The foetus and its legal status in Sunni Islamic law constitute the topic of this thesis. This topic was chosen due to two main reasons. First, it is a topic of great social relevance, particularly with regards to the issues of abortion, ensoulment and foetal rights. Second, it is a topic that has received scant scholarly attention. Indeed, we find that many scholars deal with issues related to the foetus such as inheritance, bequests and blood-money inter alia in their discussions of such issues. We do not find a work concentrating solely on the foetus, thereby gathering many rulings concerning it in a single oeuvre. Hence, given the current state of scholarship as well as the social relevance of the rulings concerning the foetus, this topic was chosen as the main theme of this thesis. / This thesis explores the different tools utilized by jurists to arrive at these rulings. It tackles the issues of conception, ensoulment, abortion and gestation before proceeding to the rulings concerning the foetus' parentage, inheritance and blood-money. In doing so, it resorts to fiqh books from the four Sunni schools of law. It argues that the foetus was recognized as a "person" under the law and that great effort was extended towards securing many rights in its favour.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.33868 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Badr, Yasmine. |
| Contributors | Hallaq, W. B. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Institute of Islamic Studies.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001873280, proquestno: MQ78985, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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