Miles, M. 2007-07. “Disability and Deafness, in the context of Religion, Spirituality, Belief and Morality, in Middle Eastern, South Asian and East Asian Histories and Cultures: annotated bibliography.” Internet publication URLs: http://www.independentliving.org/docs7/miles200707.html and http://www.independentliving.org/docs7/miles200707.pdf
The bibliography introduces and annotates materials pertinent to disability, mental disorders and deafness, in the context of religious belief and practice in the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia.
Original version was published in the Journal of Religion, Disability & Health (2002) vol. 6 (2/3) pp. 149-204; with a supplement in the same journal (2007) vol. 11 (2) 53-111, from Haworth Pastoral Press, http://www.HaworthPress.com. The present Version 3.00 is further revised and extended, in July 2007.
Compiled and annotated by M. Miles
ABSTRACT. The bibliography lists and annotates modern and historical materials in translation, sometimes with commentary, relevant to disability, mental disorders and deafness, in the context of religious belief and practice in the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia, together with secondary literature.
KEYWORDS. Bibliography, disabled, deaf, blind, mental, religion, spirituality, history, law, ethics, morality, East Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Muslim, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Buddhist, Confucian, Daoist (Taoist).
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTORY NOTES
2. MIDDLE EAST & SOUTH ASIA
3. EAST (& SOUTH EAST) ASIA
1. INTRODUCTORY NOTES
The bibliography is in two parts (a few items appear in both):
MIDDLE EAST & SOUTH ASIA [c. 341 items]
EAST (& SOUTH EAST) ASIA [c. 129 items]
Very few of the early Asian and Middle Eastern texts were intentionally focused on disability, and there has been little modern analysis of such texts for disability material, or formulation of the results in a theoretical frame. One has to search for relevant odds and ends and insights amidst a mass of material, so the annotations below serve partly to indicate relevant pages (often omitted or only partially shown in indexes) and may also give some taste of the material. Annotations were made for various purposes over fifteen years, and then revised at different times, so they are not uniform in nature or style.
The annotations are focused on matters of disability, deafness, or abnormality, appearing in a religious or moral context within the given region, broadly understood. In some cases the major contents and thrust of a work may be given a few words only, or are understood to be sufficiently indicated by the title, while the small part pertinent to disability is given more description. No disrespect is intended toward the omitted contents, which are often of great value but are not the immediate present concern. Of course, all mention of disability or deafness should be seen in its context; and in much of the history of the Middle East and Asia, the social context and the religious context may be identical or have a large overlap. Within the annotations, square brackets [ ] around a comment usually indicate some kind of alert, i.e. that the enclosed remark is an explanation or interpolation by the annotator, where this might not otherwise be obvious.
The assistance of such annotations might seem to encourage a lazy, modern kind of cheating, i.e. digging impairments and disabilities out of their corners and crevices without full study of the context. Condemnation of such idleness appeared already in 1910, when the book-length General Index was compiled for 49 volumes of the Sacred Books of the East series. “There was a time when German scholars scouted the idea of writing or using an Index to learned books. It was thought unworthy of a scholar to look to an Index for reference: he had to read the whole book and all the books on any given subject. But nowadays even German scholars have found out that life is short, and not only art, but in an even greater degree, science is getting very long. It has become impossible to get on without some time-saving machinery.” [!] (M. Winternitz, SBE vol. 50, p. xiii) When even German scholars a century ago were being driven to make excuses, perhaps the humble student of disability and religion may now creep past unpunished.
There are some 460 items listed below, ranging from short modern journal papers to the Mahabharata in 2.5 million words of translation. Many entries have been extracted and updated from my longer web bibliographies on disability in Asian and Middle Eastern histories, listed at
http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/bibliography/
A few more general items are included on how suffering or affliction has been understood in the major religions and moral teachings; yet it should be kept in mind that very many disabled people prefer to be seen as simply 'living with' their impairment or disability, rather than being in a suffering, afflicted or oppressed state. A few studies are listed on abortion in religious law or ethics, where variations exist from country to country, and one of the grounds for abortion may be some 'deformity' in the foetus. This is an unhappy branch of law in any country or religious context. Yet because it is often a strongly contested area, it is also one that elicits the expression of conflicting views about the prevailing social attitudes and responses to impairment in infants, and the prospects for living a life with disability, and of the modern and ancient religious teaching that may be summoned or reconstructed to address these issues.
CAUTIONS
It must be emphasised that some modern Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Daoist, Hindu, Jaina, Jewish, Muslim, Parsi or other apologists might wish to assert that the earlier texts, or the ways they were understood in past ages, do not necessarily represent the full teachings of their faith, in the area of disablement. There are some modern interpretations offering disability messages more palatable to modern views, or that bring out nuances neglected in earlier translations. Further, it should be obvious that the items below are not all of equal weight and validity when it comes to understanding the teachings of the various religions or religious philosophies.
The annotations given here must not be regarded as a substitute for reading the actual works listed! The views of textual commentators cannot substitute for the original texts on which they are commenting! All translations should be regarded with caution!
Omission of material in languages other than English and French (with a few exceptions) is a regrettable result of the compiler's limitations. There are of course many works in other languages that could illuminate the topic. There is also certainly a great deal more in French than is represented here. There are other editions and translations of many of the ancient texts, and new ones appear each year that will be worth consulting, or might become the definitive edition. The present bibliography is a work permanently 'under construction'. It is hard to know where to draw the line, particularly with the growth of inter-religious interest and publications on suffering and on ethical questions that have some disability implications.
While updating the original published bibliography between 2005 and 2007, a little more has been added on historical and modern Jewish thought and practice relating to disability. The Christian representation remains small, but this is not intended in an excluding or politically motivated way. There have indeed been many academic studies and commentaries of Christian texts (embracing also particular Jewish texts) that derive from Middle Eastern history, and in which disability and disabled people have some place. There has also been a very long Christian presence across Asia, and some involvement with disability. A considerable quantity exists of reference works, such as lexicons of ancient Middle Eastern languages, or encyclopedias of culture and religion, which have been developed mainly by European scholars and which incidentally contain detailed studies on particular disability-related words. Indexes, bibliographies and databases already exist for locating most of those items in several European languages. A few items from the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament and the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (both in translation from German) have been included in this update (see e.g. Clements; Wächter et al; Bertram; Schrage) simply as tokens of this kind of material; and similarly a few items from Egyptian, Syrian, Ethiopian and Asian church histories (see e.g. Askwith; Aubineau; Bailey; Baumann; Godron; Gregory; Hewlett; Life of Takla Haymanot; London Society; Meinardus; Palladius; Psellus; Ragheb & Roy; Schodde; Stirrat; Vitae Patrum; Wilkinson, Younghak). If a full survey of literature were made, it might triple the size of the bibliography, which would become hard to manage in the present format. The point is that this kind of Christian source material is already known and fairly accessible, to those with an interest in it. (Indeed, some of these scholarly reference tomes have recently become available on CD, making them very rapidly and comprehensively searchable). Equivalent materials from the other major religions and ethical systems of the Middle East and Asia have been much less known, and are less readily accessible. That is why this bibliography principally focuses on them.
Many extracts and some full texts of religious scriptures are now accessible on the internet in English translation, e.g. with a Google search. A few sites have some texts that are very carefully translated, presented, annotated and checked, by modern representatives of the particular religion or faith. Other sites have used older translations that are out of copyright, and the scanning has been 99% accurate. (That 99% figure sounds good, but it sometimes means that a large number of errors are inadvertently included, which is unfortunate in religious text of any sort). In some cases the scholarly annotation has been removed, along with the explanations of why it is hard to know the meaning of particular texts. Readers are again advised to proceed with caution.
DECLARATION OF FALLIBILITY
During the past 20 years of reading and thinking about this kind of material, the compiler has often been struck by the peculiarity and improbability of the whole exercise. Impairment and disability, deafness and blindness, infirmity, handicap, deformity and devalued identity, family and social responses, appear mainly in odd corners and footnotes of both ancient and more recent literature of religion, law, moral philosophy, ethics, folklore, anthropology, history, sociology, etc. To locate and understand these little scraps and nuggets in their context seems to require entry to the conceptual worlds of half the human population through four or five thousand years, via whatever remains of the original texts in 50 or more ancient languages. Immediately it becomes clear that one student, acquainted with a handful of Indo-European and Semitic languages, is unlikely to make good sense of all this (even with the invaluable services of Christine Miles, who uses another half dozen languages, and is resigned to occasionally being woken up at 2 a.m. for discussion of some obscure but urgent linguistic problem).
The sole reason for continuing, against such odds, is that parts of the material are fascinating and sometimes illuminating. Even when viewed with the probable distortions of a modern / post-modern western mentality, and jumbling together modern experiences with half-understood ancient communications, these historical texts and the work of translators and other commentators and modern users who have tried to grapple with them, seem to portray something of the everyday realities of human life, suffering, difference, and resilience of the spirit, that speaks also to the chaotic late 20th and early 21st centuries of the Christian calendar. Yet users of this bibliography should understand that if they have a different evaluation of any item, or disagree with the annotation given, their view might be well founded!
GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISION
As earlier, the material is divided geographically, with “Middle East & South Asia” appearing first, and some flexibility. The “East Asia (China, Korea & Japan)” section has extended to become “East & South-East Asia and some nearby countries”. The placement of some Buddhist items may be disputable -- certainly, Sri Lanka is in South Asia and shares Theravada Buddhism with much of South-East Asia, while the clearest ongoing influences of Mahayana Buddhism have been in East Asia and North-East Asia. (However, examination of differences between these schools of Buddhism will not be pursued in this bibliography. As with differentiation between Shia and Sunni Muslims, or Catholic and Protestant Christians, or different schools of Hindu thought, it may need to be mentioned, but accurate explanations are best found in encyclopedias of religion, or books dedicated to these topics).
The rest of Asia, indeed the rest of the world, has no coverage. There is no good reason for this, but merely the brevity of life, the difficulty of the task, and the ignorance of the compiler. It is hoped that others with more knowledge and skills will give attention to similar topics in those regions. (A bibliography of similar items from Africa is in progress, and might appear in 2008).
CHINA: RELIGION, ETHICS AND MORALITY
The People's Republic of China poses certain questions, since the formal propagation of religion was closely controlled or discouraged during part of the 20th century, and also in some periods of earlier centuries. An outsider might guess that views on 'religion and disability' would be almost absent from recent history, and recent presentation of earlier history might be uniformly critical. To some extent this may be so, yet Xonzhong Yao (2006) Religious experience in contemporary China. Modern Believing 47 (2) 44-61, offers evidence suggesting that, on closer study, the modern Han Chinese are “more religious or spiritual than they initially said, albeit in a subtle and complicated way”, engaging in many thoughts and activities that reflect an eclectic personal choice from strands of earlier religious practice. Francesca Bray (1999, p. 190, see below) notes that “Isolating a category of ideas or behaviour that is distinctly 'religious' is extremely difficult in the case of China, nor is it easy to draw clear boundaries between the cosmological, the divine and the supernatural”. However, Gloria Zhang Liu (2001, see below), writing on Chinese culture and disability, seems to be in no doubt of the ongoing influences of religions in mainland China. Recent disability studies in China (e.g. Kohrman; Shue; Zhou Xun) show continuing moral and ethical concerns that evoke a quasi-religious response. Some items are included from modern and historical China, and from Japan also, in which the 'religious' aspect may seem primarily to be embedded within moral, ethical and philosophical discussion. In any case, whether difficult or not, the thoughts and practices of this vast and culturally rich Asian civilisation must have some presence here, with renewed apologies and cautions for their possible misrepresentation.
WEBSITES. The URLs shown below were checked and functioning in July 2007.
DIACRITICAL MARKS. These have in many cases been omitted from titles or names in the bibliography below, because of typographical problems or variable representations on the web or by screen software. Capital letters have sometimes been used, for indicating a macron. Regrets are offered for such omissions or devices.
FAIR ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. Fair acknowledgements are not easy to make in this bibliography, reaching back through the great Asian and Middle Eastern civilisations of the past 4000 years. The huge and primary debts are to thousands of authors, translators, lexicographers and linguists, theologians, historians, scholarly editors, humble copying scribes, hard-bitten printers and publishers, and librarians, who laboured to produce, improve, store and transmit more accurate and meaningful texts. Most of them laboured and died in obscurity, their names long forgotten. We build on their bones.
* * * *
The Sea, The Sea While I was floating on this sea of books and papers, a friend asked what I was doing. “Well, I pull up a few buckets out of the sea, and pour them on my feet. I watch which way the water runs off. Then I claim to have understood the sea...”
* * * *
MAIN ABBREVIATIONS
CE Christian Era. (Years are all CE, unless given BC, Before Christ)
c.circa, around, approximately
ed.editor, edited by,
e.g. for example
i.e. that is,
p., pp. page, pages
SBE Sacred Books of the East (ed. Max Müller), in 50 vols.
UP University Press
vol. volume (of a book)
ABDOLAH, Kader (transl. S Massotty, 2006) My Father's Notebook. Edinburgh: Canongate.
This remarkable book by an Iranian emigré is built around a deaf character, Aga Akbar, who was a carpet weaver in a village of Persia, and later moved to the modern world of Teheran. Aga Akbar is the father of the narrator, and together they communicate by 'home sign', which the son interprets to his father's rural world. Reflections on the culture, religion and history of Persia / Iran are cast in the format of a novel about various kinds of communication. The tale is imbued with the Qur'anic verses, Persian poetry and ceremonies of rural Muslim life, in a world that begins to change rapidly under political and religious pressures.
AL-ABDUL-JABBAR, Jawahir & Al-Issa, Ihsan (2002) Psychotherapy in Islamic society. In: I Al-Issa (ed) Al-Junun: mental illness in the Islamic world, 277-293. Madison, CT: Intl Universities Press, Inc.
This chapter aims to address issues concerning some different principles and techniques of psychotherapy as practised in Arab-Muslim nations and cultures. Some examples of difference are: the strongly patriarchal nature of such societies; some client resistance toward insight-oriented therapy; the opportunities of integrating specifically Islamic spiritual support and reassurance; the reality that the “basic psychosocial unit is not the individual but the family, the group and the whole community”. Case histories illustrate the difficulty of finding solutions to some relationship problems generated by rapid modernisation of some, but not other, aspects of Arab Muslim societies.
ABRAMS, Judith Z (1998) Judaism and Disability: portrayals in ancient texts from the Tanach through the Bavli. Washington DC: Gallaudet UP.
Detailed and well referenced review of disabilities in Jewish texts from c. 1000 BC to the 7th century CE, with insights into how these were understood in their period and how interpretations developed. The material is approached with little trace of dogmatism or of effort retrospectively to 'correct' earlier understandings in the light of modern views. Comparisons with surrounding societies and cultures (e.g. pp. 104-112) are based on secondary literature.
ABRAMS JZ & Gaventa W (eds) (2006) Jewish Perspectives on Theology and the Human Experience of Disability. Haworth Pastoral Press. (Also published as Journal of Religion, Disability & Health 10 (double issue 3/4).
This book (and journal double-issue) embraces a wide field of scholarly and personal approaches to theology, practical applications, community undertakings, and first-hand accounts, bringing in viewpoints on disability from Orthodox, Conservative and Reformed teaching, with 16 named contributors from four continents, a 'Responsa Committa' of American rabbis, and other group contributions. The various articles have many points of confluence and some of disagreement, as they draw evidence and enter into debate at different moments across 3000 years of slowly evolving social attitudes and religious practices. Some present the highest ideals that Judaism can offer; others are more concerned with the gap between ideal and practice, in the several countries represented.
AFROOZ, G Ali (1993) Education and special education in cross-cultural perspective: the Islamic Republic of Iran. in: SJ Peter (ed) Education and Disability in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 93-125. New York: Garland.
Introducing the cultural background of Iran's provisions for disabled children and young people, Afrooz discusses in some detail the provision of Islam in this respect, e.g. pp. 94-102, 107-108, and the consequent duties of the state, the local community, the family and the individual Muslim.
AHMED MOHAMED, Haidar Abu (1985) Leprosy -- the Moslem attitude. Leprosy Review 56: 17-21.
Brief article differentiating some views and practices commonly found in Muslim-majority countries, actually based on indigenous traditional beliefs, from the orthodox Islamic teaching based on a few verses in the Qur'an and sayings of the prophet Muhammad.
AJMAL, Muhammad (1986) Muslim Contributions to Psychotherapy and other essays. Islamabad: National Institute of Psychology.
These essays were written over 20 years by a man who became one of Pakistan's senior psychologists, serving as Federal Education Secretary. Ajmal endured the conflicts of “a man who has been reared in the Western intellectual tradition” and has “owed allegiance to one Western god after another” (p. 1), while becoming aware that the cultural roots and traditions of his own country, and of the historical Islamic world, had many truths and strengths to offer to the psychological understanding of the human condition. That contribution had been largely ignored, or reduced to anecdotes and decorative snippets. Ajmal reflects on what the Muslim savants and Sufi teachers wrote, how their teaching can be understood in the late 20th century, and how far they address universal concerns of continuing relevance to the widespread modern disablement of mind, soul and spirit. Ajmal's professional interest in cognitive development also brought a theme of children's perceptions of life, truth and relationship into several essays.
AKSOY, Sahin (2005) Making regulations and drawing up legislation in Islamic countries under conditions of uncertainty, with special reference to embryonic stem cell research. Journal of Medical Ethics 31: 399-403.
Gives a succinct description of the sources of authority and methods by which moral and ethical issues are discussed among Muslim jurists and scholars, and a consensus may be reached for legal rulings on new issues. As a professional bioethicist, Aksoy examines the Qur'anic basis, and some hadiths, for understanding the status of the human embryo and fetal development, upon which a number of important ethical decisions rest. Among the most important Qur'anic references are: 32 (as-Sajdah): 8-9; 23 (al-Mu'minun): 13-14. Two reported sayings of the prophet Muhammad, in al-Buhkari's collection, further explain how the embryo is formed and established. The available texts may suggest either that 'ensoulment' of the embryo takes place 120 days after conception, or between 49 and 55 after conception, with some consequences for issues of stem cell use, and others for questions of abortion.
ALDEEB Abu-Sahlieh SA (1994) Les Musulmans face aux droits de l'homme. Bochum: Verlag Dr Dieter Winkler. [Note: Author spells his own name as above in his reference list. The title page gives Abu-Salieh]
Detailed, wide-ranging and well referenced work on historical understandings of human rights in Islam and current interpretations and legal practice across the Arab world. In a chapter on Abortion and Birth Control (pp. 42-52), the classical Jurists are shown to have had different position on abortion, from total prohibition, to permission up to the 40th or the 120th day of pregnancy, or at any time in a special case, e.g. serious risk to the mother. Current Arab laws are mostly prohibitive, but Tunisian law reportedly permits termination in the first trimester. A source states that South Yemen permits abortion when a family with three children has no means to raise further children, or in case of fetal malformation (p. 47). A fatwa of the Academy of Muslim Law, of the World Muslim League, based on legal advice of Muhammad `Ali Al-Bar, issued in 1990, reportedly permits abortion of a deformed fetus in the first 120 days of pregnancy, but no later unless the mother's life is at risk.
AMMAR, Hamed (1954) Growing Up in an Egyptian Village. Silwa Province of Aswan. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 316 pp.
Carefully drawn pictures of childhood in village Egypt. Ch. 10 (pp. 202-213) reflects on “Indigenous learning and teaching” and describes daily activities in Islamic village schools of Silwa - where three of the six teachers were blind men. The village teacher, “especially if he is blind, relies a great deal on one or two monitors (`areef)” (p. 208). The curriculum was almost entirely learning the Qur'an, and was under challenge from the compulsory education at government-sponsored schools with a broader and more modern curriculum. Parents often withdrew able-bodied boys to help with agricultural work; however, “Blind boys find in the Kuttab a place where they can absorb themselves in learning the Koran, and it is mostly these blind boys who remain in the Kuttab until they finish memorizing the whole of it” (pp. 212-213). In Appendix XII, on ability testing of village children, a few “mentally deficient” individuals are noted, whom the villagers regard as holy fools.
ARABIAN Nights' Entertainments, edited with introduction and notes by Robert L Mack (1995 / 1998), Oxford World Classics, Oxford UP. xxxv + 939 pp.
Often known as the “1001 Nights”, many stories in this collection probably originate in India or Persia, and are associated with the story-teller Scheherazade beguiling Sultan Schahriar in order to save her own life and those of many other young women, possibly in the 9th century. The stories are well embedded in the ethics and morality of Middle Eastern life, with features of Islam prominent, but also a few Jewish and Christian characters. Some disabled people appear incidentally; a few are more noticeable, e.g. the disfigured Amine (pp. 66-80); the Little Hunchback (222-228) leading to tales of people with hands severed, and then to the hunchback Bacbouc, his toothless brother Backbarah, blind brother Bacbac, and brother Schacabac with a hare lip (229-306); and the blind man, Baba Abdalla (729-736).
ASKWITH, Anne Jane (1884) Report from Sarah Tucker Institution. India's Women. The Magazine of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society 4: 289-393.
From Palamcotta, South India, Miss Askwith reported in 1884 on an Indian blind Christian young woman, Marial, who had earlier “gone out with the Bible-woman teaching and singing to the people”; and that “they listened most attentively to her, and especially the little ones liked her to teach them” (p. 292). Miss Marial seems to have awakened the missionary Askwith to the possibilities of blind people learning and becoming teachers. Later reports, from 1890, show education for blind adults and girls, partly integrated with sighted children, in schools for which Askwith was responsible.
ASMAN, Oren (2004) Abortion in Islamic countries - legal and religious aspects. Medicine and Law 23 (1) 73-89.
The legality of abortion, in countries where the Qur'an and the practice of the prophet Muhammad are dominant authorities, varies with the interpretations of religious scholars. Different views are shown (p. 79) on whether a deformity in the fetus, discovered before 120 days of pregnancy, may justify abortion. (This section relies on evidence collected by Rispler-Chaim, 1999, see below). The author classifies current laws in various Muslim states as conservative, lenient or liberal.
[ATHARVA Veda.] The Hymns of the Atharva Veda, translated with a popular commentary. Transl. RHT Griffith, 2nd edition (1916) Benares: Lazarus; reprinted 1995, New Delhi:Low Cost Publications, 2 vols in 1, xviii + 521 + ii + 499 pp.
The Atharva Veda, perhaps dating from the same period as the Rig Veda (i.e. assembled c. 1500 BC, possibly earlier), collects a large number of charms, incantations, prayers and religious rituals invoking deities and spiritual powers against diseases and afflictions. Interpretation of some passages is very difficult and doubtful. See Vol.I, pp. 27-29, (Bk I, Hymns 23 + 24), and I: 62-63, (Bk II, H.24), leprosy [?]. I: 146-47, (Bk IV, H.12), healing of fractured bones. I: 306, (Bk VI, H.111), against some kinds of insanity. I: 358 (Bk VII, H.65), living with a cripple having black teeth and deformed nails (footnote: might portray the devil). I: 403-407 (Bk VIII, H.6), mentions creatures with humpbacks, sightless, with distorted eyes, five-footed, fingerless, four-eyed, double-faced, etc. I: 455-58, (Bk IX, H.8), various infirmities, some making blind, deaf or dumb, and many vividly described symptoms. Vol. II, pp. 61-64, (Bk XI, H.3), taking part in a oblation with improper attitude may bring deafness, blindness, loss of tongue or teeth, and other disorders [?]. II: 84-88 (Bk XI, H.9), some creatures with deformities or mutilations, twisted, deaf [?], appear. II: 317 (Bk XIX, H.6), prayer to avoid various impairments of body and soul. See next, AV transl. Bloomfield; and Zysk (1985 / 1998), below.
[ATHARVA Veda.] Hymns of the Atharva-Veda together with Extracts from the Ritual Books and the Commentaries, transl. Maurice Bloomfield (1897), SBE 42, Oxford: Clarendon.
See notes on previous item. Bloomfield omitted many hymns, giving reasons (pp. lxxi-lxxii), but provided specific introductory material and commentary. The detailed notes often underline his own and other scholars' differences and great uncertainties in understanding the ancient texts, and these difficulties include making sense of terms that may be relevant to disability. Hymns are grouped by type or topic (pp. 1-232, numerical key pp. 709-710). The commentaries follow the standard numerical order (pp. 233-692), then a detailed index of subjects (pp. 693-708). All Sanskrit is transliterated to roman script. Among hymns [H.] of disability interest: Bk I, H.22 (transl. pp. 7-8 + commentary 263-266, possibly includes epilepsy). Bk VI, H.80 (p. 13 + 500-501, cure of paralysis, possibly hemiplegia). Bk I, H.23 + H.24 (p. 16 + 266-270, leprosy or leukoderma). Bk. IV, H.12 (p. 19 + 384-389, healing of fracture). Bk VI, H.111 (pp. 32-33 + 417, 518-521, charm against mania). Bk IX, H.8 (pp. 45-47 + 600-608, general immunity charm, effective also against deafness [?], blindness and paralysis). Bk VII, H.65 (p. 72 + 556-557, charm against the outcome of sinfully sitting “with one who has black teeth, or diseased nails, or one who is deformed”). (On the latter, the commentary (p. 556) notes that “Befouling contact with deformed persons is a standard subject in Vedic texts, and in the law-books”, giving various references). Bk I, H.18 (p. 109 + 168, 260, 564, to remove evil bodily characteristics). Bk XI, H.9 (pp. 123-126 + 631-637, various possible mutilations of people or spooks). Bk VI, H.120 (pp. 165-166 + 529-530, hopes for forgiveness and “In that bright world where our pious friends live in joy, having cast aside the ailments of their own bodies, free from lameness, not deformed in limb, there may we behold our parents and our children!”). See also Zysk (1985 / 1998) who gives detailed commentary on many of these texts, with benefit of a further century of scholarly progress.
AUBINEAU, Michel (1975) Zoticos de Constantinople nourricier des pauvres et serviteur des lépreux. Analecta Bollandia 93: 67-108.
This detailed, scholarly study on the martyred saint Zoticos gives a provenance of the sole manuscript (probably 11th century) of his Vita; the available Greek text with French translation; points of philological interest and some detailed textual comparison between the Vita and a later source; and a discussion of the significance of the text in historical and hagiological context. The story begins in the time of Constantine (c. 274-337), whose reign reportedly had one blemish: a decree ordering the banishment and destruction of people with leprosy and those combatting the disease. Zoticos had been given responsibilities in the new capital at Byzantium, and enjoyed Constantine's confidence. To by-pass the leprosy decree, Zoticos obtained gold to buy “precious stones” for the emperor's benefit; but used the gold to ransom leprosy-disabled people who were being taken to their destruction, and to erect a camp where they were cared for. The scheme was denounced by courtiers when Constantine died and his son Constant[ius] (who favoured Arianism) took power; but Zoticos invited the new emperor to come and see the “precious stones”. Constant was greeted by a congregation of lepers, including his own daughter, who had been expelled under the decree but was rescued by Zoticos. Unamused by this ploy, Constant had Zoticos tied and dragged by wild mules until his body fell in pieces. Miraculous events followed. Constant repented of his error and founded the “Zoticos Hospital” to continue the saint's work.
This foundation was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries (according to Synaxarion, Dec. 30, it was rebuilt, after an earthquake, by Romanus III (1028-1034)). Historicity of the Zoticos vita cannot easily be substantiated, but he is mentioned independently in 472, as one who cared for orphans. A tradition of care for the poor, sick or suffering from leprosy continued to the time of the Emperor Michael IV (1034-41), when the extant manuscript originated. Michael IV (see Psellus, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, below) himself suffered from epilepsy; and the Zoticos Vita ends with a celebration of this emperor's personal care for leprosy sufferers. Aubineau speculates on the concepts and writings of Byzantine and earlier hagiographers, tracing back the idea of money given by rulers for building a palace, but actually spent on the poor. Parallels are found as far back as the apostle Thomas and King Gondafor (or Gundaphor and other transliterations) in the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (Acts of Thomas, Second Act, 17-24; translation available online).
[Aubineau's journal article on Zoticos is correctly titled as shown. That article was drawn to the attention of the 'Disability Studies' world, and commented on in an interesting way, by the philosopher Henri-Jacques Stiker, in Corps infirmes et sociétés, 1982, Paris: Aubier Montaigne; revised 1997, Paris: Editions Dunod; English transl. W Sayers, 1997, as A History of Disability, Ann Arbor: Univ. Michigan Press. In both Stiker's original notes (pp. 88-91, 229), and the English version of his revised book (pp. 73-76, 215), the title of Aubineau's article appears as “Biographie, vertu et martyre de notre saint Père Zotikos, nourricier des pauvres.” That is in fact a free translation (Greek to French) of the heading of the Vita text, given on p. 71 of the Analecta Bollandia article (but Aubineau has “vertus”, not “vertu”). The Greek can be transliterated: Bios kai politeia kai marturion, tou en hagiois patros hEmOn ZOtikou tou ptOchotrophou. The use of vertus for politeia might be an interpretative move. Aubineau comments (p. 86) on the technical term ptOchotrophos.]
AULUCK, Shanti (2007) Life is strange. Journal of Religion, Disability & Health 11 (2) 23-28.
The author, being a psychologist, director of a training institution for people with intellectual disabilities, and mother of a son with Down's syndrome, reflects on the impact of her son's birth on her life and religious beliefs. She describes frankly a 'modern trajectory' of childhood religion being overtaken by an increasingly assertive rationality, agnostic searching in early adulthood, the one-ness of all being, and the Vedantic teaching that frames her ongoing life and search.
AVALOS, Hector (1998) Disability and liturgy in ancient and modern religious traditions. In: NL Eiesland & DE Saliers (eds) Human Disability and the Service of God: reassessing religious practice, 35-54. Nashville: Abingdon.
Reviews some features of ancient liturgical practice concerned with healing, in Mesopotamian and Eastern Mediterranean religions, comparing e.g. the locus (home or hospital), and use of animals, icons, drugs or music in the ancient settings, with the mostly different practices in modern American liturgies.
BAASHER, Taha (1975) The Arab countries. Reprinted from: JG Howells (ed) World History of Psychiatry, 547-578. New York: Brunner Mazel.
Sketches the roots of psychiatry and mental health from antiquity, in the region later understood as the 'Arab countries', giving a background of Islam, mental health and the Qur'an, psychological approaches, traditional psychotherapeutics, interpretation of dreams, and religious techniques and therapies.
Al-BAGHAWI (revised by at-Tibrizi). Mishkat al-masabih. English translation with explanatory notes, by James Robson, 2 vols, reprint 1994, Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf.
Baghawi's selection of hadiths (11th century) became popular after Tibrizi's 14th century revision. Some mention disabilities and treatments, e.g. Blindness & eye problems (pp. 36, 138, 217, 221, 231, 397-99, 405, 532, 663, 708-709, 745, 878, 889, 935, 945-54, 1035, 1133, 1296-97, 1302, 1342). Leprosy (pp. 98, 397-99, 526, 619, 955-56, 1221, 1379). Epilepsy, Idiocy, Possession (pp. 329, 526, 638, 697, 931, 945-54, 1033, 1220, 1260, 1291). Miscellaneous conditions (pp. 5-6, 36, 313, 508, 582, 664, 689, 763, 925, 934, 945-54, 997, 1274, 1345). These suggest existing social responses and probably helped to shape attitudes.
BAILEY, Wellesley Crosby [1887] A Glimpse at the Indian Mission-Field and Leper Asylums in 1886-87. London: Shaw. 188 pp.
While visiting many 'leper asylums', Bailey also made notes on a variety of disabled people whom he met, and on other aspects of disability in India. While primarily interested in Christian missionary work among people with leprosy, Bailey also visited and reported with appreciation on leprosy asylums and charitable work started by Parsi philanthropists, and by the Muslim ruler of Oude.
BALASUNDARAM, Pramila (2002) Response from the grass roots in Delhi. Journal of Religion, Disability & Health 6 (2/3) 135-144.
Based on 20 years of service development for disabled children with Hindu and Muslim families in a very poor area of Delhi. The author reflects on and responds to the practical and religious aspects of a collection of papers on “Disability in Asian Cultures and Beliefs” in this journal double issue.
BALASUNDARAM P (2007) Love is not a feeling: faith and disability in the context of poverty. Journal of Religion, Disability & Health 11 (2) 15-22.
The author reports and interprets discussions on religious issues within a self-help group of mothers having significantly disabled children and meeting monthly over several years, in a very poor area of South Delhi. From teenagers to women in their 50s, these mothers come from different faith backgrounds, and some had reached Delhi from rural areas. Most had received no practical help from representatives of their own religious community, and they had to find their own varied answers to questions of blame, guilt, karma, the will of God, and other religious issues, amidst the pressure of often stigmatising social attitudes.
BALODHI JP & Chowdhary, J Roy (1986) Psychiatric concepts in Atharva Veda: a review. Indian Journal of Psychiatry 28: 63-68.
Brief review. Admits “considerable disagreement” between symbolic, etymological, or literal interpretations of Vedic terminology.
BARTHOLIN, Thomas (1662) Paralytici Novi Testamenti, medico et philologico commentari illustrati. 2nd edition. Basel. 105 pp.
Member of a family of prolific medical authors, Bartholin made some studies specifically on disability. (See next item).
BARTHOLIN T (1672) De morbis biblicis miscellanea medica. 2nd edition. Frankfurt. 133 pp.
See note on previous item. The present work also appeared in English transl. by J Willis, in an edition published 1994, Copenhagen.
AL-BASIT, Musa (2000) Huquq al-Mu`awwaqin fi al-Shari`a al-Islamiyya [Rights of the disabled in the Islamic Shariah.] Um el Fahem: Markaz al-Dirasat al-Mu`asira.
[Not seen. In Dr Rispler-Chaim's “Disability in Islamic Law” (listed below, 2007, see pp. 123-134, plus notes and references pp. 152-153) her English translation of “a portion” from Dr al-Basit's work appears, with permission. This amounts to a wide-ranging essay of above 6000 words, addressing definitions and variety of disability, duties and liabilities of disabled persons, Islamic ways to prevent disability, moral, spiritual and psychological care afforded to disabled persons within Islam, some notable Muslims having disabilities, material provisions for disabled people, and references in the Qur'an, hadiths and other literature.]
BAUMANN E (1886) Deaf and dumb Ellen and how she became a Christian. Indian Female Evangelist 8: 241-244.
Details of the education of a deaf Indian child (later baptised 'Ellen') who was found abandoned in the jungle, in a feral state, and was brought home by the author's father, a missionary at Chupra. Unaware of any standard sign language, Miss Baumann learnt to converse with Ellen by a system of gestures, and reported the slow stages by which she became aware of Ellen's intelligence and progress in religious understanding, matched by radical changes in her personal and social behaviour.
BAZNA, S Maysaa & Hatab, Tarek A (2005) Disability in the Qur'an: the Islamic alternative to defining, viewing and relating to disability. Journal of Religion, Disability & Health 9 (1) 5-27.
Compares traditional interpretations of relevant texts, with some modern perspective on disability. Examines the meanings of some disability-related words as given in the early 14th century Lisan ul-Arab (Beirut: Dar Ehia al-Tourath al-Arabi) by Ibn Manzur [c. 1230-1311], a massive lexicon compiled on the basis of earlier dictionaries.
BENZAHRA, Saloua Ali (2002) Representation of the disabled in Arab / Islamic culture and literature from North Africa and the Middle East. Unpubl. doctoral thesis, Univ. Minnesota.
BERTRAM G (1967) [Greek] mOros. In: G Kittel (ed) Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, transl. GW Bromiley, pp. 832-847. Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans.
Discusses in great detail the Greek word and related terms, variously meaning 'foolish, dull-witted, feeble-minded' in the New Testament and earlier literature, with copious references.
The BHAGAVADGITA with the Sanatsugatiya and the Anugita (1898) 2nd edition, transl. KT Telang, SBE 8. Oxford: Clarendon.
Anugita ch. XXI, Brahma's voice defining darkness and ignorance, including immaturity of intellect, lack of discrimination, stolidity (pp. 317-23). People with such characteristics are evil-doers, destined for rebirth as animals, demons, idiots, deaf and dumb etc.
BHUGRA, Dinesh (1992) Psychiatry in ancient Indian texts: a review. History of Psychiatry 3: 167-186.
The author reviews mental illness as described in Indian texts, e.g. the Vedas, the Ayurvedic texts and the epic literature, sketching the conceptual world of religious belief and medical practice in South Asian antiquity. He considers the extent to which earlier diagnostic categories overlap with those now used in India and western countries, and notes that religious belief and practice “is important in the diagnosis and management of many Indian patients, including those living abroad” (p. 182).
BITTLES AH, Sullivan SG & Zhivotovsky LA (2004) Consanguinity, caste and deaf-mutism in Punjab, 1921. Journal of Biosocial Science 36: 221-234.
The decennial census of India collected information on infirmities, such as blindness, deafness, mental defects, between 1871 and 1931, and reports were made on differences in distribution of infirmities by location, caste, religion, gender etc. Analysis in the 1920s of data on deaf-mutism (among other infirmities) in 9.36 million people of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh affiliation in the 1921 Census of Punjab failed to find a specific relationship between consanguineous marriage and deafness. The present study controlled for major confounding factors, such as the high incidence of iodine deficiency disorders in some localities with very high Hindu population, and found striking differences in the patterns of “deaf-mutism” between the two major religious communities, attributable to the differences in marriage practices.
BLAU J (1916) The defective in Jewish law. In: Jewish Eugenics and Other Essays, 23-50. New York.
BLEEKER CJ (1966) Guilt and purification in ancient Egypt. Numen 13 (2) 81-87.
Problems are found in rightly understanding religious terms, e.g. sin, guilt, in ancient Egypt. Bleeker gives examples from “the religion of the poor”, in “texts from the Theban necropole, dating from the 19th dynasty”, displaying an unusual humility and awareness of sin, apparently arising because deities had caused the humans to suffer “darkness by day”, i.e. blindness.
BOBOVIUS, Albertus [Ali Bey]. Topkapi. Relation du sérail du Grand Seigneur. Edition présentée et annotée par Annie Berthier et Stéphane Yerasimos (1999) Sindbad, Actes Sud.
Includes a description in the 17th century of the 'mutes' in the seraglio, the deaf male servants who customarily served the Sultan (and deaf women serving in the harem), whose sign language became a common means of communication in the palace, probably from the middle of the 16th century. Bobovius notes that sign language was taught by older deaf people to the younger, at a specific location, and it was sufficient for communicating matters of any complexity, including the holy texts and the prophets of Islam (pp. 33-34).
BOUSQUET G-H (1961) Études islamologiques d'Ignaz Goldziher. Traduction analytique (IV). Arabica 8: 238-272.
With relevance to the histories of signing by deaf people, see pp. 269-272, on “Du langage par gestes et signes chez les Arabes”, derived (with much abbreviation) from I Goldziher (1886) Ueber Geberden- und Zeichensprache bei den Arabern. Zeitschrift f. Völkerpsychologie 14: 369-386. While mainly on signing within the historical Arab world, there is some discussion of traditions embodying the finger and hand signs and gestures that were much used by the Prophet Muhammad, with explanations in commentaries.
BOWKER, John (1970, reprinted 1987) Problems of Suffering in Religions of the World. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Problems of suffering as perceived in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Marxism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manicheeism and Jainism, are given by reference to textual foundations in each religion or philosophy, and by considering later developments of thought, up to the late 20th century. This summary is partly contradicted by John Bowker's opening statement on 'Hinduism': “To summarise the thought of any religion is difficult, but in the case of Hinduism it is impossible.” (p. 193) Nevertheless, Bowker gives a readable and lucid account of his subject, with many quotations from the literature of each religion. Very little direct reference is made to disability.
BOYCE, Mary (1968) The pious foundations of the Zoroastrians. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 31: 270-289.
BRUNSCHVIG R (1949) Théorie générale de la capacité chez les hanafites médiévaux. Revue internationale des droits de l'antiquité 2: 157-172.
Discusses the meanings of legal capacity and legal inhibition (hijr) understood by various early Hanifite sources, mentioning the cases of infants, pre-pubertal children and the safih (prodigal, or person lacking reason in the disposition of his affairs and belongings) for whom guardians were necessary.
Al-BUKHARI. The translation of the Meanings of Sahih Al-Bukhari, Arabic-English. New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan. 9 vols.
Vol. VII contains several hadiths pertinent to disability, e.g. No.s 555 (pp. 376-77, epilepsy); 557 (p. 377, blindness); 582 (p. 395, for every disease, Allah makes treatment available); 608 (pp. 408-409, leprosy). Other major hadith collections contain further examples.
El-BUSIRI. transl. JW Redhouse (1881) The “Burda,” i.e. The Poem of the Mantle, in praise of Muhammad, by El-Busiri. In: WA Clouston (ed) Arabian Poetry for English Readers, edited, with introduction and notes, pp. 319-41. Glasgow.
Poem by Sharaf-al-Din Muhammad al-Busiri (1213 - c. 1296), widely recited in time of sickness. It celebrates the prophet Muhammad's powers of healing (e.g. verse 85; see also v. 104). One legend tells that “the Poet was stricken with palsy, and obtained his recovery of God through the Prophet's intercession” (p. 322).
CAPPS, Edward, Jr. (1927) An ivory pyxis in the Museo Cristiano and a plaque from the Sancta Sanctorum. The Art Bulletin 9 (4, June) 330-340.
These items from antiquity depict scenes from the life of Christ, with healing of people having severe disabilities. Capps locates them in the iconographic context of Coptic and Alexandrian schools of art, and dates them to the early sixth century CE.
CASSIN, Elena (1987) Le semblable et le différent. Symbolismes du pouvoir dans le proche-orient ancien. Paris: Editions la Découverte.
Two chapters discuss “Le droit et le tordu”. The first (pp. 50-71) concerns disability in the Jewish scriptures. The second (72-97) is subtitled “Handicapés et marginaux dans la Mésopotamie des IIe-Ier millénaires”. Apart from the need for constancy in prayer by the king, rewarded by the deity sustaining his non-trembling step and non-twisted tongue, the risk was foreseen (c. 14th century BC) that some rogue might use a mad, deaf, blind or otherwise disabled person as an unwitting agent to perform a sacrilegious act, so that the resultant curse should be diverted from instigator (pp. 81-82, 92; cf D Marcus; and Z Falk, below). Many Akkadian disability terms and possible nuances are discussed (82-91, 96-97). The (apparent) custom is mentioned of placing a simpleton 'substitute' on the throne for a limited period to divert and absorb some curse or threat to the king; the substitute either died, or was killed at the close of the period (94-95).
CERESKO, Anthony R (2001) The identity of “the blind and the lame” (`iwwer upisseah) in 2 Samuel 5:8b. Catholic Biblical Quarterly 63: 23-30.
Reviews various explanations of this curious and difficult passage.
CHABARA A, El-Sabbahi S, El-Gazaar E, & Abushadi N (2002) Items of disabled care and prevention of disability in the Holy Qur'an and the Hadith. Saudi Journal of Disability & Rehabilitation 8 (1) 33-37.
While maintaining a traditional reverence for the Qur'an as the word of Allah for all times and places, the authors suggest that modern scientific knowledge in the health care and rehabilitation fields can facilitate a better understanding of the sacred text and of the hadiths of the prophet Muhammad. They explain how some verses can be matched with modern scientific practice, though this interpretation was not open to earlier ages. For example, the story about the Sleepers, in Surah 18 (The Cave), states that “We turned them [i.e. the Sleepers] on their right and their left sides”. This could now be understood in terms of avoiding pressure sores by regular turning of people with paralysis.
CHALEBY, Kutaiba (2000) Forensic psychiatry and Islamic law. In: I Al-Issa (ed) Al-Junun: mental illness in the Islamic world, 71-98. Madison, CT: International Universities Press, Inc.
Examines from historical and modern understanding various questions of legal competence or incompetence, according to mental capacities or their absence.
CHTATOU, Mohammed (1995) Disability in the religious context. In: In Our Own Words. Disability and integration in Morocco, pp. 107-110. London: Save the Children.
Brief account of positive teaching given in Islam about disability and disabled people.
CLEMENTS RE (2003) [Hebrew] pisseah. In: GJ Botterweck, H Ringgren & H-J Fabry (eds) Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, transl. DW Stott, vol. XII, pp. 24-29. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans.
Discusses one of the Hebrew words for 'lame' or 'crippled', with reference to linguistic and critical literature of Jewish and Christian textual studies. (See also Ceresko; Wächter et al).
COHEN, Lawrence (1998) No Aging in India. Alzheimer's, the Bad Family, and Other Modern Things. Berkeley: Univ. California Press. xxv + 367 pp.
Large, rambling account of a western medical anthropologist investigating the older and 'ageing' body and person in Indian (and some western) situations of everyday life and in archives. Neither 'disability' nor 'religion' appears in the index; yet the book is concerned with perceptions and discourses of impairment and difference in mind, body and relationship, by people in families, communities and societies that have been continuously shifting throughout the lives of those who are now old. One of the movements has been from a society in which every aspect of life was dominated by religious belief and practice, toward one of increasing secularisation where religious archetypes continue to be inescapable but have ceded ground to other rising forces. Family composition and logic are changing, with much reduced living space available in urban households and the shifting balance of domestic power as traditional female care roles give place to female wage-earning capacity. The inputs (and costs) of western and ayurvedic medical and psychiatric professionals, to the treatment, care or reconstruction of ageing, are also observed sceptically.
CONRAD, Lawrence I (1999) Medicine and Martyrdom: some discussions of suffering and divine justice in early Islamic society. In: JR Hinnells & R Porter (eds) Religion, Health and Suffering, 212-236. London: Kegan Paul International.
Heavily referenced review of suffering and the supposed part of Allah in it, with occasional mention of disability.
CONSTANTELOS, Demetrios J (1968) Byzantine Philanthropy and Social Welfare. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers UP. xii + 356 pp.
Substantial work covering especially sources from the 10th to 12th century, detailing the hospitals, hospices, establishments for care of orphans, people with leprosy, elderly and infirm people, homes for the poor, blind, epileptic, totally incapacitated, or otherwise disabled people, at Byzantium, the Eastern Mediterranean and other parts of the Empire. See pp. 10, 66, 76, 86, 98, 99, 118, 122, 128-29, 136, 138, 150, 152, 154, 155, 164-167, 179, 233, 235, 242, 244, 259, 263, 264, 275-276, and terms such as 'blind', 'cripple', 'epileptic', 'leprosy' in the index. Motivations and religious beliefs are taken into account. The author was perhaps less sceptical than some historians, but nonetheless reviewed sources carefully. Among the philanthropists, he also noted some whose “humane attitude was blackened by various acts of cruelty” (p. 134).
CONSTANTINIDES, Pamela (1985) Women heal women: spirit possession and sexual segregation in a Muslim society. Social Science & Medicine 21 (6) 685-692.
Zar ceremony in Northern Sudan.
CRAWFORD, S Cromwell (2003) Hindu Bioethics for the Twenty-first Century. Albany, NY: State University. New York Press. ix + 226 pp.
While containing little reference to disability as such (see e.g., pp. 125-126) the explanations of Hindu texts and principles by Crawford demonstrate the kinds of material that have been significant in forming views of disability within Hinduism.
CRECELIUS, Daniel (1991) The waqf of Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab in historical perspective. International Journal of Middle East Studies 23: 57-81.
Detailed description of a large mosque and educational centre and the waqf foundation funding it, of which the building operation began in 1774, opposite the site of Al-Azhar, Cairo. Public recitation of the Qur'an continued from early morning to nightfall. Daily and annual disbursements are listed to “5 blind men as muezzins and muballighun”. Among the provisions for utilising any surplus from the wakf, after the original donor and his dependents had died, “two thirds of the surplus from the waqf was to go to the blind residents of al-Azhar and the zAwiya of the blind next to it.” (See also Larrey).
DALLEY, Stephanie (ed. & transl.) (1998) Myths From Mesopotamia. Oxford UP. xxi + 337 pp.
The Epic of Gilgamesh (pp. 39-135), possibly from the 2nd millennium BC, contains in the character of Enkidu an early description of a 'feral child', supposedly primitive, hairy, raised on wild asses' milk (91, 140), eating grass with gazelles and drinking at cattle's water holes (53). After some social education by a hired representative of Eve (55-56), Enkidu joins Gilgamesh in his noble quest. He suffers an episode of paralysis (70, 128), but recovers to support his friend through various battles.
DANIELOU, Alain (1964) Hindu Polytheism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Daniélou's reflections on tamas are scattered through his book. Tamas (dispersion, darkness, inertia; also mental vacuity) is a centrifugal force (pp. 22-28); and “Siva is the embodiment of tamas ... He is pictured as a boundless void, substratum of existence, and is compared to the silence and obscurity that we experience in deep dreamless sleep when all mental activity ceases” (pp. 190-191). Shiva is compared to many things - including the simpleton (Bhola). It is precisely his rejection of conventional well-doing that marks out the divine Simpleton as an advanced model, for “from the point of view of spiritual achievement, where action is the main obstacle, sattva is the lower state, that which binds with the bonds of merit and virtue, tamas is the higher state, that of liberation through nonaction.” (p. 26). See also pp. 118, 124, 136, 138, 196, 201; 214-215; 282; 295; 296; 301; 309; 322-323; 325; 364-65; 382.
DAS, Veena (1977) Sufferings, theodicies, disciplinary practices, appropriations. International Social Science Journal 49: 553-572.
Reviews some difficulties experienced by sociologists, among other social scientists, in giving appropriate weight and meaning to the realities of everyday suffering by individuals, and to those people's sense of their own suffering and its religious or other meanings, with examples drawn from Asia and Africa (while considering the theoretical framework of Europeans such as Weber, Clastres, Durkheim, Marx, and more recent views from Ramphele, Levinas, the Kleinmanns, and Diana Eck).
DAS V & Addlakha R (2001/2007) Disability and domestic citizenship: voice, gender, and the making of the subject. Public Culture, 13 (3), pp. 511-531. Reprinted in B Ingstad & SR Whyte (eds) (2007) Disability in Local and Global Worlds, 128-148. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Discussing facial disfigurement (pp. 512-521), a case history is given of a young woman, Mandira, whose marriage took place privately, and was followed by rumours that her suitor had been bewitched by 'dangerous magical rites' so that he failed to notice her disfigurement. Five years later the husband died, and some relatives felt that Mandira and her parents had been suitably punished for their trickery. Yet a cousin's wife understood the matter differently. Rather than the religious practitioner having “cast a veil over the husband's capacity to see and judge, as alleged by others -- perhaps he had lifted a veil and allowed Mandira's husband to see her as she truly was, penetrating the surface appearance, as it were.” One of the authors comments, “This was the one occasion on which I found a complex citation of cosmological ideas about beauty and ugliness that mediated the way in which the social norms were articulated. Hindu mythology and iconography are replete with examples in which the capacity to behold beauty truly, to overcome feelings of repulsion and terror at the sight of that which is ugly and terrifying, is the sign of the true devotee.”
DASEN, Veronique (1993) Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece. Oxford: Clarendon.
Revised D.Phil. thesis, heavily referenced, based on iconography and medical and archaeological evidence. Concludes (pp. 246-48) that positive attitudes towards dwarfs in Egypt during c. 3000 years, and a much shorter period in Classical Greece, were followed by adverse views and behaviour in Hellenistic and Roman periods. Influences on attitudes towards dwarfs, deformity and disability in lands 'between' Egypt and Greece may be guessed at, but are not here treated.
DAS GUPTA, Tamonash Chandra (1933, 1937) Dayaram's Sarada-Mangal. Journal of the Department of Letters, University of Calcutta 23 (1933): 1-30, and 29 (1937) 31-81.
Exposition and translation of a Bengali poem, which incidentally contains “valuable information regarding the condition of education in Bengal” probably dating from the 17th century. The poem concerns a hyperactive, attention-disordered prince who is unable to learn anything at school, despite twelve years of efforts to teach him; also the efforts of five princesses to get some education. The situation is resolved, with the aid of Saraswati, goddess of Learning and Wisdom.
DE JONG, Albert (1997) Traditions of the Magi. Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature. Leiden: Brill.
An extended introduction and discussion appears, on the main trends and major difficulties in constructing an evidence-based history of Zoroastrianism. Mention is made of the custom of segregating or secluding people having serious diseases or disabilities, such as leprosy, in a specific place or shelter, called the armest-gah (pp. 240-243). There may also have been some disposal of elderly and infirm people, though De Jong is cautious about exaggerations by distant historians (444-445). There is evidence that men serving in the armed forces, and contracting a serious illness or disabling condition, were set apart in an open place, and provided with a stick, water, and a little food. While they had some strength, they could keep off the wild animals with the stick; but unless they returned quickly to health, the dogs would finish them off. Some did survive and returned home, but were feared and shunned until they had been through an exorcism ceremony (232-233, 239-242, 444-446).
DENNIS, James S (1899) Christian Missions and Social Progress. A sociological study of foreign missions. 3 vols. Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier.
II: 384-87 surveys a wide range of late 19th century South Asian disability work by 'benevolent natives' as well as by missionaries, with references to articles in missionary periodicals. II: 388-89 briefly reviews work by missionaries for blind people in Persia, Turkey, Syria and Egypt (see also photo, III: opp. 524, and literature for blind people, III: 211-12). II: 433-47 surveys leprosy missions across Asia. Dennis is often heavily patronising, yet gives a useful summation of mission efforts for 'social progress' during that century.
DESAI, Prakash N (1988) Medical ethics in India. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 13: 231-255.
Broad-minded overview principally of ethics in the Hindu medical tradition, from Vedic sources onward. Sketches some features of historical and current medical practice, and approaches to a few specific problems, including abortion.
DESSIGANE R, Pattabiramin PZ & Filliozat J (1960) La legende des jeux de Siva à Madurai, d'après les textes et les peintures. 2 vols. Pondichéry: Institut Français d'Indologie.
This French version of the Tiruvilaiyatarpuranam describes the 64 'games' of Shiva in Vol. I, based on 16th century Tamil text, with paintings in Vol. II. The story appears in Section 57 (I: pp. 88-92) of how Shiva was enraged when his wife Minakshi failed to pay full attention to his learned lecture on the Vedas, and condemned her to rebirth in a fisher caste. Their two sons, Subrahmanya (Murukan) and Ganesha reacted by throwing Shiva's books into the sea. He promptly cursed Subrahmanya to become “fils d'un marchand et qu'il serait muet” (p. 89) [This would mean that he was mute, but not necessarily deaf.] Later Shiva sets about rehabilitating his family. Sect. 55: 1-14 (I: pp. 85-86) tells of a talent contest among poets, who ask Shiva to be judge. He recommends that the merchant's remarkable son (i.e. Subrahmanya, or Murukan) be the judge. The poets ask how such a judge can give his verdict, since he is mute. “Le Dieu danseur leur dit que le fils du marchand hocherait la tête en signe d'approbation” (p. 86), so the contest goes ahead with the dumb boy judge giving his verdict by nods and signs.
DETTWYLER KA (1991) Can paleopathology provide evidence for “compassion”? American Journal of Physical Anthropology 84: 375-84.
Found in Iraq, 'Shanidar I' was a male dating to the Middle Palaeolithic period, who lived 30 to 45 years. Injuries indicate that his right arm was paralysed, and he was probably blind in one eye. The remains of this disabled Neanderthal have stimulated imaginative reconstructions of his supposed life (and the lives of some comparable cases), which Dettwyler suggests are unscientific and probably based on modern misconceptions about disabilities.
DHARMASUTRAS. The Law Codes of Apastamba, Gautama, Baudhayana, and Vasistha, transl. Patrick Olivelle (1999), Oxford UP.
New translation of some Ancient Indian law codes, with a useful index. See bald, blind, body, childlessness, deaf, dumb, eunich, hermaphrodite, impotent, insanity (and mental retardation), inheritance of legally incompetent, sick, etc. For example, Apastamba 2.26.10-17 (p. 70): “The following persons are exempt from taxes: vedic scholars, women of all classes, pre-pubescent boys, those who are living in someone's house for the purposes of study, ascetics devoted to the Law, Sudras who are personal servants, people who are blind, dumb, deaf and sick, and those who are excluded from acquiring property.” See below: Institutes of Vishnu; Manu; Sacred Laws.
DIAMONDOPOULOU AH, Diamondopoulos AA & Marketos SG (1995) Four different ways of philanthropic aid to the blind in medieval Eastern Christendom. Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics 15: 609-613.
Various curative and welfare provisions were made for blind and other disadvantaged people by the Byzantine State from the 4th century onward.
DICKSON HRP (1949) The Arab of the Desert. A glimpse into Badawin life in Kuwait and Sau'di Arabia. London: George Allen & Unwin. 648 pp.
Based on field notes from 1929 to 1936. Mentions a range of attitudes to social and communal responsibility. Among a Beduin family, Dickson asked about a “very old blind man ... huddled in the corner. 'He is no relation of ours,' the woman said, 'but he has lived with us for four years now. We found him in Kuwait, blind and uncared for, and with no one to look after him, so we brought him out here and have looked after him ever since. He is one of our own tribe and we must do this for the honour of our tribe.'” They had fixed a piece of fishing line from the tent to a peg 80 yards away, “'for the old man to follow when he wants to relieve himself at night; we fear he might get lost should we all be asleep and not hear him calling, so now he goes out and comes back safely by himself, holding on to the cord'” (p. 289). The blind man played a role as “leader of the family prayers” (p. 30), and other ceremonial occasions (p. 142). Elsewhere, Dixon noted a different “fate of the old and decrepit: the man or woman no longer of use to the master because of physical disability. These poor folk are given their freedom, outwardly no doubt to salve the hypocritical conscience of their master, and to conform to the injunctions of the Prophet, but in actual fact they are no longer worth their keep. They are thus forced to go on the streets and beg for a precarious living. It is true that many decent families, to their great honour, go on clothing and feeding their worn-out slaves until they die, but I think that in the majority of cases, giving slaves their freedom goes hand in hand with stopping their allowance of food and clothing” (p. 500).
DIKEN, Ibrahim H (2006) Turkish mothers' interpretation of the disability of their children with mental retardation. International Journal of Special Education 21 (2) 8-27. http://www.internationalsped.com/documents/02Diken.doc
Thirteen Turkish mothers, each identifying herself as Muslim and having at least one child with mental retardation, participated in the study by semi-structured interview. The children's disability was attributed by them to a mixture of causes or origins. While bio-medical causation was identified by all, “they also constantly highlighted various religious causal agents ... Fate and God were underlined as causal agents by almost half of the mothers.” Evil spirits, spells, and folkloric superstitions were also mentioned. Several had taken advice from religious agents, i.e. local holy men.
The DINKARD. The original Pahlavi text; the same transliterated in Zend characters; translations of the text in Gujerati and English languages; a commentary and a glossary of select terms. [Vol. III, English transl. Ratanshah Erachshah Kohiyar], ed. Peshotan dastur Behramjee Sanjana, 1874-1928, Bombay. 19 vols.
The “Dinkard” (now more often shown as Denkard or Denkart), compiled in 9 books (of which the first two are missing) in the 9th or 10th century CE, a range of practical and ancient knowledge of the Zoroastrian religion. Book 3, chapter 110 (translated in Sanjana edition Vol. III), differentiates people of good or of bad conduct, predicting the joy of paradise for the former and punishment for the latter, also some intermediate positions for those of mixed conduct. Two distinctions are made of capacity for moral responsibility: “Children under eight years of age, and men without intelligence, are harmless and safe (from hell). Every child not being of age and small in proportion, and imbecile men, owing to want of intelligence, do not deserve to be punished, and their souls, in addition to being saved from hell, are destined to return to the Khorshedpaya (paradise).” Book III of the “Denkart” has also been translated to French by Jean de Menasce, 1972.
DODGE, Bayard (1974) Al-Azhar. A Millennium of Muslim Learning. Memorial edition, Washington DC: Middle East Institute.
Blind youths are found studying the Qur'an at Al-Azhar Mosque, Cairo, from as early as the 12th century up to the 20th (pp. 44, 86-87, 101, 165, 206. A special hostel was built for them by Osman Katkhuda in the early 1730s. The sheikh in charge was customarily a blind man. (See Makdisi, below).
DOLS, Michael (1983) The leper in Medieval Islamic society. Speculum 58: 891-916.
Detailed scholarly discussion of social aspects of leprosy and other disabilities in the history of Islam. Dols found that although Muslims had ambivalent views and beliefs about leprosy, the Qur'an had nothing comparable to the Levitical separation laws which profoundly affected both Jewish and Christian attitudes towards people with leprosy.
DOLS M (1987) Insanity and its treatment in Islamic society. Medical History 31: 1-14.
Brief mention of 'fools and idiots'.
DOLS M (1992) Majnun: The madman in Medieval Islamic society. (ed. DE Immisch). Oxford: Clarendon.
Comprehensive and scholarly work on the topic, extensively referenced. Comparatively little specifically about idiocy, but records of 'strange behaviour' were often not differentiated by 'modern' categories. Dols reviews madness from medical, magical/religious, social and legal viewpoints, with great detail, documentation and insight.
DONIGER, Wendy (1999) Splitting the difference. Gender and myth in Ancient Greece and India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ranges through a wide spectrum of myth and religious belief, in some of which disability, deformity or mutilation is of importance, or is invested with psychoanalytic significance. See index, e.g. beheading, blindness, eunuchs, feet, kliba, mutilation, etc.
DOUGHTY, Charles (1921) Travels in Arabia Deserta. 2nd edition, 2 vols. Cambridge UP.
Detailed account of Syrian/Arabian travels between 1875 & 1878, and of life, survival and death among Bedouin and settled populations. Frequent mention of disease (e.g. I: 254-58, 314-16; 617-18; II: 4-5), for which Doughty sometimes offered treatment; and of people with disabilities, especially visual impairment (e.g. I: 42, 527, 547-48, II: 308, 343, 347-48, 358, 380-81, 383, 408-413, 441) and mental problems (e.g. I: 498; II: 14, 276, 287-88, 293, 298, 384, 437), but also some deaf or physically disabled people (e.g. I: 222; II: 8, 30, 48-49, 67, 82, 302, 328, 358, 410, 466). Not all are listed clearly in the extensive index. [Doughty's views about the people among whom he lived and travelled were sometimes perceptive, sometimes affectionate or compassionate; but could also be coloured by the knowledge that some of the people thought it would be good to kill him, for the sake of religion.]
DURRANI, Muhammad Akhtar (1963) Islamic teachings pertaining to blindness. In: ILD Grant (ed) Handbook for Teachers and Parents of Blind Children in Pakistan. A Seminar Report, 77-80. Lahore: Ilmi Press.
Brief text, passionately asserting the right of blind people to take part in ordinary, everyday life, and to receive education and earn their living on the same terms as anyone else. The blind Muslim is required to perform religious duties, no less than anyone. Further, “there is no place for segregation in Islam”, and “absolutely no provision for begging in Islam”. God “creates as He wishes”, and it is not permissible for any Muslim to “find fault with God's creation”. The prophet Muhammad was reminded of that, in the sura on the blind man. Aisha was rebuked by Muhammad when she “passed remarks about the short statured wife of the Prophet”.
DUTT, Nalinaksha (1993) Great women in Buddhism. In: S Madhavananda & RC Majumdar (eds) Great Women of India, 253-74. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama.
Two notable women described here are Khujjutara, Queen Samavati's hunchbacked maid, who became a famous teacher of the Way of the Buddha (pp. 269-70); and Vishaka, who walked slowly to shelter from the rain, while her companions ran; her reason being to avoid the risk of injury, “inasmuch as a grown-up unmarried girl with a broken limb was like a broken water-pot, to be thrown away.” (p. 271)
EBIED, Rifaat Y (1971) Bibliography of Medieval Arabic and Jewish Medicine and Allied Sciences. London: Wellcome Institute for History of Medicine. 150 pp.
Bibliography of 1,972 items in Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and a few other languages. (Arabic and Hebrew titles are given in original language and script, with translation to English; those in Russian, Hungarian, Turkish etc are transliterated, with translation). A few items seem to have direct relevance to disability; many more of them provide useful background. Indexes of authors and subjects, pp. 137-150.
EBRAHIM, Abul Fadl Mohsin (1991) Abortion, Birth Control & Surrogate Parenting. An Islamic Imperative. Indianapolis: American Trust Publications.
Includes consideration of abortion on grounds of “deformities” (pp. 86-89).
EDHI, Abdul Sattar (as told to Tehmina Durrani) (1996) A Mirror to the Blind. An autobiography. Islamabad: Natl Bureau of Publications. 388 pp.
Maulana Edhi has been Pakistan's best known front-line social worker, serving and strengthening the poor, the injured, the mentally ill and the downtrodden, while denouncing bureaucrats and resisting attempts by powerful people and organisations to co-opt his work or incorporate him in their empires. As a boy in the 1930s, in a small town near Bombay, he learnt to be charitable toward those who were disabled or destitute, and to defend mentally disturbed people against street bullies (pp. 27-29). One of his ambitions was to “build a village for the handicapped” (p. 34). Years later, living in Karachi, Edhi and his wife Bilquise ran a kind of community asylum for mental distressed or disabled people, among many other activities (pp. 222-28, 237-38). Maulana Edhi takes an enchantingly robust view of Islam. He has bulldozed his way through any 'supposedly Muslim' law, custom or ritual that might be cited against doing the work that clearly needed to be done. If any person or viewpoint was preventing the poor and needy from getting their bread and standing on their own feet, then that person or viewpoint could not be any part of Islam that Edhi would recognise. Naturally he earned the wrath of the puritanical, the image-conscious, the suspicious and the bureaucratic. Edhi has swatted them away as though they were flies on one of the thousands of corpses he personally has retrieved and given burial to.
ELGOOD, Cyril (1951) A Medical History of Persia and the Eastern Caliphate from the earliest times until the year 1932. Cambridge UP.
This and Elgood's later work (1970) contain many incidents and references pertinent to disabilities, and range much beyond Persian boundaries.
ELGOOD C (1962) Tibb-ul-Nabbi or Medicine of the Prophet being a translation of two works of the same name. I.- The Tibb-ul-Nabbi of Al-Suyuti II.- The Tibb-ul-Nabbi of Mahmud bin Mohamed al Chaghhayni together with introduction, notes & a glossary. Osiris XIV: 33-192.
The work by As-Suyuti occupies pp. 48-177. See notes on disability references below, under As-Suyuti. Elgood notes (pp. 42-43) Suyuti's reputation for recounting unreliable traditions.
ELGOOD C (1970) Safavid Medical Practice or the practice of medicine, surgery and gynaecology in Persia between 1500 A.D. and 1750 A.D. London: Luzac.
ELWORTHY FT (1912) Evil Eye. In: J Hastings (ed) Encyclopaedia of Religion & Ethics (1908-1926). Edinburgh: Clark.
Belief in the Evil Eye and use of protective amulets were common in Arab lands. Connection was also made between the evil eye and hunchbacks or visually impaired people.
ENCYCLOPEDIA of Disability ed. G Albrecht et al (2005). Thousand Oaks: Sage. 5 vols.
A significant number of entries concern disability, deafness, religion and belief directly or indirectly, in the Middle East and South Asia, e.g. Cosmologies of Morality and Origin (by KB Selim); Disability in Contemporary India (Anita Ghai); Judaism (AJ Lubet); Religion (W Gaventa & C Newell); South Asian archetypes (KB Selim). Relevant material appears in some brief biographies, e.g. Abu 'l-`Ala al-Ma`arri; William Cruickshanks; Didymus the Blind; `Ata Ibn Abi Rabah; Taha Hussein; Ibn Al-Athir; Ibn Sirin; Ibn Umm Maktum; William Jackson; Khujjuttara; Jane Leupolt; Michael IV; William Moon; Mir Nasiruddin Harawi; Pandita Ramabai; Virjananda Saraswati. Volume 5 entirely comprises source texts (in English translation), some being from historical literature or from the scriptures of the major religions (e.g. the Torah, the Avesta, and Christian texts).
EL EZABI, Shereen (1995) Al-Naysaburi's Wise Madmen: introduction. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, No. 14, pp. 192-205.
Naysaburi, a well-known theologian and Qur'anic scholar lived at Nishapur, Persia, and died c. 1015. His short book on the 'wise mad' (`Uqala' al-majanin) first discusses the concept and terminology of madness (jinna), then gives more than 100 reports about mad people. Ezabi translates the first chapter, placing the wise/mad people within the purposes of Allah who has created people with some “contradictory qualities”, linking strengths and weaknesses, sickness and health, and the vicissitudes of life. Prophets who spoke the word of Allah, shaking up the normal ways of human living, have always been considered mad, but Allah has vindicated them. Examples are given from the life of the prophet Muhammad. Real folly is the inability to discern and practice right conduct. The madman is he who “builds for his worldly life and wrecks his life in the hereafter”. From the 'case histories', Ezabi gives excerpts on Bahlul, a renowned 'fool', portrayed as something of a simpleton, heedless of self-care and formal knowledge, yet holding to some higher truths.
EVLIYA Efendi [Evliya Celebi] (transl. 1834, reprint 1968) Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the seventeenth century. Transl. from Turkish by Joseph von Hammer. London: Oriental Translation Fund. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation. (Two vols bound as one).
The famous Turkish Muslim traveller Evliya was a deeply religious man, and noted matters of religious interest, throughout his travels in Turkey, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor and North East Africa. He has some notes on simpletons, saint-fools, dwarfs, mutes and freaks at Istanbul and elsewhere; e.g. I (i): 64-65, 114-15, 149, 174-75, 180; I (ii): 21, 25-29, 45, 80-81, 115-19, 240-41; II: 141-42. Thoughts of the father of a boy with huge hydrocephalic head at Shin Kara Hissar in 1647, II: 207-208.
FAHD, Toufy & Hammoudi, Muhammad (1975) L'enfant dans le droit islamique. Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 35 (Part I): 287-346.
Reviews the legal incapacity of minors, and the extent of the child's legal responsibility, in the early centuries of Islam (issues which had implications for the status of people with cognitive disabilities).
FALK, Ze'ev W (1972, 1978) Introduction to Jewish Law of the Second Commonwealth. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill.
Part I has a few passing references, e.g. p. 29 (He who sets fire by the hand of a deaf-mute, an imbecile or a minor...”, i.e. who takes advantage of the legal non-liability of people in these categories); also p. 100; and pp. 123 (inability of “deaf-mutes, lunatics and minors” to testify in court). Part II gives a more detailed review of the legal capacities of “Deaf-mutes, Idiots and Minors” (pp. 256-258), and suggests a progressive removal of the legal 'disability' under which they suffered. Thus, “A deaf-mute may communicate by signs and be communicated with by signs ... in matters concerned with movable property. (M Gittin V 7)”.
FAROOQI, Yasmin Nilofer (2006) Traditional healing practices sought by Muslim psychiatric patients in Lahore, Pakistan. International Journal of Disability, Development & Education 53: 401-415.
Adult psychiatric patients in public hospitals at Lahore reported their contacts with a variety of traditional healers (Pirs, Aamils, hakims, magicians, palm readers, and others). The healing practices are listed as homeopathy; Unani Tibb (or naturopathy); faith healing (using Islamic prayers, Qur'anic texts, and amulets); sorcery or black magic; and combinations of methods. The religious-cultural background of Pakistan is explained in some detail, with positive commentary on Islamic worship and religious practice as aids to mental health (pp. 402-405). It is admitted that 'modern' psychiatric care is accessible and affordable to a small fraction of those needing it, while the traditional healers offer some help at modest cost to the majority of the population.
FELDMAN, David (1986) Deafness and Jewish law and tradition. In: JD Schein & LJ Waldman (eds) The Deaf Jew in the Modern World, 12-23. New York: Ktav.
FRIEDENWALD, Harry (1944) The Jews and Medicine. Essays. 2 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins.
Includes extensive “Bibliography of Ancient Hebrew Medicine”, pp. 109-145, listing c. 700 items mostly published since 1600, in German, Latin, French, English, Hebrew, and Italian. Partial annotation indicates specific attention given by some authors to disabling conditions.
GHALY, Mohammad (2005) Islam en Handicap: theologisch perspectiven. Theologisch Debat 2 (3) 20-23.
GHALY, Mohammad MI (2006) Writings on disability in Islam: the 16th- century polemic on Ibn Fahd's al-Nukat al-Ziraf. Arab Studies Journal (Fall 2005 - Spring 2006), pp. 9-38.
While focusing a particular controversy, on the issue whether an author had illegitimately drawn attention to prominent people having physical impairments and exposed them to ridicule, the author usefully sketches and comments on a much wider range of Arabic literature in which people with impairments and disabilities appear for various purposes, e.g. juristic rulings and comic anecdotes, from the 9th century CE onward.
GLUCKLICH, Ariel (1984) Laws for the sick and handicapped in the Dharmasastra. South Asia Research 4: 139-152.
Detailed analysis, making apparent some of the rationale behind the laws.
GODRON, Gérard (1991) Healings in Coptic literature. In: AS Atiya (ed.) The Coptic Encyclopedia, pp. 1212-1214. New York: MacMillan.
Based on a listing (not shown) of “some 120 miraculous cures from Coptic texts”, Godron takes a mildly sceptical view, noting that many of the ailments are of a nebulous, possible psychosomatic nature. (See Meinardus, below).
GONDA, Jan (1980) Vedic Ritual. The non-solemn rites. Leiden: Brill
Amidst detailed discussion and comparison of Vedic rites, some concerned with disability appear, e.g. pp. 34, 138, 292 (epilepsy); p. 48 (possibility of sign language); p. 97 (repugnant appearance of amputee); p. 147 (walking stick for elderly or weak person); p. 193 (list of disability categories); p. 195 (exclusions from priestly office); p. 265-266 (disabled or misshapen; deformities as portents); p. 273 (modified ordeal procedure for “children, the disabled and women”); p. 293 (oblations for making up bodily defects); 366 (footnote); 382; pp. 278-279, 387 (avoiding defective brides); p. 397 (substitute marriage, for disabled people); p. 401-402 (some general comments).
GRANEK M (1975) La concept de la folie dans la société juive traditionelle. Thèse, doctorat en médicine, Paris.
GRANEK M (1976) Le concept de fou et ses implications dans la littérature talmudique et ses exegeses. Annales medico‑psychologiques, 3 (1) 17‑36.
Based on doctoral studies, Granek discusses cases from a wide talmudic literature to indicate: (1) the criteria, the characteristic observable behaviours, by which rabbinic minds found 'la folie' (madness, mental disability) present in persons; with some consideration also of epilepsy, and the comparable situation of children and deaf or deaf-mute people (i.e. persons generally deemed to have a diminished responsibility, maturity, and legal standing). (2) The legal, social and religious implications of madness, e.g. invalidity of financial actions taken by mentally disabled people, responsibilities of the community towards them, participation in marriage, divorce and religious ceremonies.
GRECO R & Antoniotto A (1988) Medical and anthropological observations on traditional therapy of hydrocephalus in Somalia. In: Annarita Puglielli (ed) Proceedings of the Third International Conference of Somali Studies, 231-235. Rome: Il Pensiero Scientifico Editore.
Eleven cases of hydrocephalus in young children were treated in hospital at Mogadishu by modern medical methods. Interviews were conducted with relatives, and also some traditional doctors. Children showing signs of hydrocephalus were first taken to a religious practitioner for traditional therapy using Qur'anic verses worn as amulets, or where the ink has been dissolved in water; secondly, a traditional Somali doctor used red-hot wooden sticks to produce small burns on the scalp. The aim of both procedures was to drive away the evil spirit believed to be causing the head swelling.
GREGORY of Nazianzus (c. 370) Oration 14. On Love for the Poor. Transl. M Vinson (2003) St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Select Orations, pp. 39-71. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press. [Greek title: Peri philoptOkias. Latin: De Pauperum Amore. Gregorii Theologi, pp. 855-910 (JP Migne, Patrologiae, Series Graeca, Paris, 1885).]
Sermon 14 was written in the context of the construction, 368-372 CE, of a cluster of hospital and care buildings, by Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, possibly the earliest extended Christian establishment for people with leprosy and other serious disabilities (though preceded by a smaller institution built by Eustathios of Sebasteia, c. 357). Vinson (p. xv) notes some “rivalry between pagans and Christians over the delivery of social services” at the time. Gregory wrote partly in a spiritualising mode i.e. we are “all poor and needy where divine grace is concerned”, and our “leprosy of the soul” needs healing. Yet he specifically addressed physical conditions and social exclusion. People with leprosy “are deprived of the opportunity to work and help themselves acquire the necessaries of life; and the fear of their illness ever outweighs any hope in their minds for well-being ... Besides poverty, they are afflicted with a second evil, disease, indeed, the most abhorrent and oppressive evil of all and the one that the majority of people are especially ready to label a curse. And third, there is the fact that most people cannot stand to be near them, or even look at them, but avoid them and are nauseated by them, and regard them as abominable, so to speak. It is this that preys on them even more than their ailment: they sense that they are actually hated for their misfortune ... human beings alive yet dead, disfigured in almost every part of their bodies, barely recognizable for who they once were or where they came from; or rather, the pitiful wreckage of what had once been human beings.” (Vinson, transl., pp. 44-45). Gregory described further their exclusion from homes, streets, markets, even from sources of water. He contrasted the comfortable (but deceptively temporary) life of himself and his hearers, and demanded a compassionate practical response toward the suffering of fellow humans.
GRIERSON, Sir George A (transl. 1935) The Test of a Man being the Purusha-Pariksha of Vidyapati Thakkura. London: Royal Asiatic Society.
15th century treatise on character, including 'An Exposition of Intelligence' pp. 39-68, with tales of No-Wits, Born Boobies, and Boobies by Association.
HAHN F (1890) The leper question in India. Harvest Field, 3rd series, I: 241-246.
Apart from discussing leprosy issues and his asylum at Lohardagga, Chota Nagpur, Rev. Hahn (of Gossner's Evangelical Lutheran Mission) wrote that in 1886 he established an asylum “for epileptics, syphilitics, and all kinds of people suffering from loathsome and incurable diseases. Only such patients are admitted as have no one to care for them. Most have been picked up in the streets or country roads, and very few have been able to walk there unassisted” (pp. 242-243). [This seems to be one of the earliest formal welfare activities in India focusing people with epilepsy, a condition associated with spirit possession, and still provoking adverse public reactions.]
HAGRASS, Heba (2006) Definitions of disability and disability policy in Egypt. In: C Barnes & G Mercer (eds) The Social Model of Disability: Europe and the Majority World, 148-162. Leeds: Disability Press.
Mainly descriptive of current concepts and features of impairment and disability in Egypt. Hagrass points out (pp. 154-55) that the “charitable response to disability”, while it may be questioned by campaigning groups in western countries, is perceived as quite appropriate in Islamic countries where religious belief is a major factor in the social context, the practice of Islam prompts individuals to give regularly on a charitable basis, and for many needy people there is no organised alternative source of welfare provision.
HAJ, Fareed (1968) Major causes of visible disability in the medieval Near East. Doctoral thesis, New York University, School of Education. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1972.
Haj embarked on his studies after working as “an itinerant teacher for the blind in a Galilean Arab community”, helping visually impaired children to enrol in ordinary village schools. He found some blind children already casually integrated in remote schools. This caused him to look further into the cultural roots of this unexpected tolerance. (See next item).
HAJ F (1970) Disability in Antiquity. New York: Philosophical Library.
Focus on Islamic Middle East, 632-1258; mostly on blindness, physical disabilities, and their causation. “Just as deafness was hardly ever mentioned in the literature of the period, so it was that mental retardation was neglected in Arabic writings.” (p. 163) Style is more popular and anecdotal than academic. Lists (pp. 177-182) some material from Safadi's dictionary (see below).
HALLO, William W (1968) Individual prayer in Sumerian: the continuity of a tradition. Journal of the American Oriental Society 88: 71-89.
Comments, pp. 77, 79, on the letter-prayer of a physically disabled woman, to the goddess Nintinugga, asking for healing. (See next item).
HALLO WW (1969) The lame and the halt. Eretz-Israel 9: 66-70.
(See previous item). Philological discussion of terms in Sumerian, Akkadian etc, focusing on the proverb “in the city of the lame, the halt is courier” and showing evidence of differentiation between levels of physical disability in the Old Babylonian period.
HAMDY, Sherine F (2005) Blinding ignorance: medical science, diseased eyes, and religious practice in Egypt. Arab Studies Journal 13 (1) 26-45.
Discusses literary and biographical evidence on the efforts of reformers in the Islamic world to move from traditional toward scientific approaches to public health and biomedicine in the 19th and 20th centuries, using the example of eye disease and treatment in Egypt.
HAMILTON GL (1912) La source d'un épisode de Baudouin de Sebourc. Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 36: 129-159.
The convoluted career, in many language versions, of a legend on how Moses got a speech impediment. As an infant he was shown to Pharaoh. Placed on the monarch's lap, he pulled his crown off and threw it down (or maybe pulled Pharaoh's beard). Courtiers, aghast, debated this ominous act. A test was proposed. The babe was shown two basins. One held a glowing coal, the other a jewel. He reached for the jewel, but an angel guided his hand to the hot coal, which stuck to his hand. Putting his hand to his mouth for comfort, lips and tongue were also burnt; hence the speech impediment.
HARBOUN H (1974) La folie dans la tradition hébraique. Thèse doctorat en psychopathologie, Sorbonne.
HESS JP and Wollstein S (1964) The attitude of the ancient Jewish sources to mental patients. Israel Annals of Psychiatry 2: 103‑116.
El-HESSEN, Souraya S (2006) Disabilities. Arab States. In: S Joseph et al (eds) Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, III: 98-99.
Brief outline of historical disability, and the social roles of disabled women in the modern Middle East.
HEWLETT, Sarah Secunda (1898) “They Shall See His Face.” Stories of God's Grace in work among the blind and others in India. Oxford: Alden. 183 pp.
This 19th century work of impassioned advocacy for Christian work with blind people in India gives considerable detail of the lives and spiritual progress of many blind children and adults who received training at St Catherine's Hospital, Amritsar between 1886 and 1897, with some photographs. (Hewlett was the hospital manager and leading missionary). It also records the reception of a blind 10-year-old girl into an ordinary school of Lahore, and her education integrated with sighted children, c. 1872. That girl, Asho, grew up to become a Christian convert and the main teacher of other blind people at the Amritsar school (pp. 44-54). Hewlett noted sadly that the evangelistic work in which she herself and fellow missionaries engaged in the zenanas (women's quarters in households) was often thwarted by “the presence of a blind woman-teacher who was exerting that powerful influence over the superstitious Bibis” (p. 12). These blind Indian women had received some training in Islam and had memorised much of the Qur'an (and in other places, the Hindu sacred texts). Their occupation was to give religious teaching to women in their homes, which Hewlett found they had done so effectively that her own teaching of Christianity was strongly resisted. (This is a rare piece of evidence for what was apparently quite a widespread role of Indian blind women, both Muslim and Hindu). [Hewlett wrote in a partisan and sometimes offensive way about major religions other then her own, but was a keen and compassionate observer of blind Indian people.]
HEYD, Uriel (1973) Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law. Edited by VL Ménage. Oxford: Clarendon. xxxii + 340.
Introduction, translation, detailed annotation and extensive discussion of Islam-based criminal law codes from the 15th century and later, together with their administration. Various disabling punishments were prescribed for serious offences; see index: 'mutilation', also 'bodily harm', diyet. People with leprous diseases were to be isolated (pp. 120, 303).
HINNELLS, John R (1999) Health and suffering in Zoroastrianism. In: JR Hinnells & R Porter (eds) Religion, Health and Suffering, 1-22. London: Kegan Paul International.
Useful introduction to both ancient and modern Zoroastrian beliefs about health and suffering, though disability as such is hardly mentioned. (Some chapters are listed separately, e.g. Conrad, above; Leslie, Sachedina, Singh, Wujastyk, Bray, below).
HINNELLS J, Boyce M & Shahrokh S (1992) Charitable Foundations, ii. Among Zoroastrians in Islamic times. Encyclopaedia Iranica V: 382-385.
Brief review of Zoroastrian charitable work in Islamic Persia and in India, which benefited orphans, widows, disabled people and the poor in general. During the earlier 20th century, the problems of pauperising the poor became more evident, and some efforts were redirected to removing the causes of poverty.
HOLDEN, Lynn (1991) Forms of Deformity. Journal for Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 131. Sheffield: JSOT Press.
Revised doctoral thesis. A curious and repetitive motif-index of bodily abnormality, deformity or disability referred to in Jewish literature, commentary and legend from antiquity to 12th century, across a wide area of the Middle East.
HULSE EV (1975) The nature of biblical leprosy. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 107: 87-105.
Hulse reviewed medical, historical and palaeopathological evidence from which it was “clear that biblical 'leprosy' is not modern leprosy” (i.e. not the condition produced by Mycobacterium leprae), whether in the Hebrew or the Greek texts held sacred by the Christian Church. Confusion has arisen from the use of various terms for a range of skin diseases, which may share some (but not other) symptoms with modern leprosy. Several diseases are discussed that might have given rise to the visible manifestations described in the Hebrew book of Leviticus.
HUSAYN, Taha (1971-1973) al-Ayyâm. 3 vols. Cairo: Dâr al-Ma`ârif. Vol. 1 transl. EH Paxton (1981) An Egyptian Childhood. Washington: Three Continents Press. Vol.2 transl. H Wayment (1948) The Stream of Days. London: Longmans. Vol.3 transl. K Cragg (1976) A Passage to France. Leiden: Brill.
Famous autobiography of the earlier years of a blind Arab Muslim who became one of Egypt's outstanding 20th century literary figures and modernisers. After his experiences as a blind child memorising the Qur'an, and later education at modern universities in Cairo and France, his understanding of Islam also underwent some modernisation. (See Malti-Douglas, 1988, below)
IBN KHALDUN. The Muqaddimah. An introduction to history, transl. F Rosenthal (1958), 3 vols, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
A few points about disability occur in this famous work. Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) listed four agreed conditions for the Caliph. One stated that “Freedom of the senses and limbs from defects or incapacitations such as insanity, blindness, muteness, or deafness, and from any loss of limbs affecting (the imam's) ability to act, such as missing hands, feet, or testicles, is a condition of the imamate, because all such defects affect the (imam's) full ability to act and to fulfil his duties. Even in the case of a defect that merely disfigures the appearance, as, for instance, loss of one limb, the condition of freedom from defects (remains in force as a condition in the sense that it) aims at perfection (in the imam).” (I: 395-396). He noted ironically that people very well acquainted with the charitable requirements of Islam often failed to make any connection with their own personal conduct (III: 39-40). Among his comments on education, he saw the problems of starting children on an inappropriately advanced and restricted curriculum (III: 303-304). Clearly some experiential knowledge of learning abilities, stages and difficulties was in written circulation.
IBN KHALDUN. The Muqaddimah, transl. F Rosenthal, abridged and edited by NJ Dawood, with new introduction by BB Lawrence (2005). Princeton UP.
See annotation of previous item. In this abridged edition, the quotation on the fourth necessary condition for the Caliph appears on pp. 158-159. See also p. 86, for a great 14th century Muslim scholar's appraisal of the spiritual capacity of imbeciles: “Among the adepts of mysticism are fools and imbeciles who are more like insane persons than like rational beings. None the less, they deservedly attain stations of sainthood and the mystic states of the righteous. The persons with mystical experience who learn about them know that such is their condition, although they are not legally responsible. The information they give about the supernatural is remarkable. They are not bound by anything. They speak absolutely freely about it and tell remarkable things. When jurists see they are not legally responsible, they frequently deny that they have attained any mystical station, since sainthood can be obtained only through divine worship. This is an error. The attainment of sainthood is not restricted to the correct performance of divine worship, or anything else. When the human soul is firmly established as existent, God may single it out for whatever gifts of His He wants to give it. The rational souls of such people are not non-existent, nor are they corrupt, as is the case with the insane. They merely lack the intellect that is the basis of legal responsibility.”
IBN KHALLIKAN. Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, 4 vols (1842-1871), transl. Baron Mac Guckin de Slane, Paris, for Oriental Translation Fund.
13th century collection of 865 biographies of well-known Muslims through six centuries, many also giving incidental information on lesser known persons. Over 100 entries mention some disability, often recorded in a nickname (e.g. II: 3, 10, 'broken-tooth', 'the one-handed', 'the club-footed'). Some became learned men in spite of childhood disabilities; others became disabled in old age. Many entries have anecdotes involving disability, and the Islamic context is omnipresent. See e.g. I: 83-86, Thalab, a deaf scholar who died in a traffic accident; I: 191-92, the proverbially stupid Ijl; I: 633, academic fraud at the expense of a blind scholar; I: 662-667, Abu'l-Aswad Ad-Duwali could hardly walk but knew he must appear in public or be forgotten; II: 32-36, Sharaf ad-Din ibn Abi Usrun and a debate on whether a judge could continue work after becoming blind (cf IV: xiv, refusal of office to a deaf judge); II: 132, Abu Hashim al-Jubbai's son, a simpleton; II: 203-205, Ata ibn Abi Rabah, a notable black lawyer at Mekka, who could use one eye, one arm and one leg; II: 425-37, al-Faiz al-Obaidi, a child ruler suffering epileptic fits; II: 513-14, Katada ibn Diama as-Sadusi, a learned blind man who “used to go from one end of Basra to the other without a guide”; II: 551-54, Majd Ad-Din Ibn al-Athir, who had reasons for wishing to remain disabled; II: 586-89, Muhammad Ibn Sirin, a highly esteemed law lecturer with impaired hearing; III: 269, an early writing prosthesis; III: 459, grief of Muwarrij as-Sadusi on losing his sight; IV: 379-85, Ibn as-Saigh, a teacher known for his patience with slow learners; IV: 416, notes on some Arabic disability terms.
A contemporary of Ibn Khallikhan was Muzaffar ad-Din (1154-1233), known as Kukuburi, ruler of Arbela (Iraq) from 1191. Among many welfare institutions, Kukuburi built “four asylums for the blind, and persons with chronic distempers: these were always full, with all things requisite for their wants”. An unusual detail was that “every Monday and Thursday he visited these establishments and entered into all the chambers”, giving gifts, asking how people were, “conversing affably with the inmates and jesting with them so as to soothe their hearts.” (vol. II: 535-43). Ibn Khallikan's own family had received many benefactions from this ruler, but he emphasized that he had witnessed all the humanitarian work of Kukuburi, and “avoided even the slightest exaggeration”.
See also: Vol. I: 12, 39, 66, 88-89, 94, 95-96, 119, 155, 185, 188, 193, 254-55, 317-18, 329, 353, 396, 398, 405, 409, 434, 438, 457-58, 487-88, 496-97, 507, 510-11, 547, 575, 576, 587-88, 635, 641, 651-55;
Vol. II: 6, 37, 65-66, 87, 118, 125, 127, 144, 149, 186, 191-92, 199, 201, 205, 216-18, 245, 272-73, 290, 325-26, 333, 341, 347, 365, 375, 379, 398, 405-10, 414, 415, 421, 439, 465, 484, 492-94, 498-99, 503, 543, 521, 562, 596, 602, 617, 632, 669, 677, 679.
Vol. III: 3, 23, 25-26, 32, 33, 36, 40, 56-61, 92, 162-63, 175-76, 268-69, 312-13, 322-33, 327, 346, 366-67, 391, 413, 415, 434-37, 446-49, 501, 504, 510, 533, 535, 567, 598-99, 614, 623-24 (a rather rude reference), 627, 642, 644-45, 650, 677.
Vol. IV: 34-35, 68, 120, 138, 154-55, 178-79, 197, 199, 200-203, 275, 300, 304, 330-31, 356-59, 386, 397, 415, 427, 434, 473-74, 563.
IBN KHALLIKAN. Ibn Khallikan's Wafayat al-A'yan wa Anba' Abna' al-Zaman (M de Slane's English Translation). Ed. S Moinul Haq (1961-1968). 7 vols, Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society.
See previous item. (Reprint, making Ibn Khallikan more accessible; also editing out some doubtful passages; but organised in a substantially different order, so comparison cannot be done quickly).
IBRAHIM, Gindi Effendi (1932) Work among the blind in Egypt. Moslem World 22: 276-282.
The blind author, who worked initially as a teacher at the Zeitoun blind school, gave some historical background mentioning blind schools begun at Alexandria in 1896 and at Zeitoun in 1901. It was customary for blind Muslims to earn a living by “reading the Koran in private houses, in shops and in the streets” [by 'reading', presumably Ibrahim means 'reciting from memory']. Also the blind Copts “have been used to chant in the churches, as chanting is a very old custom in the orthodox churches, especially in Egypt. Very few of these blind Copts, except in the large cities, earned enough in this way to secure a comfortable living.” In 1921, Ibrahim learnt to weave carpets, and then began teaching other blind men to read and write, and some handicraft skills. In 1925, he came in contact with “one of the blind sheikhs at El Azhar University”, and discovered that this man had no knowledge of Braille. Ibrahim then began teaching twelve blind people at the Azhar, and the numbers grew to 90 in 1927. He was now teaching blind Muslims at one place, and blind Christians elsewhere. Some suspicions arose when Ibrahim, himself a Christian, used some Bible material while teaching the sheikhs. However he persevered with work in several blind schools and a training workshop at Cairo, for both Muslims and Copts.
ILCHMAN WF, SN Katz & EL Queen (eds) (1998) Philanthropy in the World's Traditions. Bloomington: Indiana UP.
Collection of well-referenced chapters presents motives and practices of philanthropy in various religious traditions, e.g. L Anderson on philanthropy in South Asia (pp. 57-78); AWP Guruge & GD Bond on Theravada Buddhism (79-96); LS Kawamura on Mahayana Buddhism (97-106); SA Arjomand on the Islamic world (109-132); M Juergensmeyer & DM McMahon on Hindu philanthropy (263-278); GC Kozlowski on modern Muslim philanthropy (279-308). Little directly on disability, but many of the more positive social attitudes are implicit in philanthropic practices.
The INSTITUTES of Vishnu (1880) transl. Julius Jolly, SBE 7. Oxford: Clarendon.
Early compilation of law, having much in common with Manu (see below), with growth and accretions from commentaries over time. The king had a duty to appoint “pious persons for performing acts of piety (such as bestowing gifts on the indigent, and the like)” (p. 15) [[Bk III: 17]; and to “protect the property of minors, of (blind, lame or other) helpless persons (who have no guide), and of women (without a guardian)” (p. 20) [III: 65]. Among penalties for verbal insults, “If a man is blind of one eye, or lame, or defective in any similar way, and another calls him so, he shall be fined two Karshapanas, though he speaks the truth” (p. 28; cf p. 225) [V: 27; LXXI: 2]. Mutilating punishments were prescribed for crimes or injuries deemed serious (e.g. pp. 27, 31-32, 36). Modifications were laid down for people with specified impairments, illness or infirmity, and for women, where a case would be decided by physical ordeal (e.g. pp. 54-57) [IX: 23 to X: 13]. Inheritance law provided that, “Outcasts, eunuchs, persons incurably diseased, or deficient (in organs of sense or actions, such as blind, deaf, dumb, or insane persons, or lepers) do not receive a share. They should be maintained by those who take the inheritance. And their legitimate sons receive a share”, (p. 64) [XV: 28-34]. (By this law, people with disabilities, and their heritors, were not cut off from the benefit of extended family properties, but were relieved from the duty of managing it as long as they lacked capacity to do so, or were believed to lack capacity).
Men are recommended not to marry a woman with disease or impairment of body or conduct (p. 107; also 222) [XXIV: 12-16; LXIX: 17]. Crimes in a previous life entail punishments, followed by incarnation in the bodies of animals, and then being born as a human being with marks indicating the crime, e.g. “a criminal in the highest degree shall have leprosy ... a stealer of words, dumbness ... a stealer of horses, lameness ... the stealer of a lamp, blindness ... a usurer becomes epileptic” [etc] XLV: 1-33 (pp. 147-49). While on a journey, some sights are auspicious while others are ill omens. One should turn back, on seeing someone “intoxicated, or insane, or deformed ... or dwarf”, etc (p. 201) [LXIII: 34-35].
The INSTRUCTION of Amenemope. (BM Papyrus 10474.) English transl. M Lichtheim (1976) Ancient Egyptian Literature. A Book of Readings. Vol. II: The New Kingdom, 146-63. Berkeley: University of California Press.
c. 1100 BC. Ch. 2: 1 “Beware of robbing a wretch, of attacking a cripple”. Ch. 25: 8-12 “Do not laugh at a blind man, nor tease a dwarf, Nor cause hardship for the lame. Don't tease a man who is in the hand of the god [i.e. ill or insane]...”
Al-ISSA, Ihsan (ed) (2000) Al-Junun: mental illness in the Islamic world. Madison, CT: International Universities Press, Inc. xv + 382 pp.
Substantial collection of well-referenced modern chapters on mental illness, with contributions on religion and historical topics (Al-Issa, pp. 3-70 ); Forensic psychiatry and Islamic law (K Chaleby, 71-98); Algeria (Al-Issa, 101-119); Kuwait & Qatar (MF El-Islam, 121-37); Iran (F Mehrabi et al, 139-61); Malaysia (MZ Azhar & SL Varma, 163-86); Pakistan (Mubbashar, 187-203); Saudi Arabia (A Al-Subaie & A Alhamad, 205-233); and various types of illness and their treatments in Arab and Muslim cultures.
Al-ISSA, I (2000) Does the Muslim religion make a difference in psychopathology? In: I Al-Issa (ed) Al-Junun: mental illness in the Islamic world, 315-53. Madison, Conn.: International Universities Press.
The author discusses his question at length and in detail, and with a fairly impartial attitude, noting the problems of differentiating causal factors in mental illness or in its remedies. He finds that insufficient research has been reported in Muslim countries for any clear conclusions to be drawn.
JACKSON AVW (1938) The personality of Mani, the founder of Manichaeism. Journal of the American Oriental Society 58: 235-40.
Supposed representations of Mani or Manes, c. 216-276 CE, are discussed, with consideration of the tradition noted by al-Nadim (writing c. 987 CE) that Mani was lame in both legs or in his right leg. That tradition would be supported by retranslation of a term in the Pahlavi Denkart (3.200, 1-13) (see Dinkard, above), applying the term 'broken' or 'crippled' to Mani (see below, al-Nadim, Fihrist, pp. 773, 794).
Al-JAHIZ (Abu Othman Amr bin Bahr). Al-Barsan wal-Argan wal-Umyan wal-Hawlan [The Lepers, the Lame, the Blind, and the Squinting], ed. Abdel-Salam Haroun (1998). Cairo.
Al-Jahiz (776-868) was a prolific, influential and notably ugly writer with 'goggle eyes' (jahiz), at Basra (now in Iraq), whose work has been much quoted across the Arab world. Here, according to Michael Dols, he discussed “physical infirmities such as skin disorders, lameness, paralysis, and deafness and personal characteristics such as baldness, leanness, and ugliness.” His aim was to show that “physical infirmities and peculiarities do not hinder an individual from being a fully active member of the Muslim community or bar him from important offices. Al-Jahiz maintained that physical ailments are not social stigmas but are what may be called signs of divine blessing or favor.” (M Dols, 1983, The leper in Medieval Islamic society. Speculum 58: 891-916, on p. 901)
Despite his own experience of negative public reactions, al-Jahiz in one of his better-known works, 'The Wonders of Creation', wrote harshly about social aspects of deafness. Apart from the deaf person's loss of music, “People are bored in his company and he is a burden on them. He is unable to listen to any of the people's stories and conversations. Though present it is as though he were absent, and though alive it is as if he were dead.” (quoted by F. Haj, Disability in Antiquity, q.v., p. 159). See next items. Another commentator notes that “Al-Barsan wal-Argan...” is among the most difficult works by Jahiz, and its topic is practically unique in historical Arabic literature. (There does not seem to be an English translation available at present).
Al-JAHIZ. Kitab al-Hayawan. ed. Harun, Cairo. In: C Pellat (1969) The Life and Works of Jahiz, transl. (from French, 1967) by DM Hawke. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
From the book of Animals, IV: 404-405. “Theologians say that your dumb man is deaf: his inability to speak is due not to any malformation of the tongue, but to the fact that having never heard sounds, articulated or otherwise, he does not know how to produce them. Not all deaf people are completely dumb, and there are also degrees of deafness.” (p. 164). [Gives examples of loud noises that some deaf people can hear.] “Others can hear words if spoken in their ear, but otherwise they hear nothing, even if the speaker raises his voice; if the speaker positions himself so that the sound goes right into their ear, they understand perfectly, whereas if he speaks just as loudly into the air, the sound of his voice not being concentrated and conducted along a canal into the brain, they do not understand.”
JAIN, Jagdish C (1947) Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons. Bombay: New Book Company.
Diseases and treatment, including various disabilities, from Jaina sources (pp. 178-81). People with disabilities, including mental retardation, are excluded from joining religious orders (194). See Tattvartha Sutra, below; also next two items).
[JAINA Texts] Gaina Sutras translated from Prakrit, transl. Hermann Jacobi, 2 vols, (1884 and 1895), SBE 22 & 45, Oxford: Clarendon. [The SBE series used an italicised 'G' in place of 'J', for certain reasons. Here 'Gaina' has been reinserted in the normal alphabetical order for convenience.]
- The Akaranga Sutra (in vol. I), from perhaps the 5th century CE, gave instruction for a holy and harmless life. Impairment and disability appear, e.g. “with the deterioration of the perceptions of the ear, eye, organs of smelling, tasting, touching, a man becomes aware of the decline of life” (vol. I: p. 15) [Bk I (2) 1]. Fruits of wrong acts in earlier lives are: “Boils and leprosy, consumption, falling sickness, blindness and stiffness, lameness and humpbackedness, Dropsy and dumbness, look! apoplexy (?) and eye-disease, trembling and crippledness, elephantiasis and diabetes, These are the sixteen diseases enumerated in due order; besides them many illnesses and wounds occur.” (I: 54) [Bk I (6) 1.] Yet right-minded people should take care to use inoffensive words when meeting anyone with such conditions. They “should not talk of them in this way: 'He has got boils or leprosy, etc [adding the terms shown above]; his hand is cut, or his foot, nose, ear, lip is cut.' For as all such people, spoken to in
