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zatulasma's review against another edition
5.0
I love these women.
The author, the editor, and all of those in each page
The author, the editor, and all of those in each page
siria's review against another edition
3.0
Sultana's Dream is set in a world where men live in seclusion, and women run a peaceful, advanced world, where technology runs on solar power.
It was also written by a Bengali Muslim woman in 1905.
Truthfully, I think that Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's story is more of interest as a historic than as a literary piece, but I do think it would teach well in a women's history course. The scholarly apparatus accompanying it is useful but is now fairly dated (written in the '80s).
It was also written by a Bengali Muslim woman in 1905.
Truthfully, I think that Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's story is more of interest as a historic than as a literary piece, but I do think it would teach well in a women's history course. The scholarly apparatus accompanying it is useful but is now fairly dated (written in the '80s).
kynan's review
3.0
This was very much not what I expected. I decided to read this because I just finished [a:Robert Jordan|6252|Robert Jordan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1538507642p2/6252.jpg]'s Wheel of Time series and I wasn't sure how to proceed with reading other things after 14 books worth of no choices.
I heard about "Sultana's Dream" on episode 24 of the New Scientist Podcast, where it was brought up in relation to the UAE Mars mission launching today (as I write this anyway), along with [b:A Journey To Mars|25025882|A Journey To Mars|نبيل نادر قوشجي Nabil Kochaji|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1424972313l/25025882._SX50_.jpg|27668425]. I knew it was a short-story, and I wanted that whilst I continued in my indecision about what larger chunk of reading I would devote myself to next. What I didn't realise was quite how short this story actually was, the very first person to read it (the author's husband) actually did so after walking in the door one evening between coming in and saying "Hi, whatcha been up to" and sitting down - you can cruise through it in twenty minutes or less.
To my modern eye (this being first published in 1905), it's a pretty amatuerish story of role-reversal in Muslim India. Interestingly though on the science-fiction front, Rokeya was on-the-ball with her knowledge of air-travel, showing an at least passing familiarity with hydrogen as a weight-negator (first used for successful human flight by Henri Giffard of France in 1852, according to britannica.com) and helicopter-like propellers (the first of which didn't practically turn up until 1922) and she sketches some interesting ideas about water and energy collection through balloon/pipe systems.
Overall, the story isn't really about science though, it's more about how women are trapped by the Muslim practice of purdah, preventing them from having any significant effect on the world and specifically pointing out how, if they were freed of purdah, and swapped places with men, the world would become a scientific utopia with all the antagonistic and lazy men out of the way.
But this book isn't just about "Sultana's Dream". It's about painting a picture of the author and the time in which she lived and then reading "Sultana's Dream" in that light. I actually went back and re-read the short-story after finishing the rest of the book and it does make a difference to one's perception.
Following on from the short-story is a selection of "reports" from a book Rokeya compiled of reports about purdah in the early 1900's in India, specifically about how terrible and inhumane it was. Rokeya was an early and indefatigable fighter for the rights of women, specifically Muslim women and their right to education and some expression of free-will. Rokeya actually set up a school for Muslim girls in Bhagalpur in 1909, moving a couple of years later to Kolkata (which I still thought was Calcutta, but apparently changed back in 2001).
Anyway, the point is that the stories about what women in purdah endured, including the final one in the collection about the school bus she had to jury rig to get her students to school without them being observed, I found horrific. The third, and final, part of the book is a long essay on Rokeya, British colonialism and the impact that had on the internal dynamics of India's Muslim and Hindu populations - an interesting coincidence of things to ponder in the current period of racial readjustment! I actually found myself briefly disoriented when the words written by [a:Hanna Papanek|53206|Hanna Papanek|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] in the afterword "Caging the Lion: A Fable for Our Time" almost exactly duplicated the thoughts and feelings of [a:Reni Eddo-Lodge|16239209|Reni Eddo-Lodge|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1502981608p2/16239209.jpg] talking the slave port docks in Liverpool and Papanek's thoughts about female persecution as she walked the Karachi market and docks.
For someone blithely unaware of the religious make-up of India and Pakistan, this last section was really eye-opening. A lot is said about how a woman's honor is tied to associated men's honor and pride and how that link can cause the seemingly insane decision to do things up to and including murdering the woman in question:
It would be nice to sum this up as "religion is bad" and smugly move on, but I don't really think that's the case. Religion can be a useful crutch to many people and there's no ignoring the fact that a significant portion of the selflessly good deeds done in the world today, and in the past, are attributable to religious organisiations (and despite what I thought, apparently only 7% of known conflicts can be directly attributed to religion - although I'm going to read up a little on that later).
This booklet in it's entirety does a good job of introducing the naive to the concept of Purdah, but also provides a pretty compelling view of why one can't, or might not wish to, "throw off the shackles or religion", even if they are the hard-done-by party in a given situation.
Overall, it's not compelling science-fiction, but it's definitely an interesting read on the subject of the Muslim religion, the feminist movement back in the very early 1900's and yet more of the inadvertent impact that British colonialism had on the world!
I heard about "Sultana's Dream" on episode 24 of the New Scientist Podcast, where it was brought up in relation to the UAE Mars mission launching today (as I write this anyway), along with [b:A Journey To Mars|25025882|A Journey To Mars|نبيل نادر قوشجي Nabil Kochaji|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1424972313l/25025882._SX50_.jpg|27668425]. I knew it was a short-story, and I wanted that whilst I continued in my indecision about what larger chunk of reading I would devote myself to next. What I didn't realise was quite how short this story actually was, the very first person to read it (the author's husband) actually did so after walking in the door one evening between coming in and saying "Hi, whatcha been up to" and sitting down - you can cruise through it in twenty minutes or less.
To my modern eye (this being first published in 1905), it's a pretty amatuerish story of role-reversal in Muslim India. Interestingly though on the science-fiction front, Rokeya was on-the-ball with her knowledge of air-travel, showing an at least passing familiarity with hydrogen as a weight-negator (first used for successful human flight by Henri Giffard of France in 1852, according to britannica.com) and helicopter-like propellers (the first of which didn't practically turn up until 1922) and she sketches some interesting ideas about water and energy collection through balloon/pipe systems.
Overall, the story isn't really about science though, it's more about how women are trapped by the Muslim practice of purdah, preventing them from having any significant effect on the world and specifically pointing out how, if they were freed of purdah, and swapped places with men, the world would become a scientific utopia with all the antagonistic and lazy men out of the way.
But this book isn't just about "Sultana's Dream". It's about painting a picture of the author and the time in which she lived and then reading "Sultana's Dream" in that light. I actually went back and re-read the short-story after finishing the rest of the book and it does make a difference to one's perception.
Following on from the short-story is a selection of "reports" from a book Rokeya compiled of reports about purdah in the early 1900's in India, specifically about how terrible and inhumane it was. Rokeya was an early and indefatigable fighter for the rights of women, specifically Muslim women and their right to education and some expression of free-will. Rokeya actually set up a school for Muslim girls in Bhagalpur in 1909, moving a couple of years later to Kolkata (which I still thought was Calcutta, but apparently changed back in 2001).
Anyway, the point is that the stories about what women in purdah endured, including the final one in the collection about the school bus she had to jury rig to get her students to school without them being observed, I found horrific. The third, and final, part of the book is a long essay on Rokeya, British colonialism and the impact that had on the internal dynamics of India's Muslim and Hindu populations - an interesting coincidence of things to ponder in the current period of racial readjustment! I actually found myself briefly disoriented when the words written by [a:Hanna Papanek|53206|Hanna Papanek|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] in the afterword "Caging the Lion: A Fable for Our Time" almost exactly duplicated the thoughts and feelings of [a:Reni Eddo-Lodge|16239209|Reni Eddo-Lodge|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1502981608p2/16239209.jpg] talking the slave port docks in Liverpool and Papanek's thoughts about female persecution as she walked the Karachi market and docks.
For someone blithely unaware of the religious make-up of India and Pakistan, this last section was really eye-opening. A lot is said about how a woman's honor is tied to associated men's honor and pride and how that link can cause the seemingly insane decision to do things up to and including murdering the woman in question:
One might imagine that making men’s honor entirely dependent on women’s actions—as in the statements noted earlier—gives women considerable power over men’s “derivative” honor. A woman might threaten to ruin a man’s reputation by disobedience. But it does not work out that way, for several reasons.
First, a man’s honor is terribly important to him; in some groups, it is the most cherished attribute, one for which he may be ready to die or to kill. Men have physical and legal power over women: They initiate divorce and can send women back to their families. Depending on the specific type of Islamic personal law in force in a country, women may also be able to initiate divorce; recent legislation in some countries also limits men’s power to initiate unilateral divorce. But this is unheard of in those groups where violence is used to defend family honor. Men in such groups often beat women, and, in extreme cases, their concern for personal and family honor may prompt them to kill a female relative who has violated the group’s code of conduct. Such killings, like “crimes of passion” elsewhere, are condoned by the community.
It would be nice to sum this up as "religion is bad" and smugly move on, but I don't really think that's the case. Religion can be a useful crutch to many people and there's no ignoring the fact that a significant portion of the selflessly good deeds done in the world today, and in the past, are attributable to religious organisiations (and despite what I thought, apparently only 7% of known conflicts can be directly attributed to religion - although I'm going to read up a little on that later).
This booklet in it's entirety does a good job of introducing the naive to the concept of Purdah, but also provides a pretty compelling view of why one can't, or might not wish to, "throw off the shackles or religion", even if they are the hard-done-by party in a given situation.
Overall, it's not compelling science-fiction, but it's definitely an interesting read on the subject of the Muslim religion, the feminist movement back in the very early 1900's and yet more of the inadvertent impact that British colonialism had on the world!
nmussarrat's review
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
asparagusisreading's review
-Soft DNF: This book is due at the library so I won't be able to finish it at this time. I may return to it in the future.
paulap's review against another edition
medium-paced
2.25
I appreciate that this was written a while ago and it was revolutionary at the time. But the ideas have not aged well, there are some concepts about gender and the superiority of one or the other that do not fit within the current sensibilities. It was interesting as a piece in the history of feminist literature, but I am not sure that it would be considered feminist in the current time.