‘Be content with the decree of Allah’
the cis-heterosexual nafs in Shi'i and Sunni fatwas on transsexuality and intersexuality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/bar.22482Keywords:
trans and intersex, Islamic law, patriarchy, fatwa, sex-reassignment surgeryAbstract
This article examines the fatwas of Salafi-Sunni and conservative Shi'i scholars on transsexuality, and how their legal reasoning is limited by the cis-heteropatriarchal nature they ascribe to the nafs (self). Most Shi'i jurists in Iran permit sex-reassignment surgeries, while Salafi scholars forbid them as adulterations to the body except in the case of intersex persons. Both inherit normative legal reasoning that privileges the able-bodied, adult, free man as normative. They reference premodern rulings on the khuntha (those with ambiguous genitalia) and build upon the criteria developed by their predecessors to determine an individual’s so-called ‘true’ sex/gender. These scholars also take part in a contemporary world in which the body is medically and psychologically overburdened with gendered meanings. After analyzing these fatwas, I discuss how these cis-heteropatriarchal conceptions of the nafs greatly limit juristic creativity in addressing the spiritual wellbeing of trans, intersex, and non-binary Muslims.
References
Ali, K. (2011) Imam Shafi‘i: Scholar and Saint. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.
Ali, K. (2003) Progressive Muslims and Islamic jurisprudence: the necessity for critical engagement with marriage and divorce law. In O. Safi (ed.) Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism. Oxford: Oneworld.
Alipour, M. (2017) Islamic Shari’a law, neotraditionalist Muslim scholars and transgender sex-reassignment surgery: a case study of Ayatollah Khomeini’s and Sheikh al-Tantawi’s fatwas. International Journal of Transgenderism 18(1): 91–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2016.1250239
Almarri, S. (2016) ‘You have made her a man among men’: translating the khuntha’s anatomy in Fatimid jurisprudence. Transgender Studies Quarterly 3(3–4): 578–86. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-3545251
Babayan, K., and A. Nahmabadi (eds) (2008) Islamicate Sexualities: Translations across Temporal Geographies of Desire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
Chase, C. (1998) Hermaphrodites with attitude. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 4(2): 189–211. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-4-2-189
Deeb, L. (2006) An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400840786
Foucault, M. (1990) The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1: An introduction. New York: Vintage Books.
Geissinger, A. (2013) ‘Umm al-Darda’ sat in tashahhud like a man’: towards the historical contextualization of a portrayal of female religious authority. Muslim World 103(3): 305–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12015
Gesink, I. F. (2020) Intersex in Islamic medicine, law, and activism. In J. Howe (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351256568-7
Halberstam, J. (2015) In/human – out/human. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 21(2–3): 209–48. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2843323
Halperin, D. M. (1995) Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hammer, J. (2012) American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More Than a Prayer. Austin: University of Texas Press. https://doi.org/10.7560/735552
Hamza, S. (2020) Annulling the marriage of two men: a marginal note in a Yemeni manuscript. Journal of the History of Ideas [blog]. https://jhiblog.org/tag/yemen
Jordan, M. (2014) Chatting genitals. In M. D. Jordan (ed.) Convulsing Bodies: Religion and Resistance in Foucault. Redwood City: Stanford University Press.
Joy, E. (2015) Improbable manners of being. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 21(2–3): 209–48. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2843323
Katz, M. H. (2013) Prayer in Islamic Thought and Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139034333
Katz, M. H. (2014) Women in the Mosque. New York: Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/columbia/9780231162661.001.0001
Kugle, S. S. (2010) Homosexuality in Islam: Critical Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.
Malatino, H. (2019) Queer Embodiment: Monstrosity, Medical Violence, and Intersex Experience. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvckq9pv
Marmon, S. (1995) Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries in Islamic Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
Masud, M. K., Messick, B. M., and Powers, D. S. (1996) Muftis, fatwas, and Islamic legal interpretation. In Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and Their Fatwas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Morland, I. (2014) Intersex. Transgender Studies Quarterly 1(1–2): 111–15. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-2399758
Najmabadi, A. (2005) Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520931381
Najmabadi, A. (2014) Professing Selves: Transsexuality and Same-Sex Desire in Contemporary Iran. Durham and London: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11vc8md
Omar, S. (2012) From semantics to normative law: perceptions of liwat (sodomy) and sihaq (tribadism) in Islamic jurisprudence (8th–15th century CE). Islamic Law and Society 19: 222–56. https://doi.org/10.1163/156851912X603193
Ragab, A. (2015) One, two, or many sexes: sex differentiation in medieval Islamicate thought. Journal of the History of Sexuality 24(3): 428–54. https://doi.org/10.7560/JHS24304
Rowson, E. (1991a) The effeminates of Medina. Journal of the American Oriental Society 111(4): 671–93. https://doi.org/10.2307/603399
Rowson, E. (1991b) The categorization of gender and sexual irregularity in medieval Arabic vice lists. In J. Epstein and K. Straub (eds) Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity 50–79. New York: Routledge.
Rowson, E. (2003) Gender irregularity as entertainment: institutionalized transvestism at the caliphal court in medieval Baghdad. In S. Farmer and C. B. Pasternack (eds) Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages 45–72. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Rubin, G. S. (1993) Thinking sex: notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality. In H. Abelove, M. A. Barale, and D. M. Halperin (eds) The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. New York: Routledge.
Sanders, P. (2008) Gendering the ungendered body: hermaphrodites in medieval Islamic law. In N. R. Keddie and B. Baron (eds) Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Skovgaard-Petersen, J. (1997) Never change your sex in Cairo. In Defining Islam for the Egyptian State: Muftis and Fatwas of the Dar al-Ifta 319–34. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004450608
Stone, S. (1991) The empire strikes back: a posttranssexual manifesto. In K. Straub and J. Epstein (eds) Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity. New York: Routledge.
Valentine, D. (2012) Sue E. Generous: toward a theory of non-transexuality. Feminist Studies 38(1): 185–211. https://doi.org/10.1353/fem.2012.0032
Vicente, M. V. (2021) Transgender: a useful category? Or, how the historical study of ‘trans-sexual’ and ‘transvestite’ can help us rethink ‘transgender’ as a category. Transgender Studies Quarterly 8(4): 426–42. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-9311032
