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.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
'Giladi's source base is broad and diverse; his reading has clearly been vast, and he does a very good job of making his enormous body of quotations, facts, and narratives manageable for the reader. The extremely broad scope of the project (both chronological and geographical) is justified by the sparse and difficult nature of his data, which sometimes requires him to discern patterns and commonalities (or, less often, contrasts and changes) by bringing together scattered examples gleaned from different times and places.' Marion H. Katz, Journal of the American Oriental Society
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Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Maße
Höhe: 235 mm
Breite: 157 mm
Dicke: 17 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-107-05421-9 (9781107054219)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Avner Giladi is Professor of Islamic History at the University of Haifa, Israel.
Autor*in
University of Haifa, Israel
Introduction; 1. Islamic views on birth and motherhood; 2. Midwifery as a craft; 3. The subordinate midwife: male physicians versus female midwives; 4. The absent midwife; 5. The privileged midwife; 6. Ritual, magic, and the midwife's roles in and outside the birthing place; 7. From traditional to modern midwifery in the Middle East; Concluding remarks.
