IMC 2026: Sessions

This session aims to investigate representations of Muslim women across medieval cultures in order to gather a corpus of cultural depictions of Muslim women so we can consider the range, creativity and fascination with which medieval writers imagined female Muslim figures. The papers proposed will cover a range of sources, from Persian literature and early Islamic chronicles to the sacred architectural landscape of Delhi. These papers will reveal the plurality and complexity with which medieval cultures imagined Muslim women. Key questions to be explored are: do Muslim women simply add entertainment and comedy to a given text or is there a greater significance and implication of their function/appearance in a text? How do depictions of Muslim women differ from, or relate to, depictions of male Muslim figures and/or non-Muslim women?

Recently, an increasing number of scholars consider the validity of applying modern theories of race and orientalism to the analysis of Muslims in medieval European texts. In line with this year’s theme, ‘Temporalities’, this session will open up a conversation about potential links and resonances between medieval and modern perceptions and representations of Muslim women as well as a comparison between European and non-European cultural depictions of Muslim women.