An important area of research in our field has been the relationship between Qur??nic and Islamic terminology and their cognates in other Semitic languages, particularly those of the Jews and Christians of the Near East. The value of these studies cannot be overstated. The investigation of the relationship between “Arabic” speakers and their neighbors at the dawn of Islam has significant implications for our knowledge of the formation and rise of Islam. However, the work in this area has not explored the material as thoroughly as it could. The identification of cognates is usually done by consulting dictionaries, which does not take the diachronic development of a given Semitic root’s meaning (i.e., the meaning of some words date to after the rise of Islam). Additionally, the Qur??n and later legal texts have served as the primary material for comparison; the large corpus of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, an important source, has been left untouched in this area. If we are to better understand the emergence of a specific religious lexicon with the Qur??n and Islamic legal works in relation to the function of non-Arabic cognates, we must examine how all of these words and terms function in the poetic corpus. To address this problem, I will select a small sample of technical terms from the category of ?ib?d?t (rituals: zak?t, ?awm, ?al?t, ?ajj, ?ah?ra), develop a diachronic map of the development of the trilateral roots of these terms in a number of Semitic languages (Hebrew, numerous Aramaic dialects, Old South Arabic, and Ancient North Arabian). I will then compare the development of these roots and the diversity of their meanings to a number of derivatives found in pre-Islamic poetry. My sources include the digital archives of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon (http://cal.huc.edu), the Digital Archive for the Study of Pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions (http://dasi.humnet.unipi.it), and several canonical collections of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry (Al-Mufa??al al-?abb?’s Mufa??aliyy?t, Al-A?ma??’s A?ma?iyy?t, Qurash?’s Jamharat ash??r al-?arab, and the ?am?sas of Ab? Tamm?m and Bu?tar?). I will argue that a conceptual familiarity with the ?ib?d?t (in their proto-Islamic forms) can be found in pre-Islamic poetry. This familiarity suggests that the ?ib?d?t were not imported whole-cloth from Jewish and Christian practices at the moment of Islam’s appearance. Rather, the poetry suggests that those who produced this poetry had an understanding of the ?ib?d?t that, while certainly connected to Jewish and Christian practices, informed their development during Islam’s emergence.

This paper focuses on menstrual regulations (hayd) in Islamic law and society by engaging in a close-reading of select passages from legal and non-legal texts of the “early” and “middle” period of Islam. Its aim is to illustrate the wide-ranging effects of menstrual laws on the lives of Muslim women and to anticipate what is at stake in the making of menstrual laws against the backdrop of discourses on purity and pollution. Therefore, this paper contributes to our understanding of the nexus of menstrual regulations in Islamic law and configurations of womanhood in Muslim societies by thinking through menstrual laws as gendering practices. I argue that Islamic menstrual regulations and even prohibitions are not merely restricting, but, instead, can be thought of as creating opportunities for solidarity between men and women (“cycling together”). I show that while menstrual laws primarily affect women, coercing their exclusion from rituals such as prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage, menstrual laws yield the effect of producing in the sexes a sense of self that is defined around the absence of the opposite sex. I argue that menstrual laws produce male-centered ritual in which the recurring physical absence of single female bodies makes known to men the internal capacities of the female body (its ability to menstruate) and the internal capacities of their own male body (its inability to menstruate). Ritual performance, then, engenders forms of collectivized dependency among males and females, based on their recognition of sameness with other bodies that are either incapable of menstruating (in the case of men) or with bodies that are capable of menstruating (in the case of women). I conclude that Islamic menstruation laws constituted a site of gendering and continued negotiation of the interests of both sexes, creating gendered ritual practice based on the capacity or incapacity of bodies to menstruate. This paper builds on the yet little number of studies on menstruation in Islam by thinking through menstrual laws alongside menstruation theories (Strathern, Hippocrates, Freud, Montgomery, Bettelheim) attempting to contribute to a theory of menstruation in Islamic contexts. Meanwhile, it pushes us to think through menstrual regulations as enabling practices that engendered new forms of personhood and subjectivities. This paper employs Malik b. Anas’ Muwatta' as well as select passages from Abu Dawud’s Sahih Sunan, al-Nawawi’s Minhaj al-Talibin, Abu l-Husayn 'Ali b. Sa'id al-Rajraji’s Manahij al-tahsil, and the Tafsir-works of al-Bukhari and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi.

Typically Islamic footwear is not casual conversation that one might have in the elevator, even amongst Islamic Studies academics. Slippers, leather socks, boots, moccasins, or whatever one may want to call them, the khuffayn are generally regarded as no more than a footnote by academics. Often, it is merely gleamed over as a mundane snipped of ?ah?ra (purity), and not deeply investigated. The reality is that the issue of footwear in medieval and contemporary Islam is surrounded by nuanced discussion and debate. Investigating the Qu’ran, medieval ?ad?th literature, various books of ?Ibad?t, and theological treatises, I discovered that not only do the khuffayn have legal ramifications, but also creedal. Some of the books examined are the ?a???ayn, Sham??il Tirmidhi, Kit?b al-?th?r of Ab? ?an?fa, The Muwa????, The Musnad of Imam Sh?fi??, al-?Aq?da a?-?a??w?ya, Ab? ?an?fa’s al-Fiqh al-Akbar, and so on. The mass mention of the khuffayn indicates that it was an important topic to the authors writing it down. I wanted to know what exactly the physical khuff was? And how Sunni Muslims conceptualized footwear’s legal and theological implications from the medieval period until now? Through analyzing the medieval passages that I used, it became apparent that in the early period, the khuffayn were never physically described. They were so common that the reader was assumed to be quite familiar with the footwear. In the stipulations of the jurists as to what components the khuffayn may consist of, or what basic elements constitutes a khuff, we are able to paint a partial picture as to what they might’ve been. Furthermore, in the later medieval period (11th - 17th centuries) we start to see more of a physical description of the khuffayn. The descriptions indicate that the khuffayn were probably a type of leather moccasin-boots, which had some universality in the Near East, and even East Africa. It is not until the 19th century that footwear besides the khuffayn and Jarm?q (galosh) are mentioned. Shoes appear in the ?anaf? encyclopedic text ??shiya Ibn ??bid?n. Contemporary Sunnis think about footwear and purity in a very different way. I demonstrate through contemporary texts how late Sunni Traditionalists, and different revisionist groups conceive of modern footwear, both legally and theologically, which often diverges significantly from medieval conceptualizations.

It can be argued on the basis of the Qur'?n that suicide is prohibited. Q4:29 states, "And do not kill yourselves…," and Q2:195 advises, "And do not throw yourselves in destruction." The notion of disallowing actions that can be self-destructive is also found in the American legal system. Specifically, the Fifth Amendment includes the right to refuse answering questions that can be self-incriminating. In short, a human impetus exists, which leans towards the self-preservation of life. Yet contrary to this natural disposition and the Qur'?n's instructions, certain Prophetic reports appear to permit the taking of one's own life, albeit, not on the basis of killing one's self in the literal sense. In a set of ?ad?th (Prophetic reports/narratives) on the punishment of stoning, a woman self-confesses to the offense of zin? (illicit sexual intercourse). She is recorded to have said to the Prophet, "O Messenger of God, I have committed zin? and I want you to purify me." The imperative verb used by the woman is tu?ahhiran?, derived from ?ahhara, meaning to clean or purify. From the root of this word, we get ?ah?ra, which means ritual purity needed for the Islamic five daily prayers. According to the report, the Prophet eventually gives the order for her to stoned, and she is stoned. Thereafter, the Prophet participates in the jin?za prayer for her, and remarks that her punishment is equal to the repentance of 70 Medinans. In sum, the stoning punishment served as an exculpatory measure for the Hereafter. The specific term used by the self-confessing woman, and the Prophet's remark about what her punishment signifies, expresses a conception of ritual prayer that does not conform to that which is typically understood about rituals in the Islamic ethos. Stoning, it seems, was constructed as a form of a ritual act. In this paper, I will examine this issue in further detail. Specifically, I contend that the narrative about a zin? offender subsumes the self-confession and stoning under the rubric of ritual prayer. This is creates space for taking actions that can lead to one's own death, which seemingly contradicts the Qur'?n's expression of restraint against suicide.