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Zenana (Persian: زنانه, "of the women" or "pertaining to women";[1] Urdu: زنانہ; Bengali: জেনানা; Hindi: ज़नाना) is the part of a house belonging to a Muslim family in the Indian subcontinent, which is reserved for the women of the household.[2] The zenana was a product of Indo-Islamic culture and was commonly found in aristocratic Muslim families. Due to prolonged interactions between Hindus and Muslims, upper-class Hindu households, inclined to imitate elite cultural trends, also embraced these designated spaces.[3] The zenana were the inner rooms of a house where the women of the family lived and where men and strangers were not allowed to enter. The outer apartments for guests and men are called the mardana. Conceptually in those that practise purdah, it is the Indian subcontinent's equivalent of the harem.
Christian missionaries were able to gain access to these Indian girls and women through the zenana missions; female missionaries who had been trained as doctors and nurses were able to provide them with health care and also evangelise them in their own homes.
- ^ Rege, Sharmila (2003). Sociology of Gender: The challenge of feminist sociological knowledge. Sage Publications. pp. 312 ff. ISBN 978-0-7619-9704-7. Retrieved 12 February 2012.
- ^ Khan, Mazhar-ul-Haq (1972). "Women and Girls Under Purdah and Polygamy". Purdah and Polygamy: A study in the social pathology of the Muslim society (1st ed.). Peshawar, Pakistan: Nashiran-e-Ilm-o-Taraqiyet. pp. ii, 65–101. LCCN 73930055. OCLC 1443715092. p. ii:
The zenana or female portion of a Muslim house
- ^ Dutta, Sutapa (2020). "The Memsahibs' gaze: Representation of the Zenana in India". In Sutapa Dutta (ed.). British Women Travellers: Empire and Beyond, 1770–1870 (1st ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 181. ISBN 978-1-000-50748-5. OCLC 1119121587.