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The legal treatment of sexual behavior is a subject that receives little scholarly attention in the field of Middle East women’s studies. Important questions about the relationship between sexuality and the law and about the societies enforcing that relationship are rarely addressed in the current literature. Elyse Semerdjian’s “Off the Straight Path” takes a bold step toward filling that gap by offering a fascinating look at the historical progression of the treatment of illicit sex under Islamic law. Semerdjian provides a comprehensive review of the concept of zina, i.e., sexual indiscretion, by exploring the diverse interpretation of zina crime as presented in a variety of sources...
Based on a symposium held in Istanbul, Turkey.
Women, Faith, and Family takes an insider look at the practices adopted by the Women's Islamic Coalition, an assembly of Iranian women who embrace their faith as a principal component of their pursuit of gender justice. By using the Coalition's activism as a lens through which to view women's legal status, Samaneh Oladi examines complex questions about the extent of female agency, showing how Muslim women's access to religious resources and use of hermeneutics strengthens their position in gender negotiations. Female religious activists not only struggle against gender hierarchy and conventional paradigms but also cultivate a unique women's jurisprudence that challenges both Western liberalism and religious orthodoxy. Oladi provides a nuanced portrait of Iranian women's activism and their attempts to reform their legal status, challenging deep-rooted assumptions in secular feminism that there is an intrinsic discord between women's agency and their religion.
Debunking conventional narratives of Afghanistan as a perennial war zone and the rule of law as a secular-liberal monopoly, Faiz Ahmed presents a vibrant account of the first Muslim-majority country to gain independence, codify its own laws, and ratify a constitution after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Afghanistan Rising illustrates how turn-of-the-twentieth-century Kabul--far from being a landlocked wilderness or remote frontier--became a magnet for itinerant scholars and statesmen shuttling between Ottoman and British imperial domains. Tracing the country's longstanding but often ignored scholarly and educational ties to Baghdad, Damascus, and Istanbul as well as greater Delhi and Lahore...
This book is the first on the history of both physical and mental disabilities in the Middle East and North Africa during Ottoman rule.