Project Summary
The COBHUNI project will for the first time provide a comprehensive investigation of the History of the Unborn in Islam until today. This aims at diversifying our understanding of how pre-natal life is conceptualized in texts of Islamic normativity. At the center will be the analysis of statements in the Qur’an and the prophetic sayings (Hadith) relating to the unborn and the commentary tradition which evolved around them over ca. the last millennium.
The project will study the imaginations of the unborn in Islam diachronically and across regions until today. This thematic case study will address important contemporary challenges in the field of medical and research ethics as well as the way European societies view themselves in a period of significant socio-religious differentiation especially due to the emergence of larger Muslim communities in Europe.
COBHUNI will analyse and show how processes of communication between religious communities, processes of communication in different regions within the Muslim community, and the emergence of modern medicine impacted on the imagination of the unborn by examining a clearly defined segment of the Arabic Sunni Islamic textual heritage, which has been demarcated over the last few years.
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