Tawakkul, Rizk, and Reproductive Agency: Perspectives on Family Planning and Abortion in Malabar
Keywords:
Reproductive Agency, Contraception and Abortion, Ideology of Procreation, Muslim Women in Malabar.Abstract
This paper looks in to how Muslim women exercise their reproductive agency with regard to prolife ideology of Islam as practiced in Malabar by examining the reproductive practices contraception, abortion, and child bearing. Muslim women's reproductive practices are often grounded within the patriarchal theological religion or seen as a reflection of socio-economic marginalization of the community. However, academic studies which examine Muslim women's reproductive agency through a grounded reading of their everyday experiences- including material and transcendental- are almost absent. this paper argues that women anchor their negotiations within the vocabulary of religion, especially adopting the language of tawakkul( trust in God) and rizk( sustenance). However, this language centered on religiosity is not linear as women women widely adopt contraceptive measures, negotiate religious laws in favor of their every day reality while also remaining informed by scientific/modern discourses regarding parenting and procreation.
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