Muslims and Assisted Reproduction

This chapter reviews the key contributions of the qualitative social science literature about assisted reproduction in Muslim contexts with an emphasis on the Muslim-majority Middle East. I provide reflections on its core lines of inquiry, the kinds of insights it offers, and the ways in which this work broadens our understandings of what it means to be Muslim in the contemporary world. Throughout my analysis, I highlight how the methods, topical lenses, and findings of this domain of research build on and intersect with Islamic bioethics scholarship with the aim of continuing and further enriching the interdisciplinary conversation upon which the field of bioethics was founded. In so doing, I seek to offer a guide that might serve as a basis for the development of new research agendas that bridge the empirical social scientific and text-based Islamic studies investigations of reproductive technologies.