Muslim Midwives: The Craft of Birthing in the Premodern Middle East

Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization

by Avner Giladi

This book reconstructs the role of midwives in medieval to early modern Islamic history through a careful reading of a wide range of classical and medieval Arabic sources. The author casts the midwife's social status in premodern Islam as a privileged position from which she could mediate between male authority in patriarchal society and female reproductive power within the family. This study also takes a broader historical view of midwifery in the Middle East by examining the tensions between learned medicine (male) and popular, medico-religious practices (female) from early Islam into the Ottoman period and addressing the confrontation between traditional midwifery and Western obstetrics in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Genres: Islam

210 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2014

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know I probably come across as having book-Tourette's or something, but there is almost always a rhyme and/or reason to my wandering interests. In this case, it's because I'm thinking of becoming a Muslim midwife.
Just kidding. Purely novel research, and this on a subject of which I know a healthy amount about (Islam) and another subject on which I know nothing (the miracle of birth).
This is a good book, I guess, having nothing else to compare it, too. Of particular interest is the more laid-back attitude in Islam to shit like magic, talismans, and holy stones. What would've gotten a midwife sauteed in medieval Europe was par for the course for her Islamicate counterpart. Rites, rituals, and roles of the midwife are all discussed here and Giladi does the best with what she has, since source material is, of course, sparse on the subject. Nice expository sections on maternity and birth itself in the Islamic world-view.

[A.L. Sowards]

Not what I expected. I picked the book up hoping for something along the lines of The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women's Medicine, only about Muslim societies. I wanted to know what Muslim midwives did—what techniques they used, what training they had, etc. I wanted to compare it with Western European knowledge on that topic in roughly the same time period. But almost no women in Medieval Muslim societies left written records, and men were banned from birthing rooms, so unfortunately, not a lot of information is known. Did they believe in “wandering wombs” like many of their Christian contemporaries? The book didn’t say. (But it did mention the “sleeping fetus” idea that embryos might pause their development, then start up again and be born a year or so after the normal gestational period—which is almost as off-the-wall as wandering wombs.) What types of herbs did midwives use? The book didn’t say. What did they do for difficult births? The book at one point mentioned several other texts that went into more detail about what was known—but didn’t elaborate, and those texts aren’t in English. This wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t what I was looking for. It was more of a survey of what other records reveal about a Muslim Midwife’s place in society.

[Tourya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting analysis, as a new mum i am feeling an urge to read anything about motherhood. This book focus on Muslim midwives but elaborate also on other subjects such as breastfeeding and birthing in Islam. It was interesting but not memorable.

[Becca]

Helpful. . .nothing erotic though. More about what was expected in practicing midwifery rather than remedies.