Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives pp 1–19Cite as

Muslims and Assisted Reproduction

  • 156 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter reviews the key contributions of the qualitative social science literature about assisted reproduction in Muslim contexts with an emphasis on the Muslim-majority Middle East. I provide reflections on its core lines of inquiry, the kinds of insights it offers, and the ways in which this work broadens our understandings of what it means to be Muslim in the contemporary world. Throughout my analysis, I highlight how the methods, topical lenses, and findings of this domain of research build on and intersect with Islamic bioethics scholarship with the aim of continuing and further enriching the interdisciplinary conversation upon which the field of bioethics was founded. In so doing, I seek to offer a guide that might serve as a basis for the development of new research agendas that bridge the empirical social scientific and text-based Islamic studies investigations of reproductive technologies.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • Abbasi-Shavazi, M. J., Inhorn, M. C., et al. (2008). The “Iranian ART revolution” infertility, assisted reproductive technology, and third-party donation in the Islamic republic of Iran. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 4(2), 1–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Abu-Lughod, L. (1990). The romance of resistance: Tracing transformations of power through bedouin women. American Ethnologist, 17(1), 41–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Açıksöz, S. C. (2016). In vitro nationalism: Masculinity, disability, and assisted reproduction in war-torn Turkey. In Gul Ozyegin (ed.), Gender and sexuality in Muslim cultures. (pp. 35–52), Routledge Abingdon, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Agarwal, A., Mulgun, A., et al. (2015). A unique view on male infertility around the globe. Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, 13(1), 37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Al-Bar, M. A., & Chamsi-Pasha, H. (2015). Assisted reproductive technology: Islamic perspective. In M. A. Al-Bar & H. Chamsi-Pasha (Eds.), Contemporary bioethics: Islamic perspective. Cham: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Atighetchi, D. (2007). Islamic bioethics problems and perspectives. New York: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Becker, G. (2000). The elusive embryo: How women and men approach new reproductive technologies. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Birenbaum-Carmel, D., & Kochman-Haimov, R. (2010). Fertility treatments under semi/occupation: The case of east Jerusalem (pp. 35–42). Fact, Views and Visions in Obgyn Monography. http://fvvo.eu/assets/130/16-Birenbaum_et_al.pdf

  • Birenbaum-Carmeli, D., & Inhorn, M. C. (2009a). Assisting reproduction, testing genes: Global encounters with new biotechnologies. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Birenbaum-Carmeli, D., & Inhorn, M. C. (2009b). Masculinity and marginality Palestinian men’s struggles with infertility in Israel and Lebanon. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 5(2), 23–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blell, M. (2017). British Pakistani Muslim masculinity, (in) fertility, and the clinical encounter. Medical Anthropology, 37(2), 117–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brockopp, J. E., & Eich, T. (2008). Muslim medical ethics: From theory to practice. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carsten, J. (2003). After kinship. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, M. (2009). Islam and new kinship reproductive technology and the Shariah in Lebanon. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, M. (2015). ‘Islamic bioethics’ in transnational perspective. In K. Hampshire & B. Simpson (Eds.), Assisted reproductive technologies in the third phase: Global encounters and emerging moral worlds. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, M., & Inhorn, M. C. (2011). Mutuality and immediacy between Marja’ and Muqallid: Evidence from male in vitro fertilization patients in Shi’i Lebanon. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 43(3), 409–427.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, M., Eich, T., et al. (2015). The social politics of Islamic bioethics. Die Welt Des Islams, 55(3–4), 265–277.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Culley, L., Hudson, N., et al. (2013). Where are all the men? The marginalization of men in social scientific research on infertility. Reproductive Biomedicine Online, 27(3), 225–235.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Daibes, M. A., et al. (2018). ‘Half a woman, half a man; that is how they make me feel’: A qualitative study of rural Jordanian women’s experience of infertility. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 5, 516–530.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Melo-Martín, I. D. (2017). Rethinking reprogenetics: Enhancing ethical analyses of reprogenetic technologies. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deeb, L., & Harb, M. (2013). Leisurely Islam: Negotiating geography and morality in Shi’ite south Beirut. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Deeb, L., & Winegar, J. (2012). Anthropologies of Arab-majority societies. Annual Review of Anthropology, 41, 537–558.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eftekhaari, T. E., et al. (2015). Ethical considerations in sex selection. Journal of Education and Health Promotion. https://doi.org/10.4103/2277-9531.157184.

  • Ghaly, M. (2015). Biomedical scientists as co-muftis: Their contribution to contemporary Islamic bioethics. Die Welt Des Islams, 55(3–4), 286–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ginsburg, F., & Rapp R. (1995). Conceiving the new world order: The global politics of reproduction. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Göknar, M. D. (2015). Achieving procreation: Childlessness and IVF in Turkey. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Golombok, S., et al. (2013). Children born through reproductive donation: A longitudinal study of psychological adjustment. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 54(6), 653–660.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gürtin, Z. B. (2011). Banning reproductive travel: Turkey’s ART legislation and third-party assisted reproduction. Reproductive Biomedicine Online, 23(5), 555–564.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gürtin, Z. B., Inhorn, M. C., et al. (2015). Islam and assisted reproduction in the Middle East: Comparing the Sunni Arab world, Shia Iran and secular Turkey. In S. Brunn (Ed.), The changing world religion map. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gürtin-Broadbent, Z. (2012). ‘Anything to become a mother’: Migrant Turkish women’s experiences of involuntary childlessness and assisted reproductive technologies in London. In L. Culley et al. (Eds.), Marginalized reproduction: Ethnicity, infertility and reproductive technologies. London: Earthscan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamdy, S. (2012). Our bodies belong to God: Organ transplants, Islam, and the struggle for human dignity in Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamdy, S. (2013). Reframing Islamic bioethics. Contending Modernities. https://sites.nd.edu/contendingmodernities/2013/09/18/reframing-islamic-bioethics/

  • Hampshire, K. R., et al. (2012). ‘Everybody is moving on’: Infertility, relationality and the aesthetics of family among British-Pakistani Muslims. Social Science & Medicine, 74(7), 1045–1052.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, C. (2014). Who is your mother? Who is your father?: Assisted reproductive technologies in the light of Sunni and Shi’a law. Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies, 7(1), 23–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (1994). Quest for conception: Gender, infertility, and Egyptian medical traditions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (1996). Infertility and patriarchy: The cultural politics of gender and family life in Egypt. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2003). Local babies, global science: Gender, religion, and in vitro fertilization in Egypt. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2006). He won’t be my son. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 20(1), 94–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2008). Reproductive disruptions: Gender, technology, and biopolitics in the new millennium. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2009). Male genital cutting: masculinity, reproduction, and male infertility surgeries in Egypt and Lebanon. In C. Marcia (Ed.), Reconceiving the Second Sex: Men, Masculinity, and Reproduction Inhorn, Maruska la Cour Mosegaard, Tine Tjørnhøj-Thomsen, Helene Goldberg. (pp. 253–280). New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2011). Globalization and gametes: Reproductive ‘tourism,’ Islamic bioethics, and Middle Eastern modernity. Anthropology and Medicine, 18(1), 87–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2012). The new Arab man: Emergent masculinities, technologies, and Islam in the Middle East. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2014). Roads less traveled in Middle East anthropology—and new paths in gender ethnography. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 10(3), 62–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2015a). Cosmopolitan conceptions: IVF sojourns in global Dubai. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2015b). Globalized fatherhood. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2017). A male infertility crisis is coming. The Middle East can help. New York Times, October 21. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/opinion/sunday/male-infertility-middle-east.html

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2018a). America’s Arab refugees: Vulnerability and health on the margins. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C. (2018b). Searching for love and test-tube babies: Iraqi refugee men in reproductive exile on the margins of Detroit. Medical Anthropology, 37(2), 145–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C., & Patrizio, P. (2015). Infertility around the globe: New thinking on gender, reproductive technologies and global movements in the 21st century. Human Reproduction Update, 21(4), 411–426.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C., & Tremayne, S. (2012). Islam and assisted reproductive technologies: Sunni and Shia perspectives. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C., & Tremayne, S. (2016). Islam, assisted reproduction, and the bioethical aftermath. Journal of Religion and Health, 55(2), 422–430.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C., & Van Balen, F. (Eds.) (2002). Infertility around the globe: New thinking on childlessness, gender, and reproductive technologies. Univ of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inhorn, M. C., et al. (2017). Assisted reproduction and Middle East kinship: A regional and religious comparison. Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online, 4, 41–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kleinman, A. (1999). Moral experience and ethical reflection: Can ethnography reconcile them? A quandary for “the new bioethics”. Daedalus, 128(4), 69–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kreinath, J. (2012). The anthropology of Islam reader. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levine, A. D., et al. (2017). Assessing the use of assisted reproductive technology in the United States by non–United States residents. Fertility and Sterility, 108(5), 815–821.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahmoud, F. (2015). Practitioner perspective: Practising ARTs in Islamic contexts. In K. Hampshire & B. Simpson (Eds.), Assisted reproductive technologies in the third phase: Global encounters and emerging moral worlds. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marranci, G. (2008). The anthropology of Islam. Oxford: Berg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mehrabi, T. (2017). Matters of donation and preserved relations: Co-construction of egg donation and family structures in Iran. In M. Lie & N. Lykke (Eds.), Assisted reproduction across borders: Feminist perspectives on normalizations, disruptions, and transmissions. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moosa, E. (2012). Muslim ethics and biotechnology. In J. Haag et al. (Eds.), The Routledge companion to religion and science. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morsy, S. A. (1981). Towards a political economy of health: A critical note on the medical anthropology of the Middle East. Social Science & Medicine. Part B: Medical Anthropology, 15(2), 159–163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mutlu, B. (2015). The gendered ethics of secrecy and disclosure in transnational sex selection from Turkey to Northern Cyprus. In V. Kantsa et al. (Eds.), (In)fertile citizens: Anthropological and legal challenges of assisted reproductive challenges. Mytilene: University of the Aegean.

    Google Scholar 

  • Naef, S. (2017). Kinship, law and religion: An anthropological study of assisted reproductive technologies in Iran. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nahman, M. R. (2016). Reproductive tourism: Through the anthropological “reproscope”. Annual Review of Anthropology, 45, 417–432.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olesen, A., et al. (2016). Religious scholars’ attitudes and views on ethical issues pertaining to pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in Malaysia. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 13(3), 419–429.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Rooij, F., & Korfker, D. (2009). Infertile Turkish and Moroccan minority groups in the Netherlands: Patients’ views on problems with infertility care. In L. Cully et al. (Eds.), Marginalized reproduction: Ethnicity, infertility and reproductive technologies. London: Earthscan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sachedina, A. (2009). Islamic biomedical ethics principles and application. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sadeghi, M. R. (2015). Access to infertility services in Middle East. Journal of Reproduction & Infertility, 16(4), 179.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scheper-Hughes, N. (2009). Making anthropology public. Anthropology Today, 25(4), 1–3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Serour, G. I. (2008). Islamic perspectives in human reproduction. Reproductive Biomedicine Online, 17, 34–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shabana, A. (2013). Law and ethics in Islamic bioethics: Nonmaleficence in Islamic paternity regulations. Zygon, 48(3), 709–731.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shabana, A. (2014a). Bioethics in Islamic thought. Religion Compass, 8(11), 337–346.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shabana, A. (2014b). Islamic law of paternity between classical legal texts and modern contexts: From physiognomy to DNA analysis. Journal of Islamic Studies, 25(1), 1–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shabana, A. (2015). Foundations of the consensus against surrogacy arrangements in Islamic law. Islamic Law and Society, 22(1–2), 82–113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shabana, A. (2017). Empowerment of women between law and science. Hawwa, 15(1–2), 193–218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slutsky, J., et al. (2016). Integrating donor conception into identity development: Adolescents in fatherless families. Fertility and Sterility, 106(1), 202–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tappan, R. (2012). More than fatwas: Ethical decision making in Iranian fertility clinics. In M. C. Inhorn & S. Tremayne (Eds.), Islam and assisted reproductive technologies: Sunni and Shia perspectives. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tappan, R. (forthcoming). Third-party assisted reproductive technologies in Iran: Human dignity and gender in Islamic bioethics. In S. Appleby, & E. Moosa (Eds.), Human personhood in comparative perspective. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, C. (2005). Making parents: The ontological choreography of reproductive technologies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tremayne, S. (2006). Not all Muslims are luddites. Anthropology Today, 22(3), 1–2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tremayne, S. (2009). Law ethics and donor technologies in Shia Iran. In D. Birenbaum-Carmeli & M. C. Inhorn (Eds.), Assisting reproduction, testing genes: Global encounters with new biotechnologies. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tremayne, S. (2012). The “down side” of gamete donation: Challenging the “happy family” rhetoric in Iran. In M. C. Inhorn & S. Tremayne (Eds.), Islam and assisted reproductive technologies: Sunni and Shia perspectives. New York: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tremayne, S., & Akhondi, M. M. (2016). Conceiving IVF in Iran. Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online, 2, 62–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vanderlinden, L. (2009). German genes and Turkish traits: Ethnicity, infertility, and reproductive politics in Germany. Social Science & Medicine, 69(2), 266–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vanderlinden, L. (2011). Treating ethnic others: Cultural sensitivity and minority stereotypes at a German fertility clinic. Human Organization, 70(3), 253–264.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vertommen, S. (2017). Babies from behind bars: Stratified assisted reproduction in Palestine/Israel. In M. Lie & N. Lykke (Eds.), Assisted reproduction across borders: Feminist perspectives on normalizations, disruptions, and transmissions. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Verulava, T., & Jorbenadze, R. (2018). Medical tourism in Georgia: Current barriers and recommendations. Malaysian Journal of Public Health Medicine, 18(1), 81–87.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zadeh, S., et al. (2017). ‘What does donor mean to a Four-Year-Old?’: Initial insights into young children’s perspectives in solo mother families. Children & Society, 31(3), 194–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This publication was made possible by NPRP Grant no. NPRP8-1478-6-053 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the author.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Kristin V. Monroe

Authors
  1. Kristin V. Monroe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kristin V. Monroe .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Arizona State University , TEMPE, AZ, USA

    Mark Woodward

  2. Dept of Sociology and Anthropology, University of North Florida Dept of Sociology and Anthropology, Jacksonville, FL, USA

    Ronald Lukens-Bull

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Monroe, K.V. (2019). Muslims and Assisted Reproduction. In: Woodward, M., Lukens-Bull, R. (eds) Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_96-2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_96-2

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73653-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73653-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Muslims and Assisted Reproduction
    Published:
    09 May 2019

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_96-2

  2. Original

    Muslims and Assisted Reproduction
    Published:
    22 March 2019

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_96-1

Search

Navigation