Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (20 page)
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Authors: Khaled El-Rouayheb
BOOK: Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800
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Some of the explicatory comments appended to the poetry are short and do not specify the identity of the beloved boy or the other characters involved, except of course the poet himself. Examples of such comments are: “he said of a boy with a mole on his cheek...” or “a boy greeted him with a rose, so he said ...”
112
In such cases, the suggestion that the comments are themselves fictional, and were not intended by authors (or believed by readers) to depict actual occurrences or liaisons, may not be too outrageous. However, the explicatory comments are often much more detailed and specific than that, and to construe them as literary fictions that made no truth-claims is wildly implausible. It is difficult to believe that Jabarti
would have said that his friend Isma
ʿi
l al-Khashsha
b fell in love with and composed love poetry of a young handsome scribe working for the French during the brief Napoleonic rule of Egypt unless he in fact believed, or wanted his readers to believe, that this was true. The biographer Muh
ibbi
would hardly have specified that the verses of Ibra
hi
m al-Batru
ni
were said of the handsome young Fathallah ibn al-Nah
h
a
s, or that Khafa
112
In such cases, the suggestion that the comments are themselves fictional, and were not intended by authors (or believed by readers) to depict actual occurrences or liaisons, may not be too outrageous. However, the explicatory comments are often much more detailed and specific than that, and to construe them as literary fictions that made no truth-claims is wildly implausible. It is difficult to believe that Jabarti
would have said that his friend Ismaʿil al-Khashshab fell in love with and composed love poetry of a young handsome scribe working for the French during the brief Napoleonic rule of Egypt unless he in fact believed, or wanted his readers to believe, that this was true. The biographer Muhibbiwould hardly have specified that the verses of Ibrahim al-Batruniwere said of the handsome young Fathallah ibn al-Nahhas, or that KhafaOther books
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