Medicine and Morality in Egypt is a critical examination of the history of gender, sexuality, and health in Egypt from the premodern era until the early twentieth century. Using legal, medical, and literary sources, Sherry Sayed Gadelrab investigates how religion and science were used to advocate for gendered conceptions of sexual morality whereby male sexual behavior was perceived as licentious. Gadelrab argues that “the same authorities promoted medical theories that suggested men’s innate active sexuality and an inability to control their sexual urges” (1). Starting in the medieval period, the text extrapolates fundamental shifts in the epistemology of gender, conceptions about sexual desire, and debates concerning homosexuality and prostitution, providing a nuanced overview of the evolution of Sunni jurisprudence, the integration of biomedical practices, and the formation of the modern Egyptian state.
In chapter 1 Gadelrab outlines the significance of Greek and Arab/Islamic exchange by pointing to such seminal Arab...
