Womb and the World: Islamic Discourses of Reproductive Freedom

Readers of the Qur’an often emphasize the verses outlining what we imagine as fetal development in “the wombs” as evidence of an inherent Islamic reverence for conceiving bodies. Yet, there is more to the Qur’an than a reading that values women based on their assumed fertility. Drawing on gender and disability studies, I argue that the Qur’an conveys a complicated relationship with women and reproduction, both affirming and unsettling binary understandings of female embodiment. While the Qur’an’s maternal citations support readings that elevate motherhood to a status that is almost sacred, its narrative dimensions hint at the complexities of these embodied experiences. The term “barren,” for example, is semantically linked to the notion of Divine Punishment; however, Sarah’s reaction to the annunciation suggests that she preferred her “barren” body and did not desire to achieve the conceiving ideal highlighted by many readers.

This paper situates menstruation within the discussion of reproductive freedom in Islam, analyzing how the everyday phenomenology of menstruation disrupts traditional ‘ulama-led knowledge-making related to women’s bodies. The paper asks: how do ordinary Muslim women draw on nuances of their menstruating bodies to create Islamic knowledge related to menstrual purity (tahārah)? Drawing on the pietistic emphasis on menstruation (hayd) in the Islamic tradition at large, basing analysis on contemporary ethnographic accounts of menstrual effluent disposal in Pakistan, and using frameworks of embodied phenomenology, this paper inverts the doctrine-making direction of menstruation laws in Islamic fiqh by showing how the bodily nature of menstruation dictates a context of its Islamic interpretation. The paper shows how challenges of effluent disposal raise questions of agency for women, answered by the discursive closeness of menstruation with vernacular concepts of purity and pollution, re-imagined as the ‘Islamic’ norms of menstruation by women in Pakistan.

This paper analyzes North American Muslim religious discourses on elective abortion. With references to the Qur'an, Islamic oral traditions, jurisprudential discourses, feminist Islamic scholarship, and contemporary Muslim American social media posts, I analyze discourses that seek to limit, on one hand, or to expand on the other, a pregnant Muslim's recourse to terminating pregnancy through elective abortion. Considering various circumstantial factors and drawing upon the Foucauldian concept of biopower, I track how pregnant people may be encouraged to procreate through tactics of coercion that seek to mold pregnant bodies into docile reproductive forms in the name of religious compliance. Yet, nuances in Islamic approaches to reproductive-related decision-making create fissures in which pregnant people can maintain pious aspirations and simultaneously exercise their reproductive agency in jurisdictions where reliable reproductive care is readily accessible. 

The overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision put women’s reproductive freedom in significant peril. The decision also generated debate within the American Muslim community on the permissibility of abortion in Islam. Muslim organizations submitted an amicus brief opposing overturning Roe v. Wade, arguing that Islamic law permits abortion (before a certain period). Other Muslim groups disputed this claim, stating that abortion is based on values which are not upheld by Islamic law. Hinging on this tension, this paper explores legal discussions in the Hanafi legal school on abortion (isqat al-haml) to investigate the juristic assumptions regarding the reproductive body and the fetus and how this shapes their conception of women’s reproductive rights. To address this, the paper asks whether the fetus is a legal person. What is the nature of the fetus’ rights and how were these rights considered in relation to the rights of the pregnant person?