“Miniskirts, Mothers and Muslims” By Christine A Mallouhi
Monarch books, ISBN 1-85424-662-3

Review by Sr Rita Elizabeth, SSB

Subtitled: “A Christian Woman in a Muslim Land”, this book is filled with real-life stories giving fascinating insights into Arab culture and Muslim people. This observant book is written in a visit, lively style which reveals the conventions that govern Muslim society and chart the unwitting mistakes Westerners can make when meeting Muslims.

            Christina Mallouhi, an Australian, is married to an Arab Christian and she and her husband have lived in many different Muslim cultures. Her book assumes that Christians will want to live honourably among Muslims for Christ’s sake, and explores what this means.

            Her themes include: status, the place of woman, the veil, stereotypes, segregation and restrictions, family life, hospitality and witness.

            To assume good will on both sides is clearly an advantage in any cross-cultural encounter, but the stories which illustrate Christine’s experiences show that even with good will there is a lot of room for misunderstanding and potential offence—and even that what is acceptable in one Muslim country might not be quite so acceptable in another. However, the possibility of such pitfalls need not paralyse us into inaction when we consider how such a book written from the perspective of a Muslim hoping to make friends in Western culture might experience differences between expected behaviour and etiquette she observed in a  home in, for example, Britain, America and Australia.