Preview
  • Guest House for Young Widows

  • Among the Women of ISIS
  • By: Azadeh Moaveni
  • Narrated by: Sarah Agha
  • Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (97 ratings)

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Guest House for Young Widows

By: Azadeh Moaveni
Narrated by: Sarah Agha
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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 StarThe 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
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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)

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