Includes bibliographical references (pages 407-428) and index.

Foreword / Her Highness Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser -- Introduction : researching the Gulf / Amira El-Azhary Sonbol -- Women in Eastern Arabia : myth and representation / Hatoon Ajwad al-Fassi (Professor of History, King Saud University, Riyadh) -- Tribalism, tribal feuds and the social status of women / Allen Fromherz (Assistant Professor of History, Georgia State University) -- Women and politics in late Jahili and early Islamic Arabia : reading behind patriarchal history / Barbara Freyer Stowasser (Professor of Arabic, Georgetown University) -- Love discourse in Hijazi society under the Umayyads : a study in class and gender / Amira El-Zein (Visiting Associate Professor of Arabic/ Islamic Studies and Comparative Literature, Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Qatar) -- Nomadic histories : reflections on bedouin women‘s poetry from the Gulf region / Moneera al-Ghadeer (Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Qatar University) -- Women and the economy : pre-oil Gulf states / Hoda El Saadi (Associate Professor of History, Cairo University) -- A labor of love : making space for midwives in Gulf history / Hibba Abugideiri (Assistant Professor of History, Villanova University) -- Women‘s religious activities in the Arabian peninsula : a historical outlook / Omaima Abou-Bakr (Professor of Literature, Cairo University) -- Women and education in the Gulf : between the modern and the traditional / Ramadan al-Khouli (Doctoral Candidate, Department of History, Cairo University) -- Women of the Gulf during the first half of the twenthieth century : a comparative study of American missionary archives and local memory / Fatma al-Sayegh (Professor of History, University of the Emirates) -- Some considerations on the family in the Arabian peninsula in the late Ottoman and early post-Ottoman period / Soraya Altorki (Professor of Anthropology, American University in Cairo) -- The family in Gulf history / Amira El-Azhary Sonbol (Professor of Islamic History, Law and Society, Georgetown University) -- Gender rights and Islamic legal tradition : an exploration / Ziba Mir-Hosseini (freelance academic at New York University and London) -- Gulf women and the codification of Muslim family law / Lynn Welchman (Professor, School of African and Oriental Studies, London).