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Document Details :

Title: The Islamic Ban on Menstruants' Touching the Qur'ān - Whence?
Author(s): MAZUZ, Haggai
Journal: Journal Asiatique
Volume: 303    Issue: 1   Date: 2015   
Pages: 131-135
DOI: 10.2143/JA.303.1.3085122

Abstract :
It is a matter of consensus in Islamic law that menstruant women may not perform various religious acts, including touching the Qur'ān. When one seeks the origin of the rule concerning the Qur'ān in the Qur'ān itself, as well as in the hadīths and juridical sources, however, one comes up empty. Therefore, the answer should be sought outside the Islamic milieu. It is argued in the article that, much as Muslim authorities often wished to differentiate Islamic law from non-Islamic practices, jurists in Iraq and Persia may have derived the ban pertaining to Muslim menstruants’ touching the Qur'ān from the fear of a menstruant’s touch in Zoroastrianism.

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