Sara Verskin Barren Women Islam – Thought, Culture, and Society

Sara Verskin Barren Women Islam – Thought, Culture, and Society Volume 2 Sara Verskin Barren Women Religion and Medicine in the Medieval Middle East Winner of the 2018 BRAIS – De Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org Knowledge Unlatched The Open Access book is available at www.degruyter.com ISBN 978-3-11-059567-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-059658-8 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-059367-9 ISSN 2628-4286 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 Licence. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Control Number: 2019957926 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Sara Verskin, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: © Calligraphy by Osman Özçay. With friendly permission. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com Formymother and father Acknowledgements In the decade it has taken to produce Barren Women,Ihave been frequently struck by how,inweaving togetherthe elements of this project,Ikeep reaching for old threads Ifirst picked up long ago, handed to me by teachers and colleagues who at the time could not have known how much Iwould benefit from their knowledge and generosity.Itisapleasure to finally be able to offer them here some acknowledgement of their contributions to my scholarship. Barren Women is based on thedissertation Iwrote in theDepartment of NearEastern StudiesatPrincetonUniversity.Itcould nothavebeen written withoutthe guidance, patience,and good instinctsofmyadviser, Michael Cook. Iamdeeplygratefulfor hisunceasing supportfor this projectfrom start to finish. Iamequally grateful for the scholarlyculturehecultivatedin the department andinthe classesItook with him, from whichIstill continue to reap benefits longafter having left the institution.Hepromotedanenviron- ment of academic good will in whichseniorand juniorscholars respectfully solicited each other’shelpwith their research, generouslygaveeach other theirtimeand expertise, and publiclyacknowledged their intellectualdebts. Moreover,hetaughtmetoallow my scholarship to be defined by my sources, andtoallowthosesourcestoleadmeinnew directions,even when they direct- ed me awayfrommyinitial areas of academic comfort.Asstudents in his courses, my classmatesand Ioften looked at eachother withexasperation andeven fearaswefound ourselvesdelving intobooks of numismaticsand ex- ploringSogdian etymology.But it wasthatexperience whichconvinced me that,whenmystudies took me in unexpected directions, it wasmyresponsibil- ityand my privilegetoacquirewhatever newknowledge Ineeded in orderto continue,and to do so withoutsacrificing precisionorseriousness.Somepeo- plecallthisapproach “interdisciplinary.” From ProfessorCook,Icame to think of it as amark of intellectual curiosity,playfulness,and tenacity. This book is also marked by the instruction Ireceivedfrom my otherteachers at Princeton University.Itwas in the stellar class on methodologies for studying the Middle East thatM.Şükrü Hanioğlu and Abraham Udovitch first introduced me to the complexities surrounding the study of women’shistory,and the de- bates Ifirst encountered there have stayedwith me. Hossein Modarressi taught me familylaw and guided me through my first serious researchproject on Islam- ic law, familyplanning,and the contested right to have children. Mark Cohen introduced me to the joys of Geniza research and the uses of cross-confessional social history.Iam grateful to all of them. OpenAccess. ©2020 Sara Verskin, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110596588-001 VIII Acknowledgements Prior to my arrival in Princeton, Ispent four formative and blissful years at the University of Chicago. In my first undergraduateyear,Ihappened to enroll in aBible course taught by the now late TikvaFrymer-Kensky,who introducedme both to the academic study of religious texts and to women’sparticular experi- ences of organized religion. The infectious enthusiasm of the late Farouk Mustafa drew me to Arabic studies. Fred Donner’sclassonMukhtaṣar al-Qudūrī served as my first introduction to Islamic law. But it wasWadad Kadi’scombination of tow- ering erudition, charisma,and remarkable kindness, that permanentlybrought me into the fold of Islamic studies and set me on my current path. Iamalso much indebted to Helma Dik and to agood portion of the faculty of the Classics department of the University of Chicago, who provided asecond intellectual home for me outside the field of Near Eastern languages and civilizations. They encouraged me to sit in on department workshops and colloquia, providing me with my first taste of the social experience of academic research. Iwould also like to thank John Craig for introducing me to the studyofsocial and economic history,and for teachingmehow to be creative in figuring out ways to “do” social history when sources are limited.Lastly, my gratitude goes to WendyOlmsted who, in addition to encouragingmetobecome an academic, cultivated an idyllic atmosphere of intellectual enterprise in her classes. Her remarkablydeftteach- ing of literature remains amodel which Iaspire to emulate. Several people were kind enough to read my dissertation and providerecom- mendationsfor reshapingitintoabook. Iwould particularly liketothank Eve Krakowski, Shaun Marmon, and AvnerGiladi for theirenthusiasm for the subject and fortheir thoroughand thoughtful critiquesand useful suggestions. Iwould also like to thankAndrasHamori and Monica Green for readingearly drafts of what would later become chapters 6and 7. Iamgratefultoall of them for theirencouragement, wisdom, and collegiality.Iwould alsoliketoacknowledge the membersofaremarkable online community of scholars of medieval medicine,MedMed,led by Monica Green.Ihave benefited from their expertise in countlessways. Of course,any errors in my work areareflection of no one else’sshortcomingsbut my own. In the course of my research Ihavegreatly benefited from the support of my colleagues,classmates,students,and theadministrators at my home institutions in the Near Eastern Studies department at Princeton and in the History depart- mentatRhode Island College. Iowe specialthankstothe manylibrarians who went aboveand beyond the callofduty to helpmealong my way, especially at PrincetonUniversity.Iwould also like to acknowledge the librarians at the Uni- versity of Minnesota, ColumbiaUniversity,Brown University,the University of Rhode Island, and Rhode Island College whohaveaided me, especiallythose Acknowledgements IX whopatientlyfilled my seeminglyinordinate number of interlibrary loanre- quests. The publication of this book would not have been possiblewithout the intellectual efforts and financial sponsorship of the BritishAssociation for Islamic Studies (BRAIS)and De Gruyter Publishers. Iamgrateful to the manyBRAIS members who welcomed my scholarship and who receivedmesowarmly when Iwas astranger in their midst.Iwould particularlylike to thank Omar An- chassi, AmiraBennison, Katrin Mittmann, Ayman Shihadeh, and Sophie Wa- genhofer. Iamalso grateful to the Knowledge Unlatched organization for providing open access to this book. WhenIfirst began my research, Iwas 23 yearsold and represented the youngest generation of my family. At the time, Ihad fourliving, beloved grandparents and great-grandparents, each of whom encouragedmywork in their own way. Now Ihaveonlyone grandparent still livingand Ihavethree children of my own, all of whom arenow old enoughtoread the wordsofthis book them- selves, if not to fully understandtheirimport.Through it all,Ihavebenefited from my family’sunceasing dedication and enthusiasm for my productivity, as well as for my fertility.Inaddition to providingmewithlove, support,space, and timefor my work, my grandmother,brothers,father-in-law,and even afew moredistant relativeshaveall read chapters of this book.Never oncedid Ihear from themthat my work was boring, inaccessible,orawaste of energy. Their patience with,and confidence in, me and my work has buoyedmeupall this time. My husband, Alan, has been my classmate, research assistant,discussant, and editor for the past seventeen years. Sometimes collaborating,sometimes workingonparallel projects side-by-side, we have spent our professional lives reading, translating,writing,and teachingtogether.Aswonderful as he has been in the role of live-in colleague, Alan has been even better in the role of baby-daddy-with-academic-benefits. When Iwas exhausted by my pregnancies, or buffeted and overwhelmed by the activities of motherhood, he kept me teth- ered to my scholarlylife. And when Ihavebeen too engrossed in my work to re- spond to the demands of familyand household, he has absorbedthe impact of those demands himself. Forthis, and for all the joy and pleasure he bringsinto my life, Iamfilled with loveand gratitude. Daniel, Hannah, and Maya have alreadyproven to have inherited their father’ssweetness,

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