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Chapter Four

                 (some men maintained that God created men, women, and animals,—
                 in that order), inside the family such statements do not hold good.
                 There, in her role as daughter, sister, wife and mother, a woman can
                 mould her personality in the daily contact with other members of the
                 family. As a sister she can at an early age replace her mother in the
                 care for the younger children. As a wife she is very often the driving
                 force behind many economic decisions, such as what should be
                 bought for the household or whether the house should be extended,
                 and in very prosperous houses a wife may become a formidable
                 catalyst for local politics. A touching and often quoted example was
                 Shaikha Salamah bint Buti, mother of the Abu Dhabi Shaikhs
                 Shakhbut and Zayid and the other sons of Shaikh Sultan bin Zayid,
                 because she not only made her sons promise not to harm each other if
                 one of them were to be deposed by another as Ruler, but she was also
                 the most important “eminence grise", with whom both her sons
                 consulted almost daily while they were Rulers.
                   In the domestic sphere many women, particularly those who had
                 learnt to read the Koran, were the most steadfast practising Muslims.
                 As was mentioned earlier, most women do not miss any of the
                 prescribed prayers, and they often fill idle moments, such as when
                 the conversation with a visitor has lapsed into silence, to murmur a
                 surah from the Koran or a prayer. To have an older woman in the
                 family who is a devout Muslim without being bigoted or self-
                 righteous, who has the humility, kindness and all-embracing nature
                 of truly religious people, gives that family a spiritual leader; members
                 of the family learn from her example how to cope with adversity, to be
                 loyal to one another and tolerant towards strangers. During the
                 month of Ramadan the older women may sometimes press the men to
                 be steadfast in observing the fast, keeping a record of the days
                 missed and to be made up later. Other women have become quite
                 formidable tyrants over the entire extended family, dictating on all
                 matters big and small, from marriage arrangements even to the size of
                 the eyeholes in the mask (burqa') which each mature woman of the
                 household has to wear.

                 Men’s social rating
                 While for all practical purposes the role of women within the
                 household is frequently that of decision-maker, the male head of the
                 family is the provider, spokesman and representative. He is the
                 upholder of the Islamic norm of conduct in the eyes of the outside

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