Islam and New Kinship: Reproductive Technology and the Shariah in Lebanon (Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives, 16) - Hardcover

Clarke, Morgan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1845454324 ISBN 13: 9781845454326

Publisher: Berghahn Books, 2009

Synopsis

Assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization have provoked global controversy and ethical debate. This book provides a groundbreaking investigation into those debates in the Islamic Middle East, simultaneously documenting changing ideas of kinship and the evolving role of religious authority in the region through a combination of in-depth field research in Lebanon and an exhaustive survey of the Islamic legal literature. Lebanon, home to both Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities, provides a valuable site through which to explore the overall dynamism and diversity of global Islamic debate. As this book shows, Muslim perspectives focus on the moral propriety of such controversial procedures as the use of donor sperm and eggs as well as surrogacy arrangements, which are allowed by some authorities using surprising and innovative legal arguments. These arguments challenge common stereotypes of the rigidity and conservatism of Islamic law and compel us to question conventional contrasts between ‘liberal’ and Islamic notions of moral freedom, as well as the epistemological assumptions of anthropology’s own ‘new kinship studies’. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary Islam and the impact of reproductive technology on the global social imaginary.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Providing a ground-breaking investigation into the changing ideas of kinship in the Middle East, the author documents Islamic responses to assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization through fieldwork in Lebanon and the extensive reading of Islamic legal texts. This ethnography is brought to bear on the latest theories of Middle Eastern kinship, as well as the “new kinship” studies in anthropology generally. Lebanon is home to both Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and the book thus provides a full account of both schools of legal opinion: in the case of the latter, a number of the leading Shiite authorities are considered, including Ayatollah Khamene’i, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Lebanon’s own Ayatollah Fadlallah, and Ayatollah Sistani of Iraq. The debates centre on the moral propriety of such controversial procedures as the use of donor sperm and eggs and surrogacy arrangements, allowed by some authorities in surprising and innovative legal arguments that challenge common stereotypes of Islamic law, and lead the author to question conventional contrasts between “liberal” and Islamic notions of moral freedom.

About the Author:

Morgan Clarke is Simon Research Fellow in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Manchester.

About this edition

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1845454324
• ISBN 13: 9781845454326
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 262