53 pages 1 hour read

Lila Abu-Lughod

Veiled Sentiments

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1986

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter 2: "Identity in Relationship"

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

"Aṣl: The Blood of Ancestry" Summary

Abu-Lughod’s chapter on Identity in Relationship begins with a brief introduction establishing the primacy of relationships, rather than lifestyle (or nomadism), in defining what it means to be a Bedouin. She describes people “who touted the joys of the desert lived in houses” and “wore shiny wristwatches and plastic shoes, listened to radios and cassette players, and traveled in Toyota pickup trucks" (40). What she sees, initially, as “alarming signs” that Bedouins are “losing their identity as a cultural group” (40), do not concern the Awlad ‘Ali. Rather, they identify as Bedouin because of “genealogy and a tribal order” combined with “a code of morality, that of honor and modesty,” summed up in the notion of dam, or “blood” (41). “Blood” and “nobility of blood” (aṣl) is the focus of the first subtopic.

The Awlad ‘Ali, Abu-Lughod explains, migrated into Egypt around the 17th century and have relied on “rainfall and the state of pasture” (41)ever since. At the hands of Egyptian and British authorities in the years since, the Awlad ‘Ali have worked to sustain their cultural identity and lands in the Western Desert. In the 1950s, “assimilation” efforts peaked as the government worked to “improve” services while “settling” (43)nomadic peoples into agricultural lifestyles.