Womens Privacy in Middle Eastern Countries

Privacy is an important aspect in all societies. For Middle Eastern societies, privacy is considered a holy tradition and a way of life that shoirld be respected and reflected in everyday life and, as such, adapted in architectural solutions, building and town planning. Although each particirlar city in the different Islamic nations has developed its own interpretation of privacy, all of them include privacy as a fundamental, shared concern in architectural patterns. Privacy is related to family life, neighborhood life, and women s life. 

Women s privacy is a need and a value that has irtfluenced and continues to influence Arab societies, as well as other Islamic societies. The rules that govern this need are socially defined and mutable (based on Hakim 1986 Arkoun 1990 Roald 2001). Therefore, they are practiced differently according to the cultural context, the period, the situation, and the women s social status their age, education, and income level. For example, in Saudi Arabia, the rales which govern women s privacy in public spaces are set out in legislation. In Palestine, on the other hand, these rales are defined socially. Also, younger, higher income, and better educated women are less concerned about privacy rales. This does not mean that these women do not need privacy, but the required privacy for them is less than that for other women. 

Even for the same woman, her required privacy is not fixed and depends on the situation. For example, for activities where woman spends long time as in recreational activities, she will care about privacy more than for activities where she spends short time as passing by. However, the influence of these status variable 

Women s privacy in old traditional Islamic culture implies different terms of privacy visual, physical, auditory, and olfactory. In other words, it means to what extent women shonld be exposed visually, physically, or in an olfactory or auditory sense (to what extent her voice is recognizable to outsiders) to outsider males in the various events that occur either in private or in public open spaces during everyday life activities. Many of these terms have been inherited by modem Islamic societies, and reflected in people s behavior and in their built enviromnent, which largely reflects local ways in controlling space. In the contemporary literature, the definition of defensible space shows how communities create their individital spaces that fit their needs and make it possible to defend their physical space (Newrrran 1972). 

Women s privacy need is relevant to their security need. According to Islamic jurispradence, privacy rales are based on the notion that women arouse men s sexual appetite, which exposes the women to danger. Thus, privacy rules, according to Islam, are precaution mechanisms that decrease women s exposirre to men and contribute to their protection. Although the Islamic perspective may not comply with other Muslim or cultural perspectives, particularly as such an issue is dependent on the nature of both women and men, it is relevant to women s security in urban public spaces. Several studies about women s use of cities show that among the major problems which women face in public spaces in the USA and Europe are the fear of harm and sexual attack (Worpole 1992 Karp et al. 1991). In general, results of these studies comply with the concept of women s privacy in Islam. 

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