Lifting the Veil

"Lifting the Veil" is an ambitious, thoughtful examination of the veil worn by Muslim women as a symbol for the tensions between the Middle East and the West. Kamerling and Gustafson provide a succinct, carefully researched history of Islam followed by a survey of the many underlying causes for the cultural complexes that threaten to possess both Islam and the West. The authors extend the idea of a complex in Jungian Psychology to the realm of a complex affecting an entire culture. They use the figure of Sheherazade, the woman who tells "One Thousand and One" stories over as many nights that ultimately proves to be the deliverance for two kings caught in the throes of the repressed feminine. Sheharazde becomes the vessel through which the feminine is unleashed and "Lifting the Veil" proposes that we must once again recover the life-affirming qualities of the repressed feminine if we are to overcome the cultural complexes that have divided Islam and the West.