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The Qurʾān and the Putative pre-Islamic Practice of Female Infanticide

  • Ilkka Lindstedt ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: October 18, 2023

Abstract

In this article, I take issue with one alleged characteristic of pre-Islamic Arabia: namely, the notion that the Arabians frequently, and disturbingly, practiced female infanticide by burying their daughters alive. This is what the Islamic-era religious scholars inferred on the basis of two qurʾānic passages (Q Naḥl 16:57–59 and al-Takwīr 81:8–9). However, I will argue that the classical Muslim scholars’ interpretation of these verses is highly tendentious. By analyzing the specific qurʾānic passages and comparing the crucial word al-mawʾūdah (Q 81:8), usually translated as “the daughter buried alive,” with early Arabic poetry, I conclude that the conventional understanding of it is unlikely.

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Sean Anthony, Reyhan Durmaz, Thomas Eich, Andreas Görke, Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, David Kiltz, Michael Macdonald, Jerome Parker, Marijn van Putten, Mulki Al-Sharmani, Nicolai Sinai, Ville Vuolanto, and the two anonymous peer-reviews for important comments on earlier versions of this article.

Published Online: 2023-10-18
Published in Print: 2023-12-15

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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