Yamani and Allens 1996 Women and Islam provides a broad range of views on the ways in which women and men interact with each other within the realm of Islam. Such a volume is especially useful today as Westerners try to understand their own relationship with Islam, but it is also useful in and of itself for helping those unfamiliar with the teachings and practice of Islam, for the chapters in this book is more focused on explaining Islam in terms of itself rather than in terms of Western beliefs. The picture that this paints of the role of women within Islam is more nuanced than the image of Muslim women usually seen in the United States. The book, which allows Muslim women to speak about their own experiences in their own voices an opportunity that is far too often denied to women within Islam, either in the West or outside of it.
