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Authors: Khaled El-Rouayheb
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The Damascene scholar Hasan al-Būrīnī excused himself from an invitation to a banquet with wine, in the following words:
As for what you have indicated of the words of AbūNuwas, and of following his way and drinking the cup [of wine], that would have been accepted if the house of youth was still inhabited...but after the coming of gray hair, and the omen from the world to come, there is no possibility of touching the daughter of the vine.
3
The supposition that young adults were more liable to sin was even enshrined in canonical sayings attributed to the Prophet. According to one such
ḥadīth,
“He [i.e., the Prophet] used to repeat the maxim: Islam and graying hair should be restraint enough for a person.”
4
According to another saying: “God is impressed with the youth (
al-shābb
) who is devoid of passion
(sabwah)”;
commentators explained that this was because young men were by nature particularly susceptible to concupiscence.
5
Michael Rocke, in his impressive study of homosexual behavior in Renaissance Florence based on particularly rich court records, found that the great majority of cases brought before the authorities involved a teenage boy and a young man in his twenties or early thirties.
6
The same pattern may very well have existed in the urban centers of the Middle East in the period between 1500 and 1800.
ḥadīth,
“He [i.e., the Prophet] used to repeat the maxim: Islam and graying hair should be restraint enough for a person.”
4
According to another saying: “God is impressed with the youth (
al-shābb
) who is devoid of passion
(sabwah)”;
commentators explained that this was because young men were by nature particularly susceptible to concupiscence.
5
Michael Rocke, in his impressive study of homosexual behavior in Renaissance Florence based on particularly rich court records, found that the great majority of cases brought before the authorities involved a teenage boy and a young man in his twenties or early thirties.
6
The same pattern may very well have existed in the urban centers of the Middle East in the period between 1500 and 1800.
The correlation between attitudes and social groups or generations can, however, be pushed too far. A significant number of people, perhaps the majority of urban males, seem to have been receptive to all three ideals and could, depending on context, shift between the various cultural perspectives. Indeed, the perspectives were not necessarily mutually exclusive. It was consistent to conceptualize the active and the passive sodomite in fundamentally different terms and believe that the latter was more contemptible than the former; to tolerate and even value chaste pederastic love; and to condemn transgressions of religious law, particularly those that were flagrant and habitual. The point is not that the various ideals were in principle irreconcilable, though certain individuals might claim that they were. But neither was their coexistence unproblematic, and a particular reconciliation could be questioned or challenged. Issues that were particularly controversial, in light of the delicate balance of ideals, appear to have been the relationship between passionate love and sexual desire; and the extent to which poetry reflected personal experience.
The present study started with what appeared to be a chasm between a “practice” that tolerated homosexuality and a “theory” that condemned it. It ends with an emphasis on the multiplicity of ideals that coexisted in the Arab-Islamic world in the early Ottoman period. A survey of the literature of the period—historical, belletristic, or religious—indicates a complex and variegated reality; a reality that cannot be adequately captured by notions of “tolerance” contra “intolerance,” or “ideal” contra “practice.” The people of Damascus reacted in two opposing ways to the rape of the womanizing Druze chieftain, and to indications that one of their major religious dignitaries had committed sodomy. The scholar and chronicler Jabartī mentioned with sympathy the refined pederastic love affair of his friends, while condemning the “vulgar” for pursuing handsome youths (presumably for less refined motives) during the saints’ fairs of Egypt.
7
Such apparent contradictions were not simply cases of inconsistency or irrationality. Similarly, an adult man who courted handsome youths was not simply failing to conform to ideals in practice, but was living out other, independent ideals. He might even, with some reason, claim that he was not contravening the precepts of religion.
7
Such apparent contradictions were not simply cases of inconsistency or irrationality. Similarly, an adult man who courted handsome youths was not simply failing to conform to ideals in practice, but was living out other, independent ideals. He might even, with some reason, claim that he was not contravening the precepts of religion.
An approach that stresses the various strands or perspectives that are available to members of a culture may also be useful for understanding the development of attitudes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A detailed account of the ways in which attitudes have changed—or remained unchanged—in the modern period remains to be written, and the following remarks are not intended to be more than a tentative sketch that will hopefully be fleshed out by future research.
8
8
Between the middle of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth, the prevalent tolerance of the passionate love of boys was eroded, presumably owing—at least in part—to the adoption of European Victorian attitudes by the new, modern-educated and westernized elite. It has already been mentioned that the Egyptian scholar Rifāʿah al-Ṭahṭāwī (d. 1873),who studied in Paris from 1826 to 1831, noted that the French disapproved of the pederastic themes in Arabic literature, and accordingly changed the gender of the beloved when translating from Arabic into French. Significantly, he endorsed their position, presenting his readers with an argument that he had apparently—witness the analogy with the new European phenomenon of ‟electricity”—heard in Paris:
They consider this [the love of boys] to be an example of moral corruption, and they are right. And this is because each gender inclines toward a distinct property possessed by the other gender, just as magnets have distinct properties that attract iron or electricity has distinct properties that attracts things, and so forth. Thus, when the genders are the same the distinct properties are absent, and [the attraction] becomes unnatural (
kharaja ʿan al-hālah altabī ʿiyyah
).
9
Another influential nineteenth-century Arab author who adopted the Victorian European disapproval of pederastic themes in Arabic literature was the Lebanese Protestant Butrus al-Bustānī(d. 1883).In his three-volume work
Udabāʾal- ʿarab
,one of the first modern literary histories of Arabic, he distinguished between two trends in early Arabic love poetry: the chaste love poetry of the bedouins and the “dissolute” love poetry of the townspeople. He wrote that the eighth-centuryAD saw the strengthening of the latter trend:
Udabāʾal- ʿarab
,one of the first modern literary histories of Arabic, he distinguished between two trends in early Arabic love poetry: the chaste love poetry of the bedouins and the “dissolute” love poetry of the townspeople. He wrote that the eighth-centuryAD saw the strengthening of the latter trend:
The second became more widespread and gained more adherents, and they invented a new type of it, reflecting the extent of depravity to which they had sunk, and this type is what is called “the love poetry of the male” (
ghazalal-mudhakkar).
The reason for its emergence was the mixing of Arabs with the rich non-Arabs, and the great number of slave boys from Turkish, Daylamite, and Byzantine areas.
10
Bustānīclearly did not believe that there could be anything other than depravity and moral corruption in this poetic theme. In his chapter on the famous libertine poet Abū Nuwās (d. ca.815), he repeatedly alluded to the poet’s “sick and depraved” character, and to the fact that his “dissolute self turned him away from proper love.”
11
Otherwise, Bustānī hardly dealt with the topic at all. One would not suspect from his literary history that there was a millennium-old tradition of chaste Arabic love poetry of boys in the
ʿudhrī
style. As was the case in Victorian Europe, the idealization of passionate love was for Bustānīstrictly confined to the love of women.
11
Otherwise, Bustānī hardly dealt with the topic at all. One would not suspect from his literary history that there was a millennium-old tradition of chaste Arabic love poetry of boys in the
ʿudhrī
style. As was the case in Victorian Europe, the idealization of passionate love was for Bustānīstrictly confined to the love of women.
To be sure, attitudes did not shift overnight. Nineteenth-century Egyptian poets such as Muhammad Shihab al-Dīn(d. 1857), SālihMajdīBey (d. 1881),and ʿAbdallah Fikrī(d. 1889) continued to compose love poetry of boys.
12
Even the famous
fin-de-siècle
poet Hāfiz Ibrāhīm (d. 1932) composed shorter love poems of handsome young men.
13
In 1908,it was still possible in Cairo to publish a fifteenth-century work devoted entirely to love poetry of boys, entitled
Jannat al-wildān fī al-hisān min al-ghilmān,
which roughly translates as “The Paradise of Boys: On Handsome Youths.”
14
A fourteenth-century work in rhymed prose describing a man’s passionate love for a boy,
Lawʿat al-shākī wa dam ʿat al-bākī
(“The Plaints of the Lovelorn and Tears of the Disconsolate”) was repeatedly printed in Cairo between 1857 and 1929.
15
However, it apparently ceased to be printed after the latter date, and it would seem that tolerance of the theme was quickly being eroded in the first decades of the twentieth century.
12
Even the famous
fin-de-siècle
poet Hāfiz Ibrāhīm (d. 1932) composed shorter love poems of handsome young men.
13
In 1908,it was still possible in Cairo to publish a fifteenth-century work devoted entirely to love poetry of boys, entitled
Jannat al-wildān fī al-hisān min al-ghilmān,
which roughly translates as “The Paradise of Boys: On Handsome Youths.”
14
A fourteenth-century work in rhymed prose describing a man’s passionate love for a boy,
Lawʿat al-shākī wa dam ʿat al-bākī
(“The Plaints of the Lovelorn and Tears of the Disconsolate”) was repeatedly printed in Cairo between 1857 and 1929.
15
However, it apparently ceased to be printed after the latter date, and it would seem that tolerance of the theme was quickly being eroded in the first decades of the twentieth century.
A very popular Arabic adaptation of Carl Brockelmann’s
Geschichteder arabischen Literatur,
by JurjīZaydān (d. 1914), first published in Cairo in 1911—14 and frequently reprinted, condemned the theme of boy love in classical and postclassical Arabic poetry. Zaydan briefly noted the appearance of pederasty as a cultural and literary phenomenon in the early ʿAbbasid period (i.e., the late eighth and ninth centuries), but obviously did not want to dwell on the theme. He wrote:
Geschichteder arabischen Literatur,
by JurjīZaydān (d. 1914), first published in Cairo in 1911—14 and frequently reprinted, condemned the theme of boy love in classical and postclassical Arabic poetry. Zaydan briefly noted the appearance of pederasty as a cultural and literary phenomenon in the early ʿAbbasid period (i.e., the late eighth and ninth centuries), but obviously did not want to dwell on the theme. He wrote:
As for AbūNuwas, there is in his Dīwān a special section devoted to descriptions of male youths, called “love poetry of males” (
ghazalal-mudhakkar
), containing around a thousand verses. We merely note its existence, deeming it inappropriate for the reader to look at this poetry. We have also passed over many events relating to the love poetry of boys, revealing the extent of depravity to which people had sunk. Neither education, nor manners, nor prominent position in the state prevented them from indulging in this ... After this period saying love poetry of male youths became an established genre of poetry.
16
In 1925,a history of Arabic literature designed for use in secondary and higher education in Egypt stated that love poetry of boys was “a crime against literature and a disgrace to the history of Arabic poetry.”
17
Ahmad Amīn,in a hugely influential multivolume history of the first four centuries of Islamic civilization published between 1928 and 1945(and frequently reprinted), also touched on the theme of the love of boys with disapproval. Discussing the tenth century AD, he noted:
17
Ahmad Amīn,in a hugely influential multivolume history of the first four centuries of Islamic civilization published between 1928 and 1945(and frequently reprinted), also touched on the theme of the love of boys with disapproval. Discussing the tenth century AD, he noted:
The greatest calamity to befall society was the love of boys, which was echoed in literature. AbūNuwas had hitherto been alone in the field, along with a few others, but in this period most poets would touch on the theme, and indulge init with reticence or wantonness... We even see a strange phenomenon, which is that prominent officials such as viziers and judges did not restrain themselves from an inordinate indulgence of the theme, which shows that the disapproval of public opinion had weakened, and it came to be considered an example of elegant wit and bawdy humor, except in conservative circles.
18
In 1930,a new edition of
The Arabian Nights
was published in Cairo. In general, it followed the older editions of 1835and 1890,but made some noteworthy omissions. For example, the few stories that related in a sympathetic tone of pederastic love affairs were quietly left out.
19
Two years later, a heavily expurgated version of the
Dīwān
of AbūNuwas was published in Cairo. By contrast to the earlier editions of 1898and 1905, it abandoned the traditional thematic organization of the poems. Thus, whereas the former editions had a section for love poetry of male youths (
ghazal al-mudhakkar),
the 1932edition did not. Indeed, it would be difficult to gauge from the editor’s introduction to the latter edition that AbūNuwas had said love poetry of youths at all.
20
The Arabian Nights
was published in Cairo. In general, it followed the older editions of 1835and 1890,but made some noteworthy omissions. For example, the few stories that related in a sympathetic tone of pederastic love affairs were quietly left out.
19
Two years later, a heavily expurgated version of the
Dīwān
of AbūNuwas was published in Cairo. By contrast to the earlier editions of 1898and 1905, it abandoned the traditional thematic organization of the poems. Thus, whereas the former editions had a section for love poetry of male youths (
ghazal al-mudhakkar),
the 1932edition did not. Indeed, it would be difficult to gauge from the editor’s introduction to the latter edition that AbūNuwas had said love poetry of youths at all.
20
It is probably in the 1940Sand ʿ5osthat the term
shudhūdh jinsī
began to be regularly used by Arab authors to refer generally to phenomena that had traditionally been distinguished, such as active pederasty, effeminate male passivity, the passionate love of boys, and sodomy. Exactly when the term was introduced is a question for further research. However, it does not seem to have been in common use in the early 1930s.The term does not appear, for example, in ʿUmarFarrūkh’s study of AbūNuwas, first published in 1932, even though the author discussed (disapprovingly) the pederastic theme in AbūNuwas’s poetry.
21
By contrast, a series of studies of the same poet published in the late 1940s and early 1950S all used the term,.
22
shudhūdh jinsī
began to be regularly used by Arab authors to refer generally to phenomena that had traditionally been distinguished, such as active pederasty, effeminate male passivity, the passionate love of boys, and sodomy. Exactly when the term was introduced is a question for further research. However, it does not seem to have been in common use in the early 1930s.The term does not appear, for example, in ʿUmarFarrūkh’s study of AbūNuwas, first published in 1932, even though the author discussed (disapprovingly) the pederastic theme in AbūNuwas’s poetry.
21
By contrast, a series of studies of the same poet published in the late 1940s and early 1950S all used the term,.
22
The term
shudhūdh jinsī
was obviously introduced to express the contemporary European concept of “sexual inversion” or “sexual perversion.”
23
The use of the constituent
term
jinsī in the sense of “sexual” was itself a terminological innovation, reflecting the influence of the new European concept of ‟sexuality.”
24
In premodern Arabic,
jins
meant “genus” or “kind,” and hence sometimes “biological sex” or “gender,” but not ‟sexuality.”
25
It is worth emphasizing that the new concept referred to something distinct from, and more pervasive than, the conscious desire for copulation. When in 1953the Egyptian critic ʿAbbās Mahmūd al-ʿAqqād argued that AbūNuwas was a “narcissist” rather than a ‟homosexual,” he did not want to imply that Abū Nuwas wished to copulate with himself. He defined “narcissism” in much broader terms, as an obsessive infatuation with, and inordinate love of, one’s own bodily features, which led the poet to fall in love with, and lust after, individuals with features resembling his own.
26
A man’s conscious desire to copulate with other men was analogously not essential to being afflicted with “homosexuality,” which Aqqād defined as “the inclination toward passionately loving members of one’s own sex rather than members of the opposite sex.”
27
A defender of the chaste love of boys prior to the twentieth century—such as ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī—could insist on the distinction between lust and passionate love, and argue that to conflate the two would be to “think ill”of others. Such an argument was much more difficult to sustain in a milieu that operated with the modern, nebulous notion of “sexuality.”
shudhūdh jinsī
was obviously introduced to express the contemporary European concept of “sexual inversion” or “sexual perversion.”
23
The use of the constituent
term
jinsī in the sense of “sexual” was itself a terminological innovation, reflecting the influence of the new European concept of ‟sexuality.”
24
In premodern Arabic,
jins
meant “genus” or “kind,” and hence sometimes “biological sex” or “gender,” but not ‟sexuality.”
25
It is worth emphasizing that the new concept referred to something distinct from, and more pervasive than, the conscious desire for copulation. When in 1953the Egyptian critic ʿAbbās Mahmūd al-ʿAqqād argued that AbūNuwas was a “narcissist” rather than a ‟homosexual,” he did not want to imply that Abū Nuwas wished to copulate with himself. He defined “narcissism” in much broader terms, as an obsessive infatuation with, and inordinate love of, one’s own bodily features, which led the poet to fall in love with, and lust after, individuals with features resembling his own.
26
A man’s conscious desire to copulate with other men was analogously not essential to being afflicted with “homosexuality,” which Aqqād defined as “the inclination toward passionately loving members of one’s own sex rather than members of the opposite sex.”
27
A defender of the chaste love of boys prior to the twentieth century—such as ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī—could insist on the distinction between lust and passionate love, and argue that to conflate the two would be to “think ill”of others. Such an argument was much more difficult to sustain in a milieu that operated with the modern, nebulous notion of “sexuality.”
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