42 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth Warnock FerneaGuests of the Sheik
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1965A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 15-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary: “Summer”
This chapter is a compilation of Elizabeth’s recollections of her first summer in El Nahra. She explains that the summer days are unbearably hot. In fact, she and Bob alter their routines to accommodate their constant heat exhaustion. Elizabeth notes that everyone in the village is “hoarding their stores of energy to last through the two months of heat yet to come” (179).
Nevertheless, the summer nights are pleasant because they are cool and perfect for visiting and entertaining. Elizabeth admits that she feels closest to the women during these summer nights: “as we relaxed together after sharing the day’s heat and talked and exchanged confidences as friends” (181). Sometimes, Elizabeth and Bob are visited by the sheik, who tells them about “his weariness and his financial troubles and his feeling that he needed a change” as well as his thoughts on Beethoven and vacationing in Cyprus and Lebanon (176). The village erupts in panic when Selma’s eldest son, Feisal, comes down with typhoid fever. Everyone has to be mobilized to obtain inoculations.
Afterward, Elizabeth learns that the women of El Nahra have a complicated relationship with their faith and the subject of magic. They believe in a variety of charms and a “Book of Stars” while knowing that this sort of magic is forbidden by the Quran. They are also curious about birth control and childbearing in America, but they abhor the idea of putting old women in nursing homes. The women are especially curious about how American women avoid having children because some of them feel that they have far too many children and are overburdened.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Hussein”
This brief chapter recounts how Elizabeth and Bob acquire an armed guard named Hussein. Hussein is a very poor member of another clan of the tribe. Elizabeth and Bob do not know if Haji Hamid gave Hussein his post to provide him with a job or if Haji Hamid took Hussein away from his permanent job. Either way, the two reflect on how Haji Hamid helps the clan members who live under his stewardship in the face of mounting poverty. Hussein’s presence leads to a number of comical anecdotes. In one, he terrifies Bob and Elizabeth’s Baghdadi visitor with gunfire. In another, he believes Bob gives Elizabeth “a good beating” (192).
Chapter 17 Summary: “Muharram”
In this chapter, Elizabeth describes the Islamic month of Muharram. During Muharram, Shia Muslims mourn the death of the imam and the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, Hussein. This month is filled with a variety of processions and staged battles that take place in El Nahra and throughout Iraq. Elizabeth notes that it “marked an annual period of color and drama in the village” (194). She begins to attend krayas regularly but is perturbed when the mullah begins to avidly encourage her to participate. Elizabeth and Bob suspect that she “had other things in mind for my religious education after Muharram was over,” and they are relieved when Elizabeth is given an opportunity to take care of a missionary friend and her family in Hilla (196). Elizabeth describes the wedding procession for the daughter of Hussein in Hilla, which “begins the period of deepest mourning during Muharram (199). When she returns to El Nahra, she describes flagellation processions, the taaziya—a staged battle on the day that Hussein was killed—and other Shia customs that are observed during this month.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Pilgrimage to Karbala”
Elizabeth decides to join Laila’s sister Fatima on a pilgrimage to Karbala after the mourning month of Muharram. Both she and Bob are apprehensive about her traveling alone as a foreigner, but they decide that the abayah and her decent Arabic provide her with plenty of safety, especially during a time when foreign pilgrims visit Karbala in droves. The road is arduous, and Elizabeth has to cope with Fatima’s strange plans for their housing in the city. She is eventually taken in by Fatima’s aunt, Sitt Najat, and uncle. Sitt Najat is a trained nurse, and she is both a modern and traditional woman. She has a full-time job outside of her home but also maintains a full household and family. While she tries to make Elizabeth comfortable as a foreigner, Elizabeth tries to integrate as a native would by eating with Sitt Najat and her family to save her from going to extra trouble. The two spend a fair amount of time together, and Elizabeth recounts anecdotes that showcase both her Orientalist tendencies and her awareness of these tendencies. While in the city, she occasionally worries about the stereotypical fanaticism associated with Shia Muslims and how this may affect her as a foreigner and a non-Muslim. However, she also recognizes that these worries are silly. One night, she listens to Sitt Najat and does not wear the veil with her abayah. During a crowded procession, she accidentally steps on someone’s prayer rug and angers them greatly, causing Sitt Najat to quickly pull her away from the situation. Elizabeth assumes that the incident had something to do with the fact that she was not wearing a veil.
Chapters 15-18 Analysis
This collection of chapters familiarizes the reader with a number of traditions and customs upheld by Shia Muslims in Iraq. Elizabeth and Bob display a great sensitivity toward these customs and their friends in El Nahra. When Jabbar worries that Bob will find some of the customs, such as self-flagellation, primitive and will report this to other Americans, Bob is disturbed. He tries to assure Jabbar that he would not do that and that Christians have similar traditions.
Elizabeth, however, remains somewhat Orientalist in her interpretation of these traditions. At this point in the book, she no longer perceives the tribeswomen as foreign, but her Orientalist gaze persists. On a pilgrimage, she entertains silly worries about being exposed and endangered as a foreigner and a non-Muslim. She also worries about the fanaticism associated with Shia Islam, but she recognizes that it is simply a stereotype. Her fixation with the veil and abayah also reappears in these chapters. In previous chapters, she began to view them as normal and even protective garments, but in Chapter 18 she again demonstrates judgment about and apprehension toward them.
