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Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam Hardcover – October 30, 2010
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What did it mean to be a wife, woman, or slave in a society in which a land-owning woman was forbidden to lay with her male slave but the same slave might be allowed to take concubines? Jurists of the nascent Maliki, Hanafi, and Shafi‘i legal schools frequently compared marriage to purchase and divorce to manumission. Juggling scripture, precedent, and custom on one hand, and the requirements of logical consistency on the other, legal scholars engaged in vigorous debate. The emerging consensus demonstrated a self-perpetuating analogy between a husband’s status as master and a wife’s as slave, even as jurists insisted on the dignity of free women and, increasingly, the masculine rights of enslaved husbands.
Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam presents the first systematic analysis of how these jurists conceptualized marriage―its rights and obligations―using the same rhetoric of ownership used to describe slavery. Kecia Ali explores parallels between marriage and concubinage that legitimized sex and legitimated offspring using eighth- through tenth-century legal texts. As the jurists discussed claims spouses could make on each other―including dower, sex, obedience, and companionship–they returned repeatedly to issues of legal status: wife and concubine, slave and free, male and female.
Complementing the growing body of scholarship on Islamic marital and family law, Ali boldly contributes to the ongoing debates over feminism, sexuality, and reform in Islam.
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarvard University Press
- Publication dateOctober 30, 2010
- Dimensions6.1 x 0.9 x 9.3 inches
- ISBN-100674050592
- ISBN-13978-0674050594
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[T]his work's analytical clarity, conceptual sophistication, and penetrating analysis of dense legal texts will make it the standard against which future works in Islam and gender are measured. -- Mohammad Fadel, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toronto
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Harvard University Press; 0 edition (October 30, 2010)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0674050592
- ISBN-13 : 978-0674050594
- Item Weight : 1.2 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.1 x 0.9 x 9.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,811,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,977 in Customs & Traditions Social Sciences
- #6,535 in General Gender Studies
- #9,994 in Discrimination & Racism
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About the author

Kecia Ali is Professor of Religion at Boston University. Her most recent book, "Human in Death," explores J.D. Robb's futuristic police procedurals, exploring the series' largely compelling model of human flourishing as well as its critical silences and omissions. Most of her writing focuses on gender and the Islamic tradition. Her groundbreaking "Sexual Ethics and Islam" is now available in an expanded and updated edition. Her other books include "Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam," "Imam Shafi'i: Scholar and Saint," and "The Lives of Muhammad." She co-edited the revised edition of "A Guide for Women in Religion," which provides practical guidance for careers in religious studies and theology. She is currently at work on "Women in Muslim Traditions," geared toward students and general readers. Ali is active in the American Academy of Religion, and is a past president of the Society for the Study of Muslim Ethics. Visit her website at www.keciaali.com.
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