Book Details
Orange Code:93018
Paperback:212 pages
Publications:
Categories:
Sections:
1. Islamic Views on Birth and Motherhood2. Midwifery as a Craft3. The Subordinate Midwife: Male Physicians versus Female Midwives4. The Absent Midwife5. The Privileged Midwife6. Ritual, Magic, and the Midwife's Roles In and Outside the Birthing Place
Description:
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This book reconstructs the role of midwives in medieval to early modern Islamic history through a careful reading of a wide range of classical and medieval Arabic sources. The author casts the midwife's social status in premodern Islam as a privileged position from which she could mediate between male authority in patriarchal society and female reproductive power within the family. This study also takes a broader historical view of midwifery in the Middle East by examining the tensions between learned medicine (male) and popular, medico-religious practices (female) from early Islam into the Ottoman period and addressing the confrontation between traditional midwifery and Western obstetrics in the first half of the nineteenth century.
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