Jones misses an opportunity to both entertain and inform her readers about a historic period that is essential information for any modern reader intent on coming to some understanding of the Muslim religion.
For a story in which the protagonist begins her tale as a pre-pubescent female forced into marriage with a much older man, the book develops little empathy for or understanding of A'isha's plight. She starts out as a plucky, but spoiled, little girl with a pretend sword in her hand and ends, disappointingly for the reader, with the realization that she has developed little more than that same quality decades later. No authentic inner struggle or transformation occurs.
Similarly, any reader expecting to discover some insight into Islam or its self-proclaimed prophet, will come away dissatisfied. While some effort at basic research by the author is evident, very little of the story echos with verisimilitude, an essential component of any quasi-historical work.
Before beginning to scribble her manuscript notes Jones would have been better served by taking a few months hiatus, traveling to a Muslim country, and becoming somewhat infused with the essence of such a society.
As an attempt at a feminist adaptation of the bodice-ripper genre, Jewel of Medina never develops the basic points of a political tract. Despite attempting to bring a new perspective to the problems of women living under the strictures of sharia law, Sherry Jones leaves the reader wondering at the paper-cut-out creations of her historical cast, her travel guide descriptions of the settings and a visceral lack of enthusiasm for her protagonist or her problems. The subject and scope of the story demand a better effort. |
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Flawed jewel |
The story of the life of Muhammad and the early history of Islam is a fascinating one of which the majority of westerners know little. There is an urgent need for understanding between world cultures; popular literature can potentially well serve this need. Unfortunately Sherry Jones' book does not.
The fundamental problem is that the author has tackled an enormously sensitive subject, and one can only praise her for her courage in doing so, but has tackled it in a wholly inappropriate style, rendering the first years of Muslim history as chick lit. Her protagonist, Aisha, is, with the exception of Ali, the most controversial and divisive figure in Islam, complicit in the early fracture between Sunni and Shia belief and worthy of a serious study. In this book she is portrayed as a whining adolescent.
Whilst in no way supporting the strident calls for the book to be banned I can to some extent understand the criticism - a subject as serious as the book's requires a more serious treatment. (This, of course, did not help Salman Rushdie whose Satanic Verses was erudite, layered and provocative in its treatment of another controversial event in Muslim history.)
Read the book - but follow it up by then reading some of Jones' reference material. This is a great story that deserves to be told - unfortunately Sherry Jones isn't the author to tell it. |
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The Jewel of Medina |
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Truly an interesting journey. Aisha is an inspiration for all women who want to find freedom within the confines of being born female. |
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Solid Historical Fiction |
Even before its publication, The Jewel of Medina angered some people, made some very nervous, and rallied others who resent being told what they may or may not read. The book's first publisher bailed out on it's deal to publish the novel and its British publisher, after being firebombed, is yet to publish the book. Thankfully, the publication and marketing of this Sherry Jones debut novel in the United States has been accomplished without violence and with little, if any, real protest from those who would like to see Jones silenced.
The Jewel of Medina is not a great novel. But, of course, it is not that simple.
Any fictional account written today about the relationship between the Prophet Muhammad and his nine wives and four concubines, even as sympathetic an account as this one, will be controversial. But, more particularly, The Jewel of Medina is especially prone to controversy since it is told from the point-of-view of Muhammad's "child bride," A'isha bint Abi Bakr, who was betrothed to Muhammad when she was six years old and he was fifty.
A'isha, as portrayed by Jones, is an independent and willful little girl, a free spirit who sees herself as the equal of any male she encounters. She is especially close to one of the little boys, Safwan, she plays with every day and his continuing presence in her life will at times tempt her to break her marriage vows to Muhammad.
A'isha's world changes forever on the day that her mother calls her away from her friends to tell her that she is to immediately begin purdah, confinement to her home, where she will remain until her husband comes to claim her on her wedding day. That is shock enough for a little girl like A'isha, but the even bigger shock is that the future husband to whom she was betrothed at birth, Safwan, is out of the picture. Instead, her husband-to-be is a man even older than her father, the Prohphet Muhammad.
Rebellious, though she might be, A'isha remains confined to the home of her parents for the next three years and, by the time she is nine years old and Muhammad comes for her, she is desperate for a change of scenery despite her fears about what marriage will be like. Much to her relief, the marriage between A'isha and her new husband is not actually consummated until several more years pass and she has matured into womanhood.
Ironically, as imagined by Jones, A'isha eventually becomes much more anxious to consummate the marriage than Muhammad is because of the competition she faces within Muhammad's harem for its leadership role. She realizes that her image as "child bride" is not one to convey the status and respect required for her to assume the role of "Great Lady of the harem." The A'isha of The Jewel of Medina, much like the historical A'isha, grows into a strong woman, very much a Joan of Arc of her times, a woman who becomes a trusted advisor to Muhammad and who leads troops into battle against the enemies of Islam. In fact, although it is not covered in the book, the historical A'isha played a key role in the initial Islamic civil war that produced the split between the Sunni and Shi'ite factions that is still causing problems for the religion today.
The Jewel of Medina is historical fiction, "fiction," being the key word. It is not anti-Islam and, to the contrary, it reads as a very pro-Islam look at the religion and its founder, the Prophet Muhammad. It places the religion's origins into the context of its times, a time when war among different tribes and alliances was more the norm than the exception, when leaders had to literally fight for the survival of their own, a time when polygamous marriages were often entered into as a means of building political alliances.
More importantly, it is a reminder that Muhammad was a human being, something of which he himself often took great pains to remind his followers.
I said earlier that The Jewel of Medina is not a great novel. It's style is a little stilted, especially the dialogue, and that makes it easier to take in doses of a chapter or two at a time rather than in longer stretches. But even though it focuses largely on the relationships between, and internal struggles for dominance, among Muhammad's wives, there is much to learn from the novel. Most readers, in fact, will come away from the book with a better understanding of, and more compassion for, the religion of Islam than with which they began the book.
I, for one, am thankful that the author and publisher had the courage to get this one into my hands. It was not a wasted effort on any of our parts. |
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