Guest House for Young Widows

Among the Women of ISIS

By: Azadeh Moaveni

Narrated by: Sarah Agha

Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's Summary

A gripping account of 13 women who joined, endured, and, in some cases, escaped life in the Islamic State - based on years of immersive reporting by a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Finalist for the Baillie Gifford Prize • Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly and one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Toronto Star • The Guardian

Among the many books trying to understand the terrifying rise of ISIS, none has given voice to the women in the organization; but women were essential to the establishment of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s caliphate.

Responding to promises of female empowerment and social justice, and calls to aid the plight of fellow Muslims in Syria, thousands of women emigrated from the United States and Europe, Russia and Central Asia, from across North Africa and the rest of the Middle East to join the Islamic State. These were the educated daughters of diplomats, trainee doctors, teenagers with straight-A averages, as well as working-class drifters and desolate housewives, and they joined forces to set up makeshift clinics and schools for the Islamic homeland they’d envisioned.

Guest House for Young Widows charts the different ways women were recruited, inspired, or compelled to join the militants. Emma from Hamburg, Sharmeena and three high school friends from London, and Nour, a religious dropout from Tunis: All found rebellion or community in political Islam and fell prey to sophisticated propaganda that promised them a cosmopolitan adventure and a chance to forge an ideal Islamic community in which they could live devoutly without fear of stigma or repression.

It wasn’t long before the militants exposed themselves as little more than violent criminals, more obsessed with power than the tenets of Islam, and the women of ISIS were stripped of any agency, perpetually widowed and remarried, and ultimately trapped in a brutal, lawless society. The fall of the caliphate only brought new challenges to women no state wanted to reclaim.

Azadeh Moaveni’s exquisite sensitivity and rigorous reporting make these forgotten women indelible and illuminate the turbulent politics that set them on their paths.

©2019 Azadeh Moaveni (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic Reviews

“A skillful, sensitive report...superb.” (The Guardian)

“The debate badly needs an injection of sanity. Happily, Azadeh Moaveni’s Guest House for Young Widows...provides some perspective.... Moaveni makes several pertinent points.” (The Sunday Times) 

“A fascinating dive into the lives of women who aided or flocked to Isis.... Moaveni portrays her subjects with nuance, and even a dose of compassion - an approach that yields a far better understanding of Isis than more sensationalist accounts.” (Financial Times)  

An important topic, but a problematic book

*If you are looking at this book because want to understand why these women joined the Islamic State even after the knowing about genocide of Yazidis or other atrocities, you will not get even a shred of an answer.

The reason I chose this book is because I wanted to humanize these women and better understand their story. I didn't expect that probably the majority of the book would be the author's analysis of the political, social and economic context of these women's lives. I got bored and timed one hour of the book in the middle: about 40 minutes were context analysis and only 20 minutes were about these women. This wouldn't be such a problem if the author's analysis was well done. To be sure, there are some brilliant moments of analysis, but there are so many misleading ones of opinions that are stated as facts.

For example, she states as fact that the South Asian Jihadists are jerks to the others because of British colonialism, a point that is bad sociology at best and completely irrelevant to the story of these women that she is supposed to be telling (and this is obviously not what the girls thought but only what the author thinks). But many of the "facts" she states are not as benign as this one. She misleadingly describes Alawites as definitively not Muslims but only pretending because Assad told them to. This is a weakly supported opinion, not an agreed upon fact. The issue of who does and does not count as a religious adherent (especially regarding minority groups in the middle east) is a very complicated issue and there was no need for her to pronounce her ruling on the issue as if it was fact and that all Alawites are just lying. Ironically she is guilty of engaging in the the same kind of labeling as Muslim or non-Muslim that her IS subjects do.

She blames a lot on the west, which is often fair, but sometimes not. She goes off on how Arab dictators are US backed pawns and jumps straight to Assad, who is quite the opposite as a generally anti-US leader. I would let all this pass, but as she rails against the west again and again, she almost completely omits anything bad ISIS did or just mentions it in passing. She has multiple, really long rants against the British tabloid press (which I thought was quite well done), but never even mentions the Yazidis genocide, and when other atrocities are mentioned, they are only done so in passing and as relatively minor background events even though they seem more relevant to the women's lives. It's so evident that she wants to push back on the unfair rightwing narrative in the west, but she forgets to really talk about ISIS (or worse just doesn't think they were that bad). If you didn't already know about ISIS, you could read this book and think that ISIS wasn't that bad, which to me is a huge failure of this book. If this was actually just a book about these women's stories from their perspective, it would be okay, but the book is dominated by the authors context analysis and not ever addressing the victims or these women's responsibility as part of IS is honestly disgusting.

At one point near the end, she has a long section on how people have tried to push their own narratives on these women. These section was well done, but I almost burst out laughing since this was my exact criticism of her and what had annoyed me so much that I almost didn't finish this book. It came off as a lack of self-awareness on the part of the author.

If you aren't already super familiar with the region and the issues being discussed, you are not likely to notice that a lot of the book that is intended to come off as neutral providing of context is actually just the author's opinions.

And this last thing is minor, but as I know the region well, I noticed several obvious provable falsehoods that I thought she would have fact checked. Almost all the distances in the book are so wrong and obvious to anyone who knows the region. It is physically impossible to get across Turkey in a bus in 8 hours - the bus it takes at least 17 just from Istanbul to Gaziantep and then several more from there. Also, her character can't possibly commute from Raqqa to al-Hasakah to go to University everyday, that would be an 8 hour round trip. There are many more little things that just of add up to a seed of doubt in my mind about how much of this is accurate.

This would be a good book for someone who thinks that anyone who had any affiliation with IS was an inhuman monster, as this book is a greatly over compensating counter-narrative, but for the rest of us, I don't really recommend this book.

PS: the narrator was great

Incredible work

Investigative, thorough, enlightening, engrossing. Preface and epilogue really tie it all together. At times it was hard to get thru but overall, really impressed by the writing on this topic - Believe the author achieved her goal in that capacity.

a political and religious analysis

...and if that's what you are looking for, I'm sure the book is great. I was looking for a book about the isis women, but all I have gotten, so far, are disjointed stories of women....hopefully something will tie together in the end....

Was not what I thought but was a good book

Gives you a different look on how it was for women of Isis, why the joined, how it was during it, and the challenges of escaping, and after escape if they managed to get out.

Decent

This audible book was insightful. It is from a women’s perspective, which we hardly get to hear when it comes to ISIS. The book provides context as to why seemingly normal women decide to move to Syria and become a bride of ISIS. The author seems to think European countries should be more forgiving when these young girls realize they have made a mistake by joining ISIS. The fact is they joined a terrorists group. That can’t be simply overlooked. Overall it was a good book.

Impressed

I am so impressed by the quality of the journalism , the use of language and nuance and project as a whole. Well narrated. The notes from the author at the very end of the book should be required reading for journalism school students as ( in my mind ) a description of a true journalist and how she sees her responsibilities and her craft.
I am very glad I “read” this book. Well done !

Shallow and Slanted

No real in depth soul searching analysis. Just journalistic reports of the basic story repeatedly

Starts out slowly, but worth continuing

The story started out slowly with a lot of seemingly disjointed stories, and I almost gave up. But audible made it easy to continue and I am so happy I did. I learned a lot.

Unlike anything else I have read

...wow. I wish I had a more eloquent way of starting this out, but I am just going to stick with the visceral reaction I had to this gut-wrenching, mind-boggling, and incredibly impactful book.

For decades, the subject of terrorism has pervaded nearly every facet of life, from changes to the law in the name of national security, immigration policy, and even popular culture. An ugly and sinister vein of xenophobia and nationalism has grown throughout the west.

Meanwhile, life for many citizens from south Asia to the Middle East to Africa has become a revolving door of corrupt governments, military interventions from other nations, sectarian violence, echoes of colonialism, and religious fundamentalism and extremism.

What does all this mean to a woman who is a practicing Muslim? As the stories in this book show, it means a lot of different things. It means fear, uncertainty, disillusionment, defensiveness, and an incredibly complex search for identity and empowerment when it seems the whole world demands something different of you, with many of those demands in direct conflict with one another.

More than anything these stories put human faces to these very real women; to situations in their lives you may never experience, to choices you may never have to make, to beliefs that may starkly contradict your own. And, these are not pat, neatly-wrapped fables or morality plays. These are the lived experiences of women who, for one or many reasons, were drawn into the Islamic State and what it purported to represent.

Do not go into this book with judgment in your heart. If you cannot set aside anger and condemnation for long enough to get through this book, wait until you are at an emotional point where you can. It sets forth a complex and challenging narrative, and a reader would do themselves a disservice by picking up this book with a preconceived notion of what the "women of ISIS" will mean. If you can approach this book with your mind open to seeing these women, their dreams, their choices, and how their lives have played out, it is an amazing read that will stay with you.

captivating

absolutely captivating stories of the women, need to read in few sittings or might be confusing to keep up with who is who

Excellent

Exceptional book. Very interesting and informative. Well researched by the Author, being a journalist I would expect. Really does give a proper nuanced insight into the reasons of which are not easily defined. Highly recommend. Very sad and also an indictment of Western Governments complete lack of understanding of the whole issue. Lot's I could say,however I would say read it and I hope it will challenge people's misconceptions. Narrator was excellent too.

Hard read to keep up with but definitely worth it.

Fiercely read, with good reason. Incredible diction, which is essential as it's such a complex account of the social interactions between different races, sexes and religions of everything that goes on between Bethnal Green and the terrifying war-torn parts of the earth. An incredibly intelligent attempt to explain at a gigantic unfathomable subject.

Explanation of the Inexplicable

A useful, clear analysis of (some) the reasons why.

I read a review which was very scathing about the narration and I was almost put off buying but there's nothing much wrong with it, if anything it's a little monotone.

Reality can be heartbreaking

it is a lovely book. My only issue was that I listened to it during the lockdown... which, I feel, warrants lighter reading. The stories of the women in this book are heartbreaking. I feel that young, vulnerable girls should be exposed to these stories...

The narration is just awful

Fantastic book. Just what we need in this time of confusion and mistrust but I can not stand the narrator! Constant pauses and questions marks when not needed!!!! Better just to read the book if you can

Excellent

Compassionate, so well researched. Great narration. If only the sensationslist news media wrote this well and with this much understanding of their subjects

Amazing content - awful narrator

This book would receive 5* across all categories if it wasn’t for the narrator. She speaks too stoccato and over-pronounces EVERY single syllable of every word with a clipped English accent that truly grates.
I should move to actually reading this book instead of listening.
Such a shame because the content is extremely fascinating and well-researched and that is what I highly recommend. I’d read more from the author.

Change the narrator and the audio would benefit hugely.

Disjointed

I was looking forward to reading/hearing this book as part of it had been on the radio. I was also interested in learning more about young women like Shemima Begum and what caused them to do what they did. It is well written, however I found it disjointed - it was hard to follow different characters as they were spread throughout the book, and I think it would have been better if each chapter was dedicated to telling the whole story of each girl or group of girls.

Guest House for Young Women

The narrator is awful. Staccato and pause
s inappropriately so that both listening and comprehending is affected- and not for the better. She has good pronunciation of Muslim etc words but that is the only positive thing I can say.