Zaatar Days, Henna Nights: Adventures, Dreams, and Destinations Across the Middle East (Paperback)

~ (Author) "It was by no means an ordinary drive to the airport..." (more)
Key Phrases: fairy chimney, head scarf, Middle East, Zaatar Days, Abu Salah (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Disillusioned with her daily routine-phone tag, email, multitasking-Masood leaves her job and her family in Seattle and sets off for the Middle East from whence she came. This travelogue follows Masood, strapped into an REI backpack and sporting a well-thumbed Lonely Planet guidebook, as she travels from Egypt and Jordan to Syria and Turkey over the course of 10 months, hoping "to come to terms with a truer me, a more essential self that couldn't entirely be placed amid the bullet points of my resume." A Pakistan-born Muslim American in her late 20s, Masood finds herself blending into her environment-visiting mosques regularly, making friends easily-without entirely fitting in, a dichotomy ethnic Americans often grapple with while abroad and the ambitious, fascinating topic Masood excels in exploring. Unfortunately, Masood is less interested in describing sights and sounds-the dusty air of Egypt, the bustle of Turkey-and in so doing may fail to hook readers more interested in exotic locales than self-discovery. Though there's much here that's stimulating and relatable, fans of travel writing may feel they've been invited on the trip, but denied the pleasure of losing themselves in it.
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Product Description

When twenty-eight-year-old Maliha Masood, a burned-out dot-commer from Seattle, bought a one-way ticket to adventure and rejuvenation, she found it in the most unlikely of places: the Middle East.
With an infectious love of adventure, a zany sense of humor, and serious questions about her Islamic faith, Pakistani-born Masood begins an unforgettable journey. She camps in the Sahara with a Bedouin "desert fox," is mistaken for a spy in Turkey, takes a lesson in beauty from a Kurdish family, and falls in love with a poet. She experiences souks and mosques, open-air lingerie bazaars and nightclubs grooving to hip-hop. In a region associated with terrorist havens, Masood meets ordinary Muslim men and women navigating the politics of culture, religion, and identity.
Zaatar Days, Henna Nights offers a street-savvy take on the contemporary Arab world that's seldom seen on the evening news. This is a story of discovery and faith, of making bonds and breaking stereotypes, and of finding oneself where one least expects to.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press (December 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580051928
• ISBN-13: 978-1580051927
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #464,834 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Night and Their Eyes, February 12, 2007

By	Umm Lila "Umm Lila" (Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews

I picked up Za'atar Days and Henna Nights with interest, because I'm always on the lookout for travel books about the Middle East, where I have traveled, lived, worked (and indeed found a spouse) myself. Maliha Masood tried to delve a bit deeper than most travelers to the region do, and her book has many anecdotes about her interactions with the people she met, all of whom she approached with an openness and willingness to understand, despite language barriers. For this and the locale, I appreciated the book.

Nonetheless, I couldn't help but cringe when I noticed that most of the people she encountered were those that I would normally avoid - they were often guys who make a habit or living off of hanging around in touristed areas, either offering guide services or looking to pick up girls. In the Arab countries particularly, casual, short-term, nonsexual friendships between men and women are uncommon, though she tried to build them, leaving a trail of liquid brown/ green / dark eyes full of unspoken messages behind her. Going camping with one man, lying out in the grass looking at the sky and just being in the one on one situations she cultivated seem wildly inappropriate to me, given prevailing cultural mores.

Her prose was somewhat overblown, between the eyes and the search for self amid the alienation of travel, oneness of the universe, hyperawareness of people around her and the dark dome of stars. All things considered, I'll take Freya Stark.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars World expanding., March 2, 2007

By	Robert Mullarky (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There is a lot about this story that is alien to me. I'm not Muslim, I'm not particularly spiritual, I'd never travel off into areas unknown with no concrete plan, goal, or even a crude itinerary, and I would never be so trusting of strangers or open to spontaneous suggestions by dodgy characters.

Perhaps that is why this story was so eye-opening to me. I thought Maliha Masood did a good job of bringing to life a reality and an adventure entirely outside of my experience. As a result, I feel like I know more not only about the culture and countries she explored, but also about a type and level of spirituality I'm unfamiliar with. I don't feel any urge to drop everything and go aimlessly wander a foreign region, but I do feel like I have had my horizons widened and my understanding of the world increased.

I found it interesting to compare Ms. Masood's descriptions of the people and customs with what I know, and think about the ways they are different and similar to what I know. In America we get so little exposure to Arabic culture outside of television images of violence or non-christian religious behavior, it can seem a little surprising to discover how much generosity and friendliness is a part of Arabic culture. Or how steeped in western culture they are. I can't speak to the wisdom or appropriateness of the author's behavior, but I can appreciate the guided tour through unfamiliar territory, both literal and existential.

Definately worth the read.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring!!!, February 18, 2007

By	Tracy L. Trautmann "T. Gojdics" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I found Zaatar Days, Henna Nights to be a wonderfully inspiring book of adventure. I have not read many travel books written in the first person that provides such great personal thoughts and emotion. What a brave thing for a young woman to do on her own without a real plan. This is what is so inspiring to me. It seems we are often so afraid to discover new parts of the world on our own and Maliha Masood showed me it is okay and that the adventure is more about the people then the place. I reinforced my belief that interesting people are everywhere and that people are more alike than different.

The first chapter really set the tone for me and had me wanting to finish the rest of the book in one sitting. I especially identified with Maliha's rationale for taking her adventure.. "What I really wanted was to escape from routine and find new ryhtyms in a world that would reawaken my senses. I wanted to knwo the meaning of wonder and freshness, to regain the wide-eyed openess of a child." Throughout the book I felt like I was vicariously living through her adventures in the Middle East. I have to say they are very different than what I imagined and a far cry from the negative images and tones that are repeated by the media.

Bravo!