Morgan Clarke, Islam and new kinship: reproductive technology and the shariah in Lebanon

Abstract

Islam and new kinship presents a thoughtful and nuanced analysis of Islamic legal responses to issues raised by assisted reproductive technologies. Although the author conducted extensive fieldwork in Lebanon, which serves as the central case study in the book, the discussion addresses religious reflections and legal opinions in diverse locales, including Syria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, among others. The most significant theme, of several that run unevenly through the book, involves the process of Islamic legal reasoning in the face of popular and medical concerns with reproductive technologies. Clarke engages in a thorough and captivating assessment of the numerous fatwas issued in the context of global Islamic legal scholarship concerning medical ethics, in particular, medically assisted conception. The author’s argument derives from extensive interviews and correspondence with religious authorities of various ‘confessions’ (Sunni, Shi’i, Druze, Maronite Christian, Greek Orthodox) in several countries: Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah and his associates as well as the head of the Sunni courts in Lebanon, representatives of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Khamene’i of Iran, and Grand Ayatollah Sayyid ‘Ali al-Sistani, based in Najaf, Iraq. This very abbreviated list does not do justice to the impressive interview and archival data that form the basis of the book. What readers may find most interesting is the process of legal reasoning made apparent in the discussion of the permissibility of various technological interventions such as donor eggs or sperm, or gestational surrogacy. One question of interest involves the hierarchy of juridical authority (Whose fatwas are authoritative? And how do individuals with particular personal interests select among possible learned jurists known for specific legal stances?) Not only does Cont Islam (2012) 6:93–94 DOI 10.1007/s11562-010-0133-8