Papers by Keren Abbou Hershkovits
The use of veils among contemporary Muslim women triggers a large range of emotions and concepts ... more The use of veils among contemporary Muslim women triggers a large range of emotions and concepts in the general public and among Muslim communities in different places.The general public perception of veiling shifts from manifestations of female oppression to concepts of liberation of women from the male gaze. Individuals, as well as state institutions attempt at controlling the use of veils, either by restricting or enforcing it. Up to day, veiling is a sphere where contesting identities clash and at times attract public debates. Several such incidents have raised international public discourse, in Germany, and elsewhere. In 2016 France attempted at declaring the “Burka Law”, but since was suspended. Several other places attempted at declaring a similar law, e.g. Swiss, Germany and Quebec; And the French law forbidding religious marks in schools. These are but a few of the recent incidents concerning female cover in public.
Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age, 2020
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2020
Hawwa, 2017
The conquest of the Middle East by Muslims ultimately resulted in the Islamization of the region.... more The conquest of the Middle East by Muslims ultimately resulted in the Islamization of the region. The long process by which this took place awaits clarification. Conversion narratives, permitting us a glimpse into relations between Muslims, non-Muslims, and converts, might serve to elucidate this process. This study examines how different families responded to religious conversion within their ranks. It will show that in early Islam, individuals moved between different spheres, all the while negotiating their roles and commitments. Rather than considering the act of conversion itself, this study engages with the range of responses generated by conversion that were recorded by medieval historians, biographers, and ḥadīth collectors. The present contribution seeks to demonstrate, through anecdotes of conversion, the ways in which kinship ties functioned in the face of shifts in personal status. I also hope to show that boundaries between religious communities (to the extent that they ...
Medieval Encounters, 2013
The past few decades have witnessed a remarkable shift in the way scholars study the field of sci... more The past few decades have witnessed a remarkable shift in the way scholars study the field of sciences in Muslim societies. Up to the 1980s, research focused on Muslim scientists’ role as transmitters of science to the West, and as contributors to Western science. The Muslim world was commonly viewed as a link between ancient Greece and Latin Christendom, its scholars serving as translators of Greek treatises, and as preservers of Greek knowledge. Recently, the theme of Indian-Muslim cultural-scientific relations has attracted growing attention. Following this trend, we maintain that the eighth and ninth centuries reveal an interaction between Indian and Muslim medicine and physicians. Building on the past work of scholars such as Michael W. Dols and more recently Kevin van Bladel, we reinterpret medieval Arabic sources to reveal that the interest in Asian science was not a brief and untypical phenomenon that lacked long-lasting implications. By rereading Arabic chronicles and biogr...
Al-Qanṭara, 2013
Hawting for reading a previous draft of this paper and making helpful comments. A shorter version... more Hawting for reading a previous draft of this paper and making helpful comments. A shorter version was presented at the "Literature and History: Middle Eastern Perspectives" workshop held at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev between 31 May and 3 June 2010. We would like to express our gratitude to the organisers, Ariel Moriah Sheetrit and Yair Huri, as well as to the panelists Ahmad al-Rahim, Nimrod Hurvitz and Daniella Talmon Heller, and to the workshop participants, who all contributed valuable comments. We would also like to thank Faith Wallis, for giving much valuable advice and many suggestions, and Cristina Álvarez Millán, who generously agreed to translate the abstract into Spanish. Keren Abbou Hershkovits wishes to thank the Transmission Translation and Transformation research group at McGill University for their generous Scholarship. Special thanks are also due to our anonymous readers, for their valuable insights. All mistakes remain our own.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Jul 1, 2020
“Agents of Conversion, Female Agency?”, 2023
Medieval Textual Cultures, 2016
Early Science and Medicine, 2013
Obscurity surrounds not only the date and name of the inventor of eyeglasses, but also the date a... more Obscurity surrounds not only the date and name of the inventor of eyeglasses, but also the date and place where eyeglasses (or information pertaining to them) reached the Muslim world. It is assumed that eyeglasses were transmitted to the Muslim world through commerce with Italian traders, which is probable, while other options also present themselves. This paper shows, at any rate, that the date traditionally given for the first acquaintance of the Muslim world with eyeglasses is wrong. In this article, we present evidence that eyeglasses were available in Syria since the fourteenth century and discuss the implications of this discovery.
Astarté. Estudios del Oriente Próximo y el Mediterráneo, 2018
The use of veils among contemporary Muslim women triggers a large range of emotions and concepts ... more The use of veils among contemporary Muslim women triggers a large range of emotions and concepts in the general public and among Muslim communities in different places.The general public perception of veiling shifts from manifestations of female oppression to concepts of liberation of women from the male gaze. Individuals, as well as state institutions attempt at controlling the use of veils, either by restricting or enforcing it. Up to day, veiling is a sphere where contesting identities clash and at times attract public debates. Several such incidents have raised international public discourse, in Germany, and elsewhere. In 2016 France attempted at declaring the “Burka Law”, but since was suspended. Several other places attempted at declaring a similar law, e.g. Swiss, Germany and Québec; And the French law forbidding religious marks in schools. These are but a few of the recent incidents concerning female cover in public.
Paper presented at the SBL Annual Meeting, Helsinki 2018
When considering women in early Islam t... more Paper presented at the SBL Annual Meeting, Helsinki 2018
When considering women in early Islam the main images coming to mind are those of the extremes. It is either a strong woman such as Khadija, or the submissive, helpless and anonymous women in general. As in the way extremes, the truth lays somewhere in between. However, lack of sources and many other difficulties, prevent us from learning about early Islamic period and the status of women at that time, moreover, it is not clear that we have formulated the right questions.
In this paper I wish to look into women who acted as agents of conversion, using theological concepts and excerpts of the Quran as their justification for conversion (their own, or others). I will show that women who converted to Islam did so for many different reasons, or better say, were attributed various reasons. Understanding and conceptualizing the validity of Muhammad’s prophecy was among them. These women later on made a point of spreading that understanding to members of their family and even to strangers. I will also look into the reasons that encouraged authors to put such words in the mouths of women (rather than men). I will ask whether these women were presented as unique females, or maybe authors were making a different point. Such an inquiry might help us learn about women in early Islam, and maybe also about the still ambiguous process of conversion in the early period.
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Papers by Keren Abbou Hershkovits
When considering women in early Islam the main images coming to mind are those of the extremes. It is either a strong woman such as Khadija, or the submissive, helpless and anonymous women in general. As in the way extremes, the truth lays somewhere in between. However, lack of sources and many other difficulties, prevent us from learning about early Islamic period and the status of women at that time, moreover, it is not clear that we have formulated the right questions.
In this paper I wish to look into women who acted as agents of conversion, using theological concepts and excerpts of the Quran as their justification for conversion (their own, or others). I will show that women who converted to Islam did so for many different reasons, or better say, were attributed various reasons. Understanding and conceptualizing the validity of Muhammad’s prophecy was among them. These women later on made a point of spreading that understanding to members of their family and even to strangers. I will also look into the reasons that encouraged authors to put such words in the mouths of women (rather than men). I will ask whether these women were presented as unique females, or maybe authors were making a different point. Such an inquiry might help us learn about women in early Islam, and maybe also about the still ambiguous process of conversion in the early period.
When considering women in early Islam the main images coming to mind are those of the extremes. It is either a strong woman such as Khadija, or the submissive, helpless and anonymous women in general. As in the way extremes, the truth lays somewhere in between. However, lack of sources and many other difficulties, prevent us from learning about early Islamic period and the status of women at that time, moreover, it is not clear that we have formulated the right questions.
In this paper I wish to look into women who acted as agents of conversion, using theological concepts and excerpts of the Quran as their justification for conversion (their own, or others). I will show that women who converted to Islam did so for many different reasons, or better say, were attributed various reasons. Understanding and conceptualizing the validity of Muhammad’s prophecy was among them. These women later on made a point of spreading that understanding to members of their family and even to strangers. I will also look into the reasons that encouraged authors to put such words in the mouths of women (rather than men). I will ask whether these women were presented as unique females, or maybe authors were making a different point. Such an inquiry might help us learn about women in early Islam, and maybe also about the still ambiguous process of conversion in the early period.
physicians in Baghdād in and around the ʿAbbāsid court, and the emergence of early Muslim hospitals.