Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (62 page)
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Authors: Khaled El-Rouayheb
BOOK: Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800
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In the literary anthology of the Ottoman Grand Vizier Raghib Pasha (d. 1763), a discussion of the martyrs-of-love tradition follows immediately after the extract from Mulla Ṣadra
ʾs sympathetic exposition of the nature of the Platonic love of boys. Scholars who were positively inclined toward chaste pederastic love, such as Hasan al-Bu
ri
ni
and ʿAbd al-Ghani
- al-Na
bulusi
, also referred to the tradition, and may be assumed to have thought that it applied to the love of boys.
144
ʾs sympathetic exposition of the nature of the Platonic love of boys. Scholars who were positively inclined toward chaste pederastic love, such as Hasan al-Buriniand ʿAbd al-Ghani- al-Nabulusi , also referred to the tradition, and may be assumed to have thought that it applied to the love of boys.144
Composing pederastic love poetry, far from being considered to be
liwa
t,
was actually permitted by most jurists of the period. This was the conclusion of Ḥanafi
and Sha
fiʿi
jurists who discussed the issue.
145
Their verdict was that love poetry of a boy or a woman was permissible, as long as his or her identity was not specified. The following statement is from an authoritative handbook of Sha
fiʿi
law glossed by the Egyptian scholar Ahmad al-Qalyu
bi
(d. 1658):
liwa
t,was actually permitted by most jurists of the period. This was the conclusion of Ḥanafi
and Shafiʿijurists who discussed the issue.145
Their verdict was that love poetry of a boy or a woman was permissible, as long as his or her identity was not specified. The following statement is from an authoritative handbook of Sha
fiʿilaw glossed by the Egyptian scholar Ahmad al-Qalyubi(d. 1658):It is permissible to say or recite poetry, and to listen to it, except if it involves defamation or obscenity or portraying a specified (
muʿayyanah
) woman, or a specified (
mu ʿayyan
) youth [Qalyu
al-tashbi
) is a craft and the aim of the poet is to produce attractive discourse, not the verisimilitude of what is mentioned.
146
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