BOOK REVIEW: The Holy Woman by Qasira Shahraz ★★★☆☆

This is the first Asian novel I have read, which to me is very surprising. Most of my friends have read Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane and I haven’t. So I took the plunge and read 559 page novel and you know me by now, I’m a slow reader.

The Holy Woman has been translated into several languages, has won the 2001 Golden Jubilee Award and is become a bestseller in Indonesia and Turkey. Shahraz is renowned for her work A Pair of Jeans and has written a drama serial Dil Hee To Hai, (The Heart Is It) broadcasted in 2003 on Pakistani Television.

The Holy Woman is gripping family drama, a romantic story of love and betrayal in a wealthy Muslim community, with all the pressures and conflicts of modern life and old traditions. Taking place in modern Pakistan, London and Egypt, the protagonist Zarri Bano is a glamorous 28-year-old daughter of a rich Muslim landowner. She falls in love with business tycoon Sikander and plans to marry him. However, her father, Habbib Khan, takes an instant irrational dislike to the new man. When his only son is killed in a freak riding accident, Habib Khan decides to make Zarri Bano his sole heiress, thus resurrecting an ancient tradition which decrees that an heiress must remain celibate. Zarri Bano is forced into a marriage to her religion and the Holy Koran, becoming her clan's 'holy woman' - a nun.

For me, reading this novel was very much like watching melodramatic Pakistani/Indian drama – very dramatic, slow in some scene and overall a really unnecessary long book which made my head spin. But there were elements that I liked because as a young modern Muslim woman I can resonate.

This book subtly illustrates a woman’s role in a patriarchal society. She is reminded of her izzat, (honour) to be submissive and silent. It’s a man’s world, and a woman has certain values: an obedient wife, serving her husband and taking care of her household. A veil must always be on her head within the presence of a male guest. This poignant theme is echoed throughout the novel.

The style of writing is very much tell-me rather than show-me and most of the dialogue is unrealistic in wording as if it was translated directly from Urdu to English. As far as romantic sagas go, Shahraz has done a marvellous job.

There are two main storylines that interweave. The first is Zarri Bano; from the modern, independent woman who never bothered covering her head in a male’s presence, transforming into the holy woman, dressing head to two in a black burqa and the turmoil relationship between her parents. The other is Chaudrani Kaniz, Habib’s sister-in-law, and her arrogance against Fatima and her daughter Firdaus affects her relationship with her only son Khawar.

Although I didn’t enjoy the Zarri Bano storyline as much, I was rather interested in Kaniz, Khawar, Fatima and Firdaus story. In this particular story, Chaudrani Kaniz is scornful, arrogant and had always blamed the washerwoman Fatima for stealing her husband’s heart. This long feud sparks again when Kaniz’s son Khawar wants to marry his mother’s enemy’s daughter. What I particularly like about the story is Kaniz, although not pleasant and treating people she doesn’t like below her feet, there is a psychological reason behind her mentality, plus her character goes on a journey, inner discovery about why she is the way she is.

Back to the main story, I have a problem with the main character being flawless. She described as beautiful and desirable, ever so repeated throughout the novel, and it felt like Zarri Bano did not have a personality before the transformation. Apart from that, I pitied her because of the circumstances. If her brother Jafar hadn’t died, she would have married Sikandar and would have kept her ‘fashionable but ignorant of her religion’ personality. When her father denies her woman rights and forces her into the role of the holy woman, Zarri Bano goes through a drastic identity change. At the start, she loathed the black burqa, the black shroud covering her feminine body. As five years go by she becomes so involved in her life of celibacy and religious teaching she doesn’t recognise her old self.

The idea of her father forcing her to be a nun is absurd, how she could be denied such things as marriage and children and how she is made to feel ashamed by falling in love with Sikander because of her fathers, a man’s dictatorship is ludicrous, but Zarri Bano doesn’t let that chapter of her life completely ruin her. Becoming the holy woman of her clan opens up new doors for her. At first she wanted to open a publishing house in Karachi, but as the holy woman she travelled the world, made friends and leant more about her religion, discovering what her role as a woman is in her religion as opposed to what her culture dictates. When fate doesn’t agree with you, you have two options; cry your heart out or find the positive side to it. And that’s what Zarri Bano does, although remorseful of the situation she was thrown into, she cries, getting it out of the system and gets on with her life.

There are some quotes which I particularly liked:

Page 388 “We are proud, yet obedient woman. And for our clan’s sake, we bowed and gave in.”
Page 401 “I have been a dutiful and dumb prisoner of female etiquette for so long, how can I open my mouth to you?”Page 401 “You see, we women are just dumb servants to grace your households, obedient vessels, so how can I confine my feelings to you?”

Apart from the one spelling mistake, I found on page 261, Jajmer Sharif should be Ajmer Sharif, other than that The Holy Woman is a saga of betrayal, love and inner discovery. I would recommend this book to those who love reading about their Pakistani culture and liked reading romance saga.

Rating: 3.5/5
Publishers: Arcadia Books
First Published 2001
Second Date: June 1st 2007
Genre: Asian Literature/ Romance