Intersex and the (Non)Binary Body in Classical Muslim Legal, Medical, and Literary Discourses

Mehrdad Alipour, Indira Falk Gesink (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

290 Seiten

2026
Leiden University Press (Verlag)
978-90-8728-499-2 (ISBN)

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This book offers the first sustained scholarly exploration of intersex embodiment and identity in premodern Islam. Bringing together leading scholars in the field, it examines how classical Muslim thinkers conceptualised, categorised, and regulated bodies that defied binary understandings of sex and gender. Spanning legal reasoning, medical treatises, and literary representations, the chapters uncover the complex ways in which intersex figures—variously described in premodern sources—shaped debates over personhood, spirituality, care, legal practice, ritual, and bodily integrity. By situating these discussions within the broader intellectual and institutional history of Islam, the book demonstrates that intersex was not a marginal curiosity but a category that tested and refined classical understandings of human difference, divine creation, and social order. The volume will appeal to readers of Islamic studies, gender and sexuality studies, the history of medicine, and religious studies more broadly, inviting reflection on how traditions of interpretation continue to shape contemporary understandings of sexed and gendered embodiment within and beyond the Islamic world.

Mehrdad Alipour (PhD) is a scholar of Islamic legal and cultural history, focusing on the transformation of body politics, gender, and sexuality in Islamic contexts across the premodern and modern eras. He received the VENI Talent Grant (2022–2025) for the project Beyond Binaries: Intersex Identity in Islamic Legal Tradition (https://beyondbinaries.nl). He is the author of Negotiating Homosexuality in Islam (Brill, 2024) and "Navigating Body Politics in Shiʿi Legal Tradition" (Islamic Law and Society, 2025). Indira Falk Gesink is Professor of History and Director of the Core Curriculum at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio. Her publications include Islamic Reform and Conservatism: Al-Azhar and the Evolution of Modern Sunni Islam (2009), Barefoot Millionaire (2013), and Philosophies of History (2018). Her work has also appeared in the American Historical Review and the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies.

Introduction - Mehrdad Alipour and Indira Falk Gesink
Chapter One. "Gendering the Ungendered Body": A Brief Biography - Paula Sanders
Chapter Two. The Intersex Character (al-khunthā) in Classical Arabic Lexicography and Literature - Indira Falk Gesink and Mehrdad Alipour
Chapter Three. Intersex and Effeminate Characters (khunthā and mukhannath) in Classical Persian Poetry - Asghar Seyed-Gohrab
Chapter Four. 'Al-khunthā laysa bi-nawʿ:' The Absence of the Khunthā in the Qurʾānic Narrative of the Creation of the Humans - Saqer Almarri
Chapter Five. Of Camel-Drivers and Glass Vessels: Gender (In)stability in a Ḥadīth's Interpretive History - Ash Geissinger
Chapter Six. Shuraiḥ, Ali, and the Khunthā: Gender and Narrative Fluidity - Saqer Almarri
Chapter Seven. The Intersex Body in Classical Shiʿi Scriptural and Legal Traditions: Embodiment, Agency, and Beyond - Mehrdad Alipour
Chapter Eight. The Khunthā in Classical Sunni Jurisprudence - Indira Falk Gesink
Chapter Nine. Tracing Difference: al-Rāzī and the Intersex Body in Classical Persian Medical Tradition - Mehrdad Alipour
Conclusion - Indira Falk Gesink and Mehrdad Alipour
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	6.5.2026
Reihe/Serie	Iranian Studies Series
Zusatzinfo	10 Illustrations, black and white
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Recht / Steuern ► Allgemeines / Lexika
	Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies
ISBN-10	90-8728-499-3 / 9087284993
ISBN-13	978-90-8728-499-2 / 9789087284992
Zustand	Neuware