Klasik Fıkhın Cinsiyet Gelişim Bozukluklarına Bakışını Yeniden Düşünmek: Güncel Tıbbî Bilgi Açısından Bir İnceleme* Reconsidering Classical Fiqh's Approach to Disorders of Sexual Development: A Study in View of Current Medical Knowledge (original) (raw)

2023, İslam Tetkikleri Dergisi

Disorders of sex development (DSD) is a title used to encompass “intersexuality”, “hermaphroditism”, and “al-khunūtha or “androgyny”, is used in medicine and ethics due to its critical and multidimensional structure. It has been the subject of examination in different disciplines, such as philosophy, religious studies, psychology, sociology and law. In this article, the understanding of DSD in fiqh based on classical medicine is reexamined in the light of current medical knowledge. This study aims to re-evaluate within the framework of today’s medicine this information produced by classical Islamic jurists, who defined the phenomenon of DSD and determined legal norms based on the medical knowledge of their period. Issues such as how DSD are defined in classical Islamic law, what categories they include, how the methods for diagnosis and treatment are developed, and what criteria are set for gender assignment are assessed in the light of medical knowledge. As a result, it has been determined that the perception of DSD in classical Islamic law, which is based on the medical knowledge of the period, is broader in one sense and narrower in another when compared to that of contemporary medicine. In this context, modern medicine and classical Islamic law share the view that people with ambiguous genitalia is included in the category of DSD. Despite this, the condition of not having external genitalia of any sex, which constitutes the other category that Islamic law sees within the scope of DSD, has been evaluated as an anomaly (cloacal malformations) that occurs during the development of the digestive system, and not within the scope of DSD, according to contemporary medicine.