Power, Marginality, and the Body in Medieval Islam

Description

This work draws on religious normative texts, literary texts, biographical texts and historical texts to look at power, marginality, sexuality and the body in medieval Islam - a world populated by rulers and criminals, uninvited guests and theologians, women and the blind. The medieval texts of Islam, rather than occulting them, explored power, sex, marginality and the body with a frankness that can often still shock readers. The investigation of these issues and "taboo" subjects in this book provide a road into medieval Arabo-Islamic mentalities and a way of coming to grips with the textual strategies society used for grappling with them.

Fedwa Malti-Douglas is College Professor and The Martha C. Kraft Professor of Humanities at Indiana University, Bloomington, where she is also Adjunct Professor of Law in the School of Law. She is the author of numerous scholarly books and the winner of the 1997 Kuwait Prize for Arts and Letters. Her recent work, THE STARR REPORT DISROBED (Columbia University Press, 2000), was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.