Sidney Smith wrote: "Well I do support Israel. In Hafia I could be
openly Queer, write my articles/blogs/stories, and broadcast my radio program
without fear. Anywhere else in the region I'd face certain imprisonment, and in
some nation's certain death."
-----------------
Yes - good points - but even more complex is that, unknown to many,
historicaly some versions of Islam have actually embraced homosexuality.
See for instance the Wikipedia article below on "Nazar ill'al-murd".
The practices and history of Islam is much more complex than the modern
versions in some current countries and current governments.
But then also might it not be possible to oppose Israeli imperialism and
ALSO oppose the civil rights abuses (including the oppression of homosexuals
and women etc.) in some of the countries with supposed Islamic centered
governments. Personally I think that the government of Israel is very
imperialist and that some the governments of some of the Islamic countries are
very oppressive - and I oppose both.
Oh and here is what I think is a story that will very much surprise most
people - it sure surprised me when I observed it: I have spent a bit of time
in several Middle Eastern countries (Including Israel and Saudi Arabia). In
Saudi Arabia fairly far back in the desert I witnessed many, instances of
young men holding hands and kissing in public and then even going into a tent
to have sex with one another. It seemed to be well accepted by all. I asked
again and again of many people if everyone agreed and knew that the young men
were having sex with one another. Everyone that I asked said "Of course we know
they are having sex with each other." (Including several leaders of the
community.) I then asked if Islam prohibited homosexuality. The answer was:
"Yes Islam prohibits homosexuality." I asked if the acceptance of the men
having sex was something of a contradiction with Islam and they answered "Oh
the men are not homosexuals - they are just having sex with one another in
order to practice until they get married." Heck I even knew of several married
men openly having sex with one another and I was told: "They are not
homosexuals - they are just giving their wives some time off."
None of the above seemed to happen in the cities in Saudi Arabia though.
(or at least not openly)
None of the above gives any clear answers (at least that I can understand)
but it just shows the contradictions of the world and in this case, of some of
Islamic countries.
Oh and NO WAY do I believe that in reality the "Nazar ill'al-murd" was
really chaste.
Jim D.
----------------------
Nazar ila'l-murd
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Nazar ill'al-murd)
As a Sufi practice of spiritual realization and union with the godhead, the
meditation known in Arabic as Na?ar ila'l-murd (Arabic: ????? ??? ??????),
"contemplation of the beardless," or Shahed-bazi, "witness play" in Persian has
been practiced from the earliest years of Islam.
It is seen as an act of worship intended to help one ascend to the absolute
beauty that is God through the relative beauty that is a boy. Modern Sufi
thought asserts that this contemplation uses imaginal yoga to transmute erotic
desire into spiritual consciousness.[1]
Contents
[hide]
a.. 1 Chaste love
b.. 2 Physical love
c.. 3 Criticism
d.. 4 Examples
e.. 5 See also
f.. 6 Notes
Chaste love
Na?ar was a principal expression of a male love that, according to the
teachings, was not to be consummated physically.
Zangi discussed the legitimacy of love for a male beloved saying, "And it is
said that when God . . . wants to honor a worshiper with the robe of true love
and put the real crown of love on his head, He will make him fall in earthly
love so that he would learn the ways of being a lover . . . and passes from the
raw stage of desiring attention to the ripeness of (spiritual) supplication."[2]
Richard Francis Burton, claims that Easterners value the love of boys above the
love of women, using Persian terminology in which the moth and the bulbul
(nightingale) represent the lover, and the taper and the rose represent the boy
and the girl, respectively. According to him, "Devotion of the moth to the
taper is purer and more fervent than the Bulbul's love for the Rose."[3]
Physical love
Not all followed the teachings strictly to the letter. On being challenged by
Rabi?a al-?Adawiyya (c.717-801) of Basrah (Sufi woman saint who first set forth
the doctrine of mystical love), upon noticing him kissing a boy, for
appreciating the beauty of boys above that of God, the ascetic Sufi Rabah
al-Qaysi retorted that, "On the contrary, this is a mercy that God Most High
has put into the hearts of his slaves."[4]
Criticism
Conservative Islamic theologians condemned the custom of contemplating the
beauty of boys. Their suspicions may have been justified, as some dervishes
boasted of enjoying far more than "glances", or even kisses. Nazar was
denounced as rank heresy by such as Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328), who complained,
"They kiss a slave boy and claim to have seen God!"[5]
The real danger to conventional religion, as Peter Lamborn Wilson asserts, was
not so much the mixing of sodomy with worship, but "the claim that human beings
can realize themselves in love more perfectly than in religious practices."[6]
Despite opposition from the clerics, the practice has survived in Islamic
countries until only recent years, according to Murray and Roscoe in their work
on Islamic homosexualities.[7]
In an illuminated manuscript of Sufi poet Abdul-Rahman Jami's (1414-1492) Haft
Awrang, an anthology of seven allegorical poems on wisdom and love, there is a
calligraphed verse in the section titled A Father Advises his Son About Love in
which a father instructs his son, when choosing a worthy male lover, to choose
that man who sees beyond the mere physical and expresses a love for his inner
qualities.[8] The verse exemplifies one Sufi way of turning love into wisdom:
I have written on the wall and door of every house
About the grief of my love for you.
That you might pass by one day
And read the state of my condition.
In my heart I had his face before me.
With this face before me, I saw what I had in my heart.
A recurrent topic of Sufi homoerotic lore is the tale of Mahmud of Ghazni and
his boy slave Ayaz. Many poets have treated the subject, among whom Attar who
included eight stories about them in his Elahi-nama alone. One of them shows
how love elevates the beloved:
One day sultan Mahmud asks Ayaz, his famous beloved, whether he knows a king
greater and more powerful than he. Ayaz answers, "Yes, I am a greater king than
you." When the king asks for proof, he says, "Because even though you are king,
your heart rules you, and this slave is the king of your heart."
See also
a.. Ghilman
b.. Pederasty in the Islamic lands
Notes
1.. ^ Peter Lamborn Wilson, "CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNBEARDED: The Rubaiyyat of
Awhadoddin Kermani" in Paidika V.3-4 p.13 (1995): "Love imagery in Persian Sufi
poetry usually flows from this mystical, symbolic appreciation of love's
spiritual power. In some works, however, the imagery refers also to specific
practices, code named 'na?ar ila'l-murd' or 'contemplation of the unbearded,'
namely, the unbearded boy."
2.. ^ Encyclopedia Iranica [1]
3.. ^ Richard F. Burton, Arabian Nights, "Terminal Essay" (Part D)
4.. ^ Quoted from as-Sulami, Early Sufi Women = Dhikr an-niswa al-muta
'abbidat as-sufiyyat, translated by Rkia E. Cornell, Louisville, KY: Fons
Vitae, 1999, pp. 78-79.)
5.. ^ "Needless to say, although the poets of the Witness Game followed the
letter of the Shari?a and its sexual code, their dangerous game of Sublimation
was condemned as rank heresy by such as Ibn Taymiyya, who complained, `They
kiss a slave boy and claim to have seen God!' However orthodox (or not) the
sufis might have been in their private lives, their poetry has given much aid
and comfort to `real heretics' like the Ismailis, who would of course take
quite literally such lines as Iraqi's: Forget the Kaaba: The vintner's gates
are open!" Peter Lamborn Wilson, THE ANTI-CALIPH: Ibn 'Arabi, Inner Wisdom, and
the Heretic Tradition [2]
6.. ^ Wilson (1995), op.cit, p.21
7.. ^ Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, Islamic Homosexualities; New York
University Press, 1997; p.111
8.. ^ Smithsonian Institution, manuscript page
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazar_ila%27l-murd";
Categories: Sufism | Pederasty | LGBT history
----- Original Message -----
From: Sidney Smith
To: PacificaRadiowaves@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 7:44 AM
Subject: [PacificaRadiowaves] It's not that Simple.
Well I do support Israel. In Hafia I could be openly Queer, write my
articles/blogs/stories, and broadcast my radio program without fear. Anywhere
else in the region I'd face certain imprisonment, and in some nation's certain
death.
The regional politics of the mid-east indeed the world has always been simple
for me. Which country won't kill me. There's a difference between living in a
relatively open democracy, and a Theocracy,...be it radical or conservative.
Did you know that Palestinian Queers have actually sought aslyum in Israel.
Amazing.
Seems the Palestinian Authority applies Shia Law. Which is death. I saw this on
an interesting douc. on the Sundance Channel.
I think it was called the "Garden". It concerned a group of gay Palastinians
trying to stay in Israel. A moving story involving progressive Israeli social
workers trying to stop the government from tossing them back to the
"Authority",...which in some of their case's would have been a death sentence.
Also there is a scene where their jewish landlord hides them from a police
sweep.
Just because the Palestinian cause is 'Just' doesn't make them particularly
nice. Same with Iran. They have the right to live without us or Israel screwing
with their economy or bombing the hell out of 'em.
On the other hand not many would want to live in Iran. I couldn't. It would
mean my eventual death. This is the same country that hung those gay teens.
These guys imprison artists, journalists, and kill gays.
I fit every category.
So my progressive life is tempered by my need for physical survival.
Love,
Uncle Sidney/Wbai
jdemaegt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
This is the CHANGE that we want and must work for.
Bomb Iran. Support Israel.
Jim D
---------------------------------
Obama on bombing Iran: