Intersex and the (Non)Binary Body in Classical Muslim Legal, Medical, and Literary Discourses

This book is available on back order and is due to be published in May 2026

This book offers the first sustained scholarly exploration of intersex embodiment and identity in premodern Islam. Bringing together leading scholars in the field, it examines how classical Muslim thinkers conceptualised, categorised, and regulated bodies that defied binary understandings of sex and gender. Spanning legal reasoning, medical treatises, and literary representations, the chapters uncover the complex ways in which intersex figures—variously described in premodern sources—shaped debates over personhood, spirituality, care, legal practice, ritual, and bodily integrity. By situating these discussions within the broader intellectual and institutional history of Islam, the book demonstrates that intersex was not a marginal curiosity but a category that tested and refined classical understandings of human difference, divine creation, and social order. The volume will appeal to readers of Islamic studies, gender and sexuality studies, the history of medicine, and religious studies more broadly, inviting reflection on how traditions of interpretation continue to shape contemporary understandings of sexed and gendered embodiment within and beyond the Islamic world.

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.