During the Mongol lecture last week, we viewed a picture of the Khan family tree. However, there was a clear absence of daughters in the tree. I was curious about whether Genghis Khan truly didn’t have any daughters or if they were omitted from the family tree. As it turns out, he did have daughters. I found a book titled, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire, that discusses these influential women. While I haven’t had the chance to read the book in its entirety, I briefly skimmed the introduction and learned some interesting things. During class, The Secret History of the Mongols was cited as one of the most important and influential sources about Genghis Khan and his empire. In the introduction of the book on his daughters, the author mentions through oversight or malice, the section of The Secret History that recorded the words of Genghis Khan and gave shape to the governments that followed his death had been tampered with. The sentence before the mutilated text reads, “Let us reward our female offspring.” The preceding text bestowed various rewards upon Genghis Khan’s male relatives. It is thought that the destroyed information was meant to relay similar information towards his female offspring. The author goes on to mention how the names of influential Khan women have been deliberately struck from history. The purpose of the book is to restore the missing stories of these erased women.
Author: abbytank
During the lecture on 2/20, we discussed the practice of Ramadan and the exceptions/exclusions that are permitted. I was curious about whether or not pregnant women also participated in Ramadan. My mother is an OB/GYN, so I thought it would be interesting to research more about the topic. I found a really interesting cross-sectional study conducted in 2008 on 353 females in Pakistan. The study examines the concepts and practices of maternal fasting during pregnancy in Pakistani Muslim women. I found it interesting that most women still fast during their pregnancy.
Here is the link if you’d like to learn more!
In class on Tuesday, we discussed the discovery of what many consider one of the oldest surviving fragments of the Qur’an. Here is a video that gives a brief overview of the discovery and a link to the University of Birmingham’s website page about the manuscript.