The conference “Beyond Binaries: Intersex Body Politics in Premodern Islamic Legal, Medical, and Literary Discourses” took place on June 26, from 09.30 to 18.30, at Utrecht University. There were rich and inspiring lectures by several outstanding scholars of the field. Click hereto see the topics that were discussed.     Many thanks to our speakers:…

Wednesday 26 June (09.30 – 18.30) Location: Utrecht University, Drift 21, room 0.05 To see the programme please click here Image. Boy (?) Holding a Falcon, Hermitage Museum While, on the one hand, numerous studies have currently focused on the history of Islamic doctrines and cultural traditions concerning gender and sexuality, such as effeminacy, transgenderism,…

17 May 2024 My monograph entitled Negotiating Homosexuality in Islam: A Legal-hermeneutical Examination of Modern Shiʿi Discourse (Series: Studies in Islamic Law and Society, Volume: 55) has just been published by Brill Academic Publishers. A short description of the book as featured on the back cover: “To enrich the existing debates on Islam and sexual…

(Mis)application of Modern Gender and Sexuality language to Premodern Culture: the case of Persian literary discourse The very modern culture has produced various gender, sex, and sexuality categories, terminologies, and discourses, such as transgenderism, intersexuality, masculinity, femininity, homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality. While sometimes vernacular culture and a group of scholars tend to generalise these categories…

  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…