Author Sherry Sayed Gadelrab's book Medicine and Morality in Egypt: Gender and Sexuality in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century provides an authoritative analysis of a historical era that holds major bearings for Islamic thinking, especially with regards to women and their status versus that of men. It provides a model of inquiry that focusses on how the interplay of science, religion and politics has managed to indoctrinate many minds into accepting a hierarchical conception of gender relations, either physical, moral, or within society, that has been hard to dislodge. Gadelrab traces the origins of why women have been considered inferior to men to the theories of influential figures from ancient Greece, the most prominent of whom were the “father of western medicine” Hippocrates (460 – c 370 BCE), the scientist and philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE), and the physician and philosopher Galen of Pergamum (129 – c 216 CE). Their biological construction of gender difference had a philosophical perspective due to the fact that medicine was originally a part of philosophy. Despite their diverging views in interpreting sexual difference between males and females, the figures reviewed in this book concurred on the alleged inferiority of women. The physical and mental superiority of men over women was attributed to the latter's child-bearing functions, for which women's bodies and sexuality were adjusted and weakened. Such conclusions were derived from the dissection of the human body and from comparing the size and function of organs in males and females. The transfer from the West of ancient medical views to the Islamic world through the translation of texts from Greek into Arabic was carried out by prominent Islamic scholars such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna, c 980-1037 CE) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes, 1126-1198 CE). Gadelrab contends that “mediaeval Muslim scholars were not passive recipients of Greek wisdom, and their choices… were shaped by the cultural and ideological demands of their society.” They used Greek philosophical thinking when it was convenient to reinforce Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). By devoting a whole chapter to the role of fatwas, or rulings by Islamic jurists (muftis) on questions that arise in daily life, Gadelrab looks at the strong influence such fatwas have had on constructing sexual knowledge and how muftis “could negotiate or adopt medical or scientific theories to support their ideas” depending on the school of thought to which they belonged. She shows how fatwas that were first promulgated only by muftis who were high-ranking ulamas (scholars/theologians) appointed by the state started to be adopted by self-proclaimed muftis as well. In this respect, it is worth noting her warning that “it would be helpful not to undermine the contribution of low-ranking ulamas, preachers or imams of small mosques in the construction of knowledge about what was considered proper or improper behaviour from a religious point of view” in the past. The last chapter of the book on prostitution is symbolic of an era that has disappeared with the development of more fundamentalist rulings condemning and chastising physical relations outside marriage, even if they concern consenting adults. Only Mohamed Ali Pasha, who ruled Egypt from 1805 to 1848, gave prostitution a human face by relating it to women's economic needs and therefore deserving of concern. His successors treated prostitution as a crime though there was a phase during which houses of prostitution (brothels) were licenced under government control, especially during the British occupation of Egypt. After long debate, “in 1949 the Egyptian government decreed to close down whorehouses, not to provide any new licenses for whorehouses, and to impose punishments ranging from six months to three years of imprisonment for anyone who disobeyed these laws,” the author writes. Prostitutes were left without an “alternative way of living.” In Gadelrab's view, “research on sex and sexuality is developing both in scope and approach. In the last two decades, works on this topic have increased exponentially; nonetheless, the historiography of sexuality in the Middle East has not yet matured. Future studies could hold more promising hopes for further insightful views of Islamic history.” Such views are becoming increasingly important now that many fatwas have been distorting the precepts of Islam, putting them in misplaced times and contexts and causing major damage, not only to Muslim societies, but also to the world as a whole. The importance of the author's research, therefore, goes beyond the specific period and location dealt with in the book. Sherry Sayed Gadelrab, who died prematurely at the age of 33, deserves to be given posthumous recognition for her courage, as a young woman from Egypt, in addressing so sensitive a subject for many in her country. Her work is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about gender on a personal level and in the public sphere, especially in traditional societies.
Sherry Sayed Gadelrab, Medicine and Morality in Egypt: Gender and Sexuality in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century, I.B. Tauris: London & New York, 2016, pp204
The writer is a former UNDP expert in gender and development.
