Description
Book Synopsis How and to what extent have Islamic legal scholars and Middle Eastern lawmakers, as well as Middle Eastern Muslim physicians and patients, grappled with the complex bioethical, legal, and social issues that are raised in the process of attempting to conceive life in the face of infertility? This path-breaking volume explores the influence of Islamic attitudes on Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) and reveals the variations in both the Islamic jurisprudence and the cultural responses to ARTs.
Trade Review “It is to the editors’ credit that they have been able to harness these diverse angles in such a way that the whole in fact emerges as more than its parts. ARTs and the problem of third-party donation within Islam speak to more overarching issues of policy, modernity, gender, rights, and social change… In its sensitivity to discrepancies between norms and practice, the volume not only contributes knowledge to the field of ARTs and procreative practices more generally, indicating a socio-political religious complexity that is not easily disentangled. It also and perhaps more importantly enhances our knowledge of Islam, while encouraging a continual comparative perspective.” · The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“Readers looking for an overview of the different policies and perspectives on assisted reproductive technology (ART) will discover many interesting facets to these issues in the Middle East…Students of assisted reproductive technology in Europe and America will also find much to learn from in this book. The chapter that compares the Catholic hierarchy’s response to ART issues with those of Muslim leaders gives a fresh perspective to the longstanding debates… It is fascinating to read about another religious tradition, just as rich as Catholicism, being used creatively to respond to new situations unforeseen by earlier leaders.” · Conscience
“This pioneering volume offers a robust contribution to the fields of medical anthropology and religious studies. It historicizes ARTs within Sunni and Shia Islamic traditions while situating grounded results within a broad comparative ethnographic framework… Because [it] initiates a new theoretical repertoire for critical medical anthropologists and scholars of Islam, this book proves to be a much-needed theoretical springboard for anthropologists interested in issues regarding human life itself—from children’s rights to technoscience to neoliberal regimes and subjectivities.” · American Ethnologist
“This groundbreaking volume is highly likely to become a point of departure for all future engagements with biotechnologies in the Middle East. The collection expertly reveals in vivid detail the ‘local moral worlds’ of ‘biotechnologies of life’ within the Islamic landscape. Unprecedented and unique, this book challenges both popular misconceptions and academic gaps in knowledge vis-à-vis new developments in bioscience and technology from theocratic Iran to secular Turkey.” · Aditya Bharadwaj, University of Edinburgh
Table of Contents Acknowledgments
Glossary of Arabic, Farsi and Turkish Terms
Introduction: Islam and Assisted Reproductive Technologies
Soraya Tremayne and Marcia C. Inhorn
Part I: Islamic Legal Thought and ARTs: Marriage, Morality, and Clinical Conundrums
Introduction
Frank Griffel
Chapter 1. Constructing Kinship in Sunni Islamic Legal Texts
Thomas Eich
Chapter 2. Islamic Jurisprudence (Fiqh) and Assisted Reproduction: Establishing Limits to Avoid Social Disorders
Sandra Houot
Chapter 3. Controversies in Islamic Evaluation of Assisted Reproductive Technologies
Farouk Mahmoud
Part II. From Sperm Donation to Stem Cells: The Iranian ART Revolution
Introduction
Narges Erami
Chapter 4. More than Fatwas: Ethical Decision Making in Iranian Fertility Clinics
Robert Tappan
Chapter 5. The “Down Side” of Gamete Donation: Challenging “Happy Family” Rhetoric in Iran
Soraya Tremayne
Chapter 6. Gestational Surrogacy in Iran: Uterine Kinship in Shia Thought and Practice
Shirin Garmaroudi
Chapter 7. Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in Iran: The Significance of the Islamic Context
Mansooreh Saniei
Part III. Islamic Biopolitics and the “Modern” Nation-state: Comparative Case Studies of ART
Introduction
Sean Brotherton
Chapter 8. Third-Party Reproductive Assistance around the Mediterranean: Comparing Sunni Egypt, Catholic Italy, and Multisectarian Lebanon
Marcia C. Inhorn, Pasquale Patrizio and Gamal I. Serour
Chapter 9. Islamic Bioethics and Religious Politics in Lebanon: On Hizbullah and ARTs
Morgan Clarke
Chapter 10. Assisted Reproduction in Secular Turkey:Regulation, Rhetoric, and the Role of Religion
Zeynep Gürtin-Broadbent
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index
