Islam and the body

Islam and the body As was the case in other pre-modern societies, the peoples of the Middle East conceived of the body in various ways, reflected in both popular perceptions and the formulations of formal intellectual disciplines. In early Islamic times, in the seventh to ninth centuries, Muslims displayed far more systematic interest in the body in religious and legal terms than in strictly medical affairs, and by the time a formal medical tradition began to emerge in Iraq, in the mid ninth century, there was already a copious literature on the subject in the religious sciences of Islam. This material continued to be extremely influential throughout Islamic history and remains so today.

Religious views of the body

The scholars who formulated the religious thought of Islam had definite views on the body. In some respects these views were also shared by Christians and Jews, but for Muslims the agenda was to uphold a strict and pristine monotheism that they considered the older faiths of Judaism and Christianity to have abandoned.

Where the body was concerned, the central argument was teleological. All things come from God, including the human body, which must therefore reflect God's merciful and beneficent plan for mankind. If this is so, then the body must reflect a principle of harmony and order in keeping with the unity and omnipotence of its author. The human body, it was maintained, works in harmony for the sake of the whole: fingers, for example, do not exist for their own sake, but for the sake of the whole body, which benefits from the grasping and manipulative functions that fingers perform. Some parts of the body, it is true, are not essential to life — blindness is a disability, for example, but one suffering from it can still lead a fulfilling life. But nothing in Creation can be superfluous, not even barren deserts or seas full of salt water, otherwise God would be either a trifler or a faulty planner and orderer of His creation, both of which conclusions were of course impossible in a monotheistic context. Thus nothing in the body is useless; all parts have a function that can be related to the functions of other parts. This notion — the so-called ‘argument from design’ — was of course already prominent in the traditions of peoples of the past. The Old Testament contains many examples of this, and in Greek medical thinking the idea is prominent in the works of the Hellenistic physician Galen 129–216 ad. But Islam promoted it in a major way, and his deployment of the argument from design, with a major role for the demiurge, was undoubtedly one factor that made Galen very attractive in the heyday of the translation movement (ninth to tenth century), when Greek texts were being rendered into Arabic as much for their disputational and didactic utility as for their medical content.

Islamic views of the body were also shaped by the fact that Islam, in contrast to Christianity, had no doctrine of original sin. The Qur'an states explicitly that all souls are Muslims from the moment of Creation — it is errant upbringing in human society that turns them to other religions. The God–man relationship is therefore an essentially positive one; man is fickle, weak, and unmindful and forgetful of his duty to God, but he is not encumbered by the burden of the sin of Adam.

The implications of such formulations for notions of the body were significant. Islamic social sensibilities and law have always placed heavy emphasis on the ritual purity (tahara) of the body and its preservation from pollution. A Muslim's preparations for prayer always include ritual washing, and the pristine state thus produced remains only so long as one avoids contact with ritually unclean things, such as blood, urine, faeces, semen, and unclean animals. On the other hand, illness in Islam does not imply sinfulness on the part of the sufferer, nor disapproval of him by God; on the contrary, the Qur'an repeatedly states that in the sick, the blind, the lame, and the weak ‘there is no fault’, and recommends visitation to those who are ill. In extreme cases, such as death from plague or in childbirth, sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad state that the victim's suffering earns him or her God's mercy and direct entry into Paradise. Law and society in the Islamic world have traditionally adopted an essentially lenient and compassionate attitude toward the ill. The madman, for example, was not held accountable for his actions since he was not in control of them, and the ill were excused from religious requirements, such as fasting during the month of Ramadan and attendance at Friday prayers. In most cases (leprosy being a notorious exception) physical illness did not result in ostracism from society, and the scenes that still appear in Mecca and Medina every year, when the pilgrims rally around the infirm and the elderly to assist them in their performance of the various rites of the pilgrimage, illustrate the extent to which medical disadvantage could make one a focus of communal solicitude.

A similar solicitude was also extended to children. Childhood was recognized as a period of growth and maturation distinct from adulthood, the transition to the latter for the most part being identified in and recognized through physical changes in the body. The Qur'an specified when a child should be weaned, and children seized as captives in war were not to be taken away unless they were a certain height (‘five spans of the hand’ was the measure most commonly cited). Children were expected gradually to assume more of the responsibilities of adulthood, such as attendance at prayers, but until sexual maturity they were not held legally or morally accountable for them. Once able to father or give birth to children, however, one became a full member of adult society and was responsible for his or her actions. Daughters were married off at a young age, based on the precedent of Aisha, who as tradition had it had been married to the Prophet Muhammad at the age of 9 (though it was apparently rare for girls to enter a consummated marriage at this age). Young men were regarded as adults at the age of 15 (made the ‘standard’ age for maturity already in early Islamic times), and it was not uncommon for youths to rise to great power: the author of the early Islamic conquests in India, for example, was Muhammad ibn al-Qasim (d. c.717), who personally led and directed the campaigns at the age of 17.

If Islamic law and social norms allowed the adult man instant and almost unlimited leeway for advancement, it also held him entirely responsible for the actions of his body. This was often enforced in a most particularist fashion. The canonical punishment for theft was amputation of a hand, for example, and the utterer of blasphemy could have his tongue cut out. The bodies of executed criminals were often subjected to further humiliation through public display of their remains, or dispatch of heads to the offended ruler, often with public processions along the way. Fire was believed to consume the soul as well as the body, and was in any case a punishment normally reserved for God to inflict through condemnation to Hell; but in extreme cases rebels and heretics were burned alive for their transgressions, the ultimate crimes being punishable by the ultimate act of destruction that could be visited upon the body.

There have at times been major trends toward the renunciation of the body. Extreme asceticism has never found particular favour in Islam, but various mystical and ascetic movements have viewed the body as a vehicle for the function of the senses and appreciation of the pleasures of the physical world, and hence as distractive of man's attention from God. A wide variety of trends collectively referred to as Sufism thus arose to address the problem of how this distraction might be suppressed or removed. Answers ranged from collective meditations and devotions in groups, sometimes involving swaying or whirling of the body, to extremely austere seclusion away from human society. A special sanctity often attached to religious hermits and saintly ascetics, who were revered for their piety and sought out for the healing abilities of the blessed power (baraka) attributed to them.

Social background

The religious manifestations of concern for the physically disadvantaged (children, the old, the ill, the insane, and so forth) are related in important ways to social considerations. Among the most important of these is the central role of the extended family, which is extremely solicitous of the welfare and reputation of its members. In time of illness, it closes around the sufferer for support and encouragement: an ill person is a family responsibility and concern, and to fail to offer assistance in any way possible would be to fail in a central obligation of kinship and call into question the honour and reputation of the family as a whole. It comes as no surprise to find that, in the medieval Islamic world, deathbed scenes and accounts of the demise of known individuals never took place in a hospital, which seems primarily to have been the recourse of those without family to attend to them — travellers, visiting merchants, and the poor. In modern times the same attitude can be seen in the generally negative attitude toward placement of the elderly in retirement and old-folk's homes. Threats to the body of the individual, in other words, comprise challenges to the body of the family.

The interplay between social and religious factors can be seen in the special status accorded in Islam to the dead. Death of the physical body called for specific rites of ritual purification involving washing and shrouding, and essentially inspired by references in the Qur'an to the ‘torment of the grave’, it was discussed whether or not a person can continue to feel pain after death. It was believed that on the Judgment Day the dead will be raised in their physical bodies, and in the condition in which they had passed from the physical world. A famous example is the tradition of the Prophet stating that those who die in the holy war (jihad) will appear before God still bearing their wounds, which will, however, smell as sweet as musk. A special problem was posed by the cases of those who had died in such a way that no physical body would remain to be called forth (e.g. a victim of a fire, or one drowned at sea and so presumably eaten by the fish). Like victims of plague or childbirth, these too were deemed to have won immediate entry to Paradise, thus precluding any need for a physical body for Judgment.

Such sensitivities over the dead, and considerations of what would occur after death, discouraged actions that involved the dismemberment of the body. Some were uneasy about amputations of limbs, even if necessary to save life, since one would still appear before God eventually, but bearing the proof of an earlier effort to escape His will. The mutilation of criminals certainly had this point in mind, and it is likely that it also discouraged an interest in autopsy or dissection of cadavers for medical purposes, which seems not to have been regarded by doctors as a source of useful information in any case.

There was also an important magical dimension to the body in Middle Eastern society. Continuing an age-old tradition of such beliefs, Muslims, Christians, and Jews all considered it a manifest fact that spirits of various kinds could and did interfere with human affairs and affect the body. Apart from the evil eye — a disembodied but willing malevolent power that could bring misfortune, once attracted to a victim by ostentatious good fortune or boasting, or by the jealousy or malice of others — there was a wide range of demons and spirits with which to contend. The most important of these were the jinn (sing jinni, hence the English ‘genie’), who, like man, were mortal beings and part of the physical world: human beings could benefit from their help or suffer from their mischief; see, talk with, and even intermarry with them, and outmanoeuvre and defeat them. Protection against such potential sources of harm was sought through sympathetic magic. Amulets or charms were calculated to defeat spirits in various ways, and were worn or kept on the body as protection. Illnesses in particular were regarded either as communicated to man by spirits, or as animate entities that could be tricked or compelled to leave the body.

Perceptions of the human body have also been profoundly influenced by a more general social attitude toward women which manifested itself at many other levels as well. As in other traditional societies, women have been regarded as weaker than and inferior to men, and are subject to male guardianship — either father, male relatives, or husband — at all times. A woman grew up under the authority of her father and moved to that of her husband upon marriage; if her father died she was subject to the supervision of her other male relatives, and if divorced she moved back to the home of her family or a male relative. A woman lived on her own only in the most extraordinary circumstances, and to choose to do so would have invited suspicion and gossip as to her moral character and would have brought her family into disrepute. Men enjoyed wide latitude in exercise of their authority over women, including beating (sanctioned in the Qur'an), but excesses and brutality were deemed reprehensible and in extreme cases comprised grounds for divorce.

The female body was primarily associated with childbearing; menarche marked the passage to full adult status, and society expected that as soon as she was able to do so a woman would marry and bear her husband's children. The role of motherhood was absolutely crucial. A barren wife was subject to summary divorce, and a woman who died a virgin was often considered a martyr since she had not fulfilled herself by bearing children.

As these examples indicate, the position of women was closely linked to that of sexuality in Islamic society. Intense sensitivities about nakedness and the honour of the individual and the family did not prevent the rise of a lively and often quite open attitude toward sexuality, at least among men. Sexual jokes and anecdotes, hilarious and often quite graphic, appeared in even very respectable literary texts, and sexual poetry was highly developed. Guides and advice manuals on sexual intercourse, many of them illustrated, were popular, and medical compendia routinely contained chapters advising on how to prolong or maintain erection, heighten sexual pleasure, and intensify orgasm. In general, the quest for sexual fulfillment lay within the purview of men, from whom vigorous sexual activity was anticipated as soon as maturity had been attained. Prostitutes, slaves, and concubines were all readily available; homoerotic experience was well known, and while they were frowned upon in some quarters as demeaning to one's manhood, no shame necessarily attached to homoerotic acts so long as one was the active partner. For women, however, sexual activity outside of marriage was entirely taboo, and much anxiety and effort was devoted by men to ensuring that the conduct of their womenfolk gave not the slightest grounds for suspicion. While there is no reason to believe that women were any less aware of their sexuality than men, overt interest in such matters by a woman was widely regarded as suggestive of promiscuous inclinations, and female circumcision — as opposed to male, which was performed for reasons of ritual purity — was often employed in efforts to curb sexual desires.

Developments in modern times

The Islamic views of the human body in social, religious, and legal terms prevailed in various forms until the nineteenth century. The steadily weakening situation of Islamic regimes throughout the Middle East, however, was highlighted by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, and Muslim rulers adopted varying degrees of Westernization in order to confront the threat of economic and political domination by Europe.

Views of the body have been no less subject to radical change than other aspects of traditional life. Western dress, beginning with military uniforms but spreading quickly to other areas, including the attire of women, has challenged centuries-old norms and sensitivities concerning the body. The sanctions of Islamic law and religious norms concerning the body have been undermined by modern law codes, and have been called into question more generally by endless exposure to Western values via media such as radio, film, television, and the press.

These challenges have never passed unanswered, and in the past twenty years particularly vigorous efforts have been made to revive traditional ways. Islamic dress, for example, has been promoted as an assertion of identity and a symbol of personal commitment to the faith, and in some countries Islamic law pertaining to the body — amputation of a hand as punishment for theft, for example — has been revived. Social and legal expectations of women have in some ways become more restrictive.

Informing all of these activities is a general awareness that the physical entity of the body is hedged about by, and ultimately is only meaningful in terms of, an enormous range of constructs defined, upheld, and promoted by the society in which one lives and to which one belongs. The current dialogue between Western and Islamic views of the body in the Middle East and the rest of the Islamic world, or wherever Muslims live as a community, essentially arises from a desire to benefit from Western advances in knowledge while still preserving the Islamic body both as an achievable reality and as a symbol of how the genuinely religious life should be lived.

Lawrence I. Conrad

Bibliography

Gil'adi, A. (1992). Children of Islam: concepts of childhood in medieval muslim society. Macmillan/St Antony's College, Oxford, Basingstoke.
Malti-Douglas, F. (1991). Woman's body, woman's word: gender and discourse in Arabo-Islamic Writing. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Winter, M. (1995). Islamic attitudes toward the human body. In Religious reflections on the human body. (ed. J. M. Law). Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

See also Buddhism and the body; Christianity and the body; Islamic medicine; Hinduism and the body; Judaism and the body; religion and the body.