THE MOVING STORY of a woman who challenges the restrictions of the life she is born into, and in so doing helps to bring about change for more than just herself. It illuminates issues which rarely appear in fiction but which structure the lives of millions of women - the legal status of Muslim women, the limitations imposed on them by traditional and religious conventions, the restrictions on their economic activities, the humiliations visited on them as a result of unquestioned male power in personal relationships. It engages the reader's sympathy through its believable portrayal of one remarkable contemporary woman.