Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries in Islamic Society

Voorkant
Oxford University Press, 26 okt 1995 - 176 pagina's
In this thought-provoking interdisciplinary work, Shaun Marmon describes how eunuchs, as a category of people who embodied ambiguity, both defined and mediated critical thresholds of moral and physical space in the household, in the palace and in the tomb of pre-modern Islamic society. The author's central focus is on the sacred society of eunuchs who guarded the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina for over six centuries and whose last representatives still perform many of their time honored rituals to this day. Through Marmon's account, the "sacred" eunuchs of Medina become historical guides into uncharted dimensions of Islamic ritual, political symbolism, social order, gender and time.
 

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Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries
3
Sultan and Prophet
31
3 More Exalted Than the Service of Kings
55
4 Eunuchs Children and Time
79
5 The Longue Durée of the Eunuchs of the Prophet
93
Notes
113
Index
151
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