4. Non-binary Sexual and Gender Identities in the Community: The Khuntha as an Isolated Being in the Mosque
The Religious Body Imagined - Pamela D. Winfield
Saqer Almarri [+]
Independent scholar
Saqer A. Almarri is an independent scholar and translator. They hold a Ph.D. in Translation Studies from Binghamton University–State University of New York (2019). Their research examines how Islamic jurists incorporate bodies that do not conform to the
dominant sexual binary into frameworks of Islamic law, and the changes to epistemology when translating pre-modern scholarship into modern languages. Saqer’s previous
scholarship has appeared in academic publications such as Women & Language (2018) and TSQ (2016).
Description
The Mamluk jurist Abd al-Rahim al-Isnawi wrote a legal manual to articulate what Islamic law, in the Shafi‘i form, expects of the religiously observant life of a khuntha who has yet to be assigned a sex. Al-Isnawi described a congregational prayer format that allows a khuntha, or a group of khunatha, to participate in the congregation. Building on theories of space, religion, and gender as articulated by Michel de Certeau, Kim Knott, and Doreen Massey. This essay surveys the series of cases (10 in total) through a reading of strategies the jurist uses to regulate a khuntha’s access to men’s, women’s, and separate spaces, as well as to regulate interpersonal relations between men, women, and the khunatha.