Maznah Mohamad is Honorary Fellow and former Associate Professor of the Department of Malay Studies at the National University of Singapore. Her authored books include The Divine Bureaucracy and Disenchantment of Social Life: A Study of Bureaucratic Islam in Malaysia (2020) and Feminism and the Women's Movement in Malaysia (2006). Syahirah Rasheed has a PhD in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore. She has an MA in development studies (International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam), specialising in women, gender and development. Her research fields are in medical anthropology, sexual and reproductive health, and feminist epistemology.

Sexuality and Islamic Spirituality in Early Malay Writings offers a fresh, interdisciplinary lens on Malay literature, uncovering ties between sexuality, spirituality, and gender. By challenging patriarchal narratives and illuminating female sexuality's spiritual dimensions, it redefines Islamic studies, gender discourse, and literary analysis-a must-read for anyone exploring religion, history, and human experience.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsBy way of a prologue: Zulaikha the Paragon of Women's Passion in IslamI. Passion1. Passionate Spirituality Through a Sensuous “Feminine” Beloved2. Reclaiming Eroticism from, and Reading Spiritualism into Animal PoetryII. Paradise3. The Kitab Jimak: A Manual on the “Science of Women” and Paradise on Earth4. The Path to Pleasure is Orderly, and not One of Careless Abandon5. A Vaginal Viewpoint: “Orgasm is Half of What to Expect in Heaven”III. Propriety6. Syariah Poetics on the Essentials of Marriage, Flawless Sex and a Pure Body7. The Chaste Body at the Cusp of 20th-Century ModernityBy Way of an Epilogue: Zawiyah the Paragon of Women's Passionlessness in IslamBibliographyContributors

Maznah Mohamad is Honorary Fellow and former Associate Professor of the Department of Malay Studies at the National University of Singapore. Her authored books include The Divine Bureaucracy and Disenchantment of Social Life: A Study of Bureaucratic Islam in Malaysia (2020) and Feminism and the Women's Movement in Malaysia (2006). Syahirah Rasheed has a PhD in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore. She has an MA in development studies (International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam), specialising in women, gender and development. Her research fields are in medical anthropology, sexual and reproductive health, and feminist epistemology.

Sexuality and Islamic Spirituality in Early Malay Writings offers a fresh, interdisciplinary lens on Malay literature, uncovering ties between sexuality, spirituality, and gender. By challenging patriarchal narratives and illuminating female sexuality's spiritual dimensions, it redefines Islamic studies, gender discourse, and literary analysis-a must-read for anyone exploring religion, history, and human experience.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsBy way of a prologue: Zulaikha the Paragon of Women's Passion in IslamI. Passion1. Passionate Spirituality Through a Sensuous “Feminine” Beloved2. Reclaiming Eroticism from, and Reading Spiritualism into Animal PoetryII. Paradise3. The Kitab Jimak: A Manual on the “Science of Women” and Paradise on Earth4. The Path to Pleasure is Orderly, and not One of Careless Abandon5. A Vaginal Viewpoint: “Orgasm is Half of What to Expect in Heaven”III. Propriety6. Syariah Poetics on the Essentials of Marriage, Flawless Sex and a Pure Body7. The Chaste Body at the Cusp of 20th-Century ModernityBy Way of an Epilogue: Zawiyah the Paragon of Women's Passionlessness in IslamBibliographyContributors