My talk at ECIS 10 (Leiden 21-25 August 2023) was entitled “Gender Transgression in Premodern Persianate and Shiʿi Legal and Medical Discourses: the case of intersex.” It was part of our panel on “Gender and (Un)Belief Transgressions in Persianate Culture and Shiʿi legal Discourses.”   Abstract: The present traditional Muslim and orientalist approaches assert that Islam…

We discussed transgression in Persianate culture and Shiʿi legal discourses at ECIS 10/Leiden 21-25 August 2023. Panel Convenors: Asghar Seyed-Gohrab & Mehrdad Alipour Panellists: Noorian, Alipour, Ghajarjazi, Seyed-Gohrab. Here are the abstracts of our panel (pp. 402-406): https://t.co/jLTY1vqTX

My presentation at BRISMES 2023 (3-5 July-University of Exeter) was on “How to do the history of intersex in Islam: examining ‘intersex’ in premodern Shiʿi legal discourse.”  Abstract The current traditional Muslim and orientalist approaches assert that Islam is intolerant of trans-genderism or non-binary sex/gender divisions. By contrast, Islamic legal discourses on sex and/or gender…

  6 June 2023 Read my latest blog entitled “Navigating Differences: clarifying the urgency of constructive dialogues with traditional ʿulamā’” by clicking on the following link: here In this post, I briefly share my take and thoughts regarding a public statement so-called “Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam” published online on the…

Great to see that the book titled “Wege zu einer Ethik” (edited by Alsoufi, Kurnaz, and Sievers) has been published. It was part of a two-year joint project (Goethe University of Frankfurt and Humboldt University of Berlin) funded by AIWG: https://www.nomos-shop.de/nomos/titel/wege-zu-einer-ethik-id-105716/ My contribution to this volume includes two articles: 1. “Ethical Assessment of Acts in…

My article entitled “The Nexus between Gender-Confirming Surgery and Illness: Legal-Hermeneutical Examinations of Four Islamic Fatwas” has recently been published in the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies (18(3): 359-386. https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-10022132).   In this essay, I investigate Muslim jurists’ legal opinions (fatwas) on permitting gender-confirming surgery (GCS) for various groups of intersex and/or transgender people. However, these fatwas have been critiqued…

Please read the workshop report here

Workshop: Intersex Identity and Rights: Debating Some Urgent Matters   On November 8, 2022 (from 14.00 – 17.00), an invited group of Dutch and European activists and researchers who work on intersex identities, rights, and spiritual care will come together to discuss urgent matters concerning intersex identity and rights in Western European societies. The aim of this…

Presenting at International Conference  I presented a paper entitled “Sexuality in the Prospect of Before Revelation Discourse in Sharīf al-Murtaḍā’s Approach: the case of homosexuality” at the International Conference of “Faces of Islam: Of Tolerance and Coercion” organized by the ERC Advanced project “Beyond Sharia: The Role of Sufism in Shaping Islam” on the 13th &…