Bio: Faegheh Shirazi
Faegheh Shirazi earned her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, Columbus
Ohio in the field of Textiles and Clothing with a minor in Near Eastern/Middle Eastern Art History. One of her primary areas of interests is the subject of Material Culture and its influence on Gender identity and discourse in Muslim societies. Clothing, particularly the Islamic Veil (hijab) is the main focus of her research. She also studies issues of women, rituals and rites of passage as they relate to material culture. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles in diverse journals such as "Critique, Journal of the Critical Studies in The Middle East", "Journal of the International Association of Costume", "Ars Textrina", and "Material History Review Journal National Museum of Science and Technology". Her most recent scholarly work includes a recently published manuscript The Veil Unveiled: Hijab in Modern Culture. She is also a contributing author to "Religious Expression in Dress: Commitment and Conversion from A Cross-Cultural Perspective," Berg Publishers, Oxford: United Kingdom. Currently, she is the undergraduate advisor (since 1998) for the Dept. of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures. She is a regular book review contributor for The Association for Middle East Women¹s Studies (AWMES) where she serves as an editorial member.
Abstract
Of Sexual Matters: Popular Religious Practices of Women
This paper examins issues of female fertility, sterility, and sexuality
through the eyes of the believers in olum-e ramel, jadoo, sehr, nojum
(astrology/astronomy), and olum-e gharibeh (magical science), in reading
such literature I will be able to identify how the most intimate private
aspects of woman¹s life were discussed and documented- since this texts
discuss in detail private sexual matters of women. Secondly, I will
investigate remedies, potions and advice prescribed by the ³learned Hakim²
to cure specific female problems. This section will draw on a combination of
the traditions of tebb-e rohani (spiritual medicine) or tebb-e Mohammadi
(the medicine of the Prophet), in addition to the information collected in
the first section of the study. Thirdly, I will demonstrate that the
combination of Shi¹i Islam and such practices was important because women
seem to have believed that they were following in the religious path laid
down by Mohammad and the emams. Finally, I will look at elaborate
ritualistic practices (some of which are physically harmful) that women
adopted to combat sterility in order to increase their chances of having a
successful, full-term pregnancy, or to secure a better chance of having a
male child, and thus to win the love of their husbands in order to remain
the favorite wife in his household.