Sexual Ethics in Islam (17 page)

80 sexual ethics and islam

by or reported about respected members of society: literati, educated elites, and religious scholars.”
19
Another scholar states, more bluntly: “same-sex relations between men are ubiquitous in the medieval Arabo-Islamic textual universe.”
20
Khaled Al-Rouhayeb, insisting on nuanced readings of texts from dif- ferent genres, calls for close attention to the varieties and registers of competing discourses, allowing for some types of homoerotic desire and even activity to be celebrated, and others, including those resulting in penetration, to be condemned.
21

Although medieval Muslim sources give the impression that homoerotic desire and sexual activity of some type between males was a normal, if religiously illicit, part of elite Muslim life, there is comparatively little on female homoeroticism in Qur’an, hadith, or interpretive texts. Although literary and, to a lesser extent, legal texts include some discussion of sexual acts between women – usually
sihaq
or
musahaqa
, “rubbing” or “pounding” – most discussion of homoerotic acts focuses on male/male sexual activity.
22
Several factors contribute to the silence surrounding female same-sex activity. Perhaps the most important is simply that many legal effects of sex depend on penetration by a penis. In the few cases where sex between women is mentioned, the legal discussion revolves around what punishment, if any, is to be imposed by the authorities as well as whether compensation equivalent to dower must be paid if hymeneal rupture has occurred. Legal discussions of male/male sex acts, by contrast, never mention dower, focusing not only on punishment but also more mundane issues such as the necessity for ablutions after penetration and the possible impediments to marriage created by same-sex liaisons.
23

In any event, whatever textual sources reveal about the prevalence of same-sex intimate relations, the fact that some Muslims have engaged in homoerotic activities does not mean it is religiously legitimate to do so. For contemporary Muslims grappling with same-sex attractions, the key questions is not: what have (some) Muslims done? but rather: what may Muslims do? or, even more generally: what does“Islam”allow?
24
Some leave Islam entirely, while others choose to separate sexuality from religion, considering themselves Muslim but acknowledging

don’t ask, don’t tell 81

that their sexual acts or identities are not acceptable from a reli- gious perspective. Still others choose to actively grapple with religious precepts in order to attempt to reconcile a Muslim identity with a gay or lesbian one.

Bypassing Islamic legal thought (which, as will be seen below, does not seriously consider the possibility that any same- sex relationship could be lawful), such reconsideration usually begins with the Qur’anic discussion of male and female same- sex acts. There are numerous hadith of varying degrees of authenticity addressing
liwat
in a harshly condemnatory fash- ion; hadith collections also condemn lesbian acts on those rare occasions they mention them. Scholars interested in developing a framework of tolerance and acceptance for same-sex relation- ships usually ignore hadith entirely or address specific reports only to discredit their authenticity. The Qur’an itself becomes the basis for new interpretations, which again focus on male/ male sex. There is no consensus as to whether the Qur’an even mentions female same-sex activity. It might or might not be the subject of Surah 4, verse 15, which orders that, with the incrim- inating testimony of four witnesses,“those (fem. pl.) among your women who approach lewdness (
al-fahisha
)” are to be “con- fine[d] to houses until death claims them, or God ordains for them some (other) way.”
25
The precise relationship of the provi- sions of this verse to those on
zina
has been a topic for much debate. Does the verse “ordaining” flogging abrogate the one ordering confinement, or does this verse refer to a punishment for same-sex acts distinct from that for illicit sex between a man and a woman? This verse does not specify “two women,” which would have been possible using the dual form. Immediately fol- lowing, Surah 4, verse 16 also addresses illicit behavior, using the masculine/inclusive dual “two ... from among you.” As with all dual or plural masculine forms in Arabic, it can include both male and female, and there has been disagreement among com- mentators as to whether this verse refers to two men by contrast with the preceding verse, which specifies only females (though not two women), or a male-female pair, also grammatically pos- sible.
26
Male same-sex acts, however, are mentioned on several occasions in conjunction with the story of the Prophet Lot,

82 sexual ethics and islam

which is the constant referent for both classical and contempor- ary discussions of all same-sex sexual activity.

Contemporary scholars disagree sharply about the Qur’anic perspective on same-sex intimacy and desire as pre- sented in the Lot story. Duran presents the conventional view when he states that the Qur’an “is very explicit in its condemna- tion of homosexuality, leaving scarcely any loophole for a theo- logical accommodation of homosexuals in Islam.”
27
In contrast, Kugle argues that “the Qur’an does not address homosexuality or homosexuals explicitly[.]”
28
Rather, the sacred text (like the jurists’ writings) addresses particular acts, saying nothing about “identities” and very little about desires. The revisionist attempt to promote a new, more inclusive view of Qur’anic teachings on same-sex sexual acts, desires, and orientations relies on a dis- tinction between the Qur’anic condemnation of particular same-sex acts, in this case those of the townsfolk in the Lot story, and the possibility of divine acceptance of other forms of same- sex relationships.

In order to interpret the Lot story as something besides an “explicit ... condemnation of homosexuality,” scholars have used two main approaches. First, they have explored other aspects of the Lot story beyond the issue of same-sex acts. Second, they have argued that even if the acts were problematic, they were objectionable due to a factor other than those involved being of the same-sex. As to the first point, the commentarial tradition and conventional wisdom have erred, Amreen Jamal shows, by placing undeserved emphasis on sexual deviancy as the particular sin of Lot’s people.
29
Building on Jamal’s work by painstakingly assessing the work of several prominent pre- modern exegetes, Kugle demonstrates that “Word-for-word replacement in classical commentaries has given rise to the dubious equation of the divine punishment of Lut’s people with a condemnation of homosexuality and juridically enforceable punishments for same-sex acts.”
30
The transgressions of Lot’s community were far more extensive and far-reaching than sexual misconduct. Spiritual corruption has been reduced to sexual transgression, undeservedly narrowing the divine guidance contained in the stories of Lot’s people.

don’t ask, don’t tell 83

Although these scholars make a compelling case for understanding the sexual transgressions of Lot’s people in a larger context of disbelief and moral turpitude, I am less con- vinced by their suggestion, echoed by a number of advocacy groups, that the townsfolk’s behavior was objectionable not because they sought same-sex intercourse but due to other con- siderations including their lack of concern for Lot’s visitors’ consent.
31
The argument that the Qur’an objects not because the men in question sought same-sex intimacy but rather because they intended non-consensual violation rests on an assumption that consent is necessary for an ethical or lawful sexual relationship. However, elsewhere in the Qur’anic text, as with female captives (“what your right hands possess”), consent is not always relevant to the formation of licit sexual relation- ships. Further, Lot offers his daughters to the marauding towns- folk without any indication that their consent mattered.
32
The daughters’ lack of consent is quite striking, whether it is to simple paternally sanctioned sexual use by the would-be rapists or to marriage as a licit sexual outlet for the men. Kugle argues that this is not a case of valuing male over female, but rather guests over family members “who happen to be female.”
33
One could argue that in the case of premodern patriarchal societies, only paternal consent mattered. In that case, could Lot have offered his sons to the men with equal impunity?

The more significant obstacle to reinterpretations of the Lot story is that the Qur’anic text seems to object clearly to the men’s sexual object choice: these men approach men
in prefer- ence to
those whom God created to be their mates.
34
One way of getting around this objection would be to argue that men who would otherwise choose female partners were opting to seek sex with men – this argument would be compatible with the view, expressed by some queer Muslim authors, that there are men created to take male mates, a notion I discuss below. There is strong justification for reading the Qur’an to suggest that males and females are created to mate with one another, and any
choice
to deviate from that path is blameworthy.

One cannot understand premodern Muslim scholars’ interpretations of the Lot story without considering how their

84 sexual ethics and islam

views on same-sex desire and sexual activity differ in crucial ways from those held by modern Westerners, including some Muslims. Their concerns were largely for actions, not orienta- tions. That is not to accept the once-conventional view that any “homosexual” identity is a purely modern invention, and pre- modern thinkers knew only acts. Premodern texts, as scholar- ship in other contexts has shown, can present specific sexual acts as “
more
or
less
related to sexual dispositions, desires, and sub- jectivities.”
35
Even where specific identities were associated with the performance of particular acts, these were not consistent across time and place, nor are they identical to contemporary notions of “homosexual,” “gay,” or “queer.” The exegetes and jurists’ understandings of male/male sexual activity do not take into account the possibility of a partnership where both men consider themselves “gay,”
36
but rather presuppose an age- and status-stratified asymmetrical relationship between unequal partners.

There are crucial similarities between classical Greek and Roman views on male/male sex and the norms (and prac- tices, so far as historians can tell) of elite medieval Muslim culture. Muslims in the region generally accepted the ancient Mediterranean model, based on hierarchical notions of pene- tration, where no stigma except perhaps that of profligate attaches to an adult male who penetrates but where a free adult male who allows himself to be penetrated suffers stigma.
37
Even a preference for male youths over and above female partners, explored satirically by ninth-century littérateur al-Jahiz in his famous essay “Maids and Youths,”
38
did not make a man“homo- sexual” in the sense that Duran or Kugle uses the term. Male desire to penetrate desirable youths (generally, although not always, defined as “beardless,”
amrad
) was perfectly normal – if never lawful – and not necessarily indicative of a deviant subject- ivity, desire, or a particular sexual orientation.
39
The common- place, not pathological, nature of such desire is illustrated by
Reliance of the Traveller
’s passing mention of the “handsome beardless youth” in its discussion of circumstances under which it is permissible or impermissible for a man to look at a female who is not his wife, slave, or kinswoman. Notably, Keller omits

don’t ask, don’t tell 85

this portion of the text from his late twentieth-century English translation.
40

Don’t ask, don’t tell

Despite the widespread medieval acceptance of same-sex desire between men and attractive male youths, Muslim thinkers took for granted that such sexual relations were neither licit nor pos- sible to legitimize. Yet the explicit condemnation of same-sex sexual activity in medieval Islamic legal thought and by most contemporary Muslim thinkers has been tempered by tacit tol- erance for its practice, provided some degree of discretion is observed. As Abdelwahab Boudhiba argues, “The fact that homosexuality” – he means same-sex acts – “was always being condemned proves only one thing: neither the religious nor the social conscience could put an end to practices that were disap- proved of by Islamic ethics but to which in the last resort society closed its eyes.”
41
Steven Murray, discussing both male/male and female/female sexual relations in present-day Muslim contexts, has referred to this unwillingness to acknowledge what is an open secret as “the will not to know.”
42
While certainly some aspects of this logic governing same-sex encounters is specific, the overall logic of refusing to point out sins that are not crimes is not unique to same-sex sexual intimacy. Rather, it is part and parcel of a general insistence on not attempting to pursue poten- tially incriminating information about one’s fellow Muslims or to disclose it about oneself.

The unwillingness to seek out and condemn instances of same-sex sexual activity, the preference to let them pass by, if not unnoticed then unnamed and therefore unpunished, makes sense where same-sex sexual activity, like any sexual activity out- side of marriage, is considered a criminal and therefore punish- able offense. For this reason, “don’t ask, don’t tell” norms make sense at a practical level, as a strategy to avoid persecution and prosecution. In North America and Western Europe, however, the situation is fundamentally different. In modern Western contexts, the question emerges of the Muslim population’s

86 sexual ethics and islam

reactions to the larger scale acceptability of same-sex relation- ships in the broader society. While some Muslim leaders have been outspoken opponents of “gay rights,” a few Muslim organ- izations and individuals who avoid addressing same-sex sexual intimacy from a religious perspective have come out in favor of tolerance and even acceptance of gays and lesbians as a matter of civil or human rights. In doing so, they sometimes make an ana- logy between discrimination against Muslims and discrimin- ation against sexual minorities.
43
For example, the president of the Muslim Canadian Congress endorsed same-sex marriage legislation in early 2005, declaring that “It is incumbent upon us, as a minority, to stand up in solidarity with Canada’s gays and lesbians despite the fact that many in our community believe our religion does not condone homosexuality.”
4
4
Her remarks implicitly distinguish between Muslims, on the one hand, and gays and lesbians, on the other: although both are minorities, she does not acknowledge any potential overlap between the cate- gories. Yet she leaves a space open for interpretation, claiming not that Islam “does not condone homosexuality,” but merely “that many in our community believe” that to be the case.