Much of the lively and often heated debate on the role of women in Islam and Middle Eastern society is grounded in different readings of the primary sources and historical precedents. But despite the increasing importance of this debate, these key texts have remained inaccessible to English-speaking readers. This book fills the gap by collecting extracts from a range of sources dating from the early Islamic period until today. The readings cover various aspects of women's experience--legal, domestic, political, religious and cultural. They are accompanied by introductions that explain the background of each source and discuss some of the questions it raises, while bibliographies direct readers to additional material.