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Author:   Mehrdad Alipour ,  Indira Falk Gesink
Publisher:   Leiden University Press
Imprint:   Leiden University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 23.40cm
ISBN:  

9789087284992

ISBN 10:   9087284993
Pages:   290
Publication Date:   06 May 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction - Mehrdad Alipour and Indira Falk Gesink Chapter One. ""Gendering the Ungendered Body"": A Brief Biography - Paula Sanders Chapter Two. The Intersex Character (al-khunthā) in Classical Arabic Lexicography and Literature - Indira Falk Gesink and Mehrdad Alipour Chapter Three. Intersex and Effeminate Characters (khunthā and mukhannath) in Classical Persian Poetry - Asghar Seyed-Gohrab Chapter Four. 'Al-khunthā laysa bi-nawʿ:' The Absence of the Khunthā in the Qurʾānic Narrative of the Creation of the Humans - Saqer Almarri Chapter Five. Of Camel-Drivers and Glass Vessels: Gender (In)stability in a Ḥadīth's Interpretive History - Ash Geissinger Chapter Six. Shuraiḥ, Ali, and the Khunthā: Gender and Narrative Fluidity - Saqer Almarri Chapter Seven. The Intersex Body in Classical Shiʿi Scriptural and Legal Traditions: Embodiment, Agency, and Beyond - Mehrdad Alipour Chapter Eight. The Khunthā in Classical Sunni Jurisprudence - Indira Falk Gesink Chapter Nine. Tracing Difference: al-Rāzī and the Intersex Body in Classical Persian Medical Tradition - Mehrdad Alipour Conclusion - Indira Falk Gesink and Mehrdad Alipour Index

Reviews

""This is a rich and scholarly book which is the first of its kind in offering an in-depth interdisciplinary study of intersex in Islamic perspective, encompassing accounts rooted in medical, legal, linguistic and philological, historical, and social-scientific studies. It is likely to become a landmark text in the field."" - Susannah Cornwall, Professor of Constructive Theologies, University of Exeter ""The work is most valuable in that anyone can open and read something in it. It does not resort to jargons and chaotic verbosity like most scholarly works that try too hard to be SMART. It is smart without any of that and CLEAR to read. ...I think this work is a niche that is quite appropriate and attractive."" - Dr. Alireza Korangy

Author Information

Mehrdad Alipour (PhD) is a scholar of Islamic legal and cultural history, focusing on the transformation of body politics, gender, and sexuality in Islamic contexts across the premodern and modern eras. He received the VENI Talent Grant (2022–2025) for the project Beyond Binaries: Intersex Identity in Islamic Legal Tradition (https://beyondbinaries.nl). He is the author of Negotiating Homosexuality in Islam (Brill, 2024) and ""Navigating Body Politics in Shiʿi Legal Tradition"" (Islamic Law and Society, 2025). Indira Falk Gesink is Professor of History and Director of the Core Curriculum at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio. Her publications include Islamic Reform and Conservatism: Al-Azhar and the Evolution of Modern Sunni Islam (2009), Barefoot Millionaire (2013), and Philosophies of History (2018). Her work has also appeared in the American Historical Review and the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies.

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