I think we need a program on Homosexuality and on Pederasty and on
multi-Sexuality and on all kinds and varieties of Sexuality and Sex in general
on all the Pacifica stations. But would anyone listen to it?
And as far as homosexuality in Islamic countries goes, as the article
below indicates the present popular awareness toward Islam and toward sexuality
in Islam does not even begin to address some of the complications and
differences that have been present in some of the Islamic countries throughout
the centuries. Isn't it the duty of Pacifica to air some programs on such
"alternative" information and ides which the main line media refuses to air?
And the concept of sex with young boys and the beauty of young boys has
been very prevalent in various times in history and in various countries. Of
course the Greek ideal of the beauty of young boys is well known.
From below: "Love of beauty, another quality praised in the hadith which
records Muhammad as having said that God is beautiful and loves beauty, and
that a handsome face refreshes the eye, was seen as a mark of refined and
sophisticated character, even in the appreciation of beautiful boys."
And what about the love of your boys as an antidote for the stress and
tension of the modern world?
From below: "In chapter 3 - 'How to enjoy the company of boys' - of Deli
Birader's 'The Repeller of Grief and Remover of Anxiety',........"
---------------------------
So would having a program on various forms of Sexuality and Sex on the
Pacifica stations be "good programming"? And would such a program increase
listenership? I think it would.
Jim "Now if we can just find someone to produce such a program." D.
-------------------------------------------
Pederasty in the Middle East and Central Asia
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Pederasty in the Islamic lands)
For a generalized discussion of relations between men and boys see main
article: Pederasty
The practice of pederasty in the Middle East seems to have begun, according to
surviving records, sometime during the 800s and ended, at least as an open
practice, in the mid-19th century. Throughout this era, pederastic
relationships, poetry, art and spirituality were found throughout cultures from
Moorish Spain to Northern India. The forms of this pederasty ranged from the
chaste and spiritual adoration of youths at one extreme, to the violent and
forcible use of unwilling boys at other. While sodomy was considered a major
sin in Islam, other aspects of same-sex relations were not, though they were
problematized to various degrees at various times and places.
The seeming co-relation of pederasty with the rise of Islam has been commented
on by modern historians, who see a link between the love of boys and the
protective attitude of Islam towards women, leading to their removal from
public life, together with the tendency of Sharia law to accommodate within the
domain of "private behavior" inevitable activities, as long as they do not
interfere with public order.[1] The topos of "ishq" - passion - which could
have as object a beautiful beardless boy as easily as a woman, is prominent in
literature.
Contents
[hide]
a.. 1 Literature and teachings
b.. 2 Individual regions
a.. 2.1 Middle East
a.. 2.1.1 Persia
b.. 2.1.2 The Ottoman Empire
a.. 2.1.2.1 The Validity of Literary Works as Primary Sources
b.. 2.1.2.2 The Existence of Male-Male Love
c.. 2.1.2.3 Women-Lovers & Boy-Lovers
d.. 2.1.2.4 Age Discrimination - Beardless Boys and Downy-Cheeked
Youth
e.. 2.1.2.5 Sodomy & Islam
f.. 2.1.2.6 Roles in Male-Male Relationships - Active & Passive
Sodomite
g.. 2.1.2.7 Bathhouses and Coffeehouses
h.. 2.1.2.8 Perception of Christendom
b.. 2.2 Central Asia
c.. 2.3 Mughal India
c.. 3 Sufi outlook
d.. 4 Modern scholarship
e.. 5 See also
f.. 6 References
g.. 7 Further reading
h.. 8 Notes
i.. 9 External links
[edit] Literature and teachings
Literature reflects Muslim culture's fascination with love (sexual and
nonsexual), a love which includes beautiful boys. To many, if not most Muslim
literary figures, love was love: as Urdu poet Hasrat Mohani put it, "All love
is unconditionally good."[2] The lover was conceived as martyr and hero. His
desire, known as ishq, was glorified as mad, unresonable, ecstatic, impossible
to satisfy and leading even to death. An Arab proverb claims that "Ishq is a
fire that burns down everything but the object of desire".[3]
While pederastic themes abound in prose as well, it is through poetry that the
genre has made its mark on the culture. This topos is found from Moorish Spain,
such as in The Ring of the Dove of Ibn Hazm, to Egypt, in Shams al-Din Muhammad
ibn Hasan al-Nawaji's Meadow of Gazelles, to Baghdad, in the person of Abu
Nuwas, "enfant terrible" and first among Arab poets, to the Gulistan of the
Persian Sadi, and Urdu poets such as Mir Taqi Mir and Mirza Ghalib in northern
India.
Individual regions
Middle East
The construction of same-sex love in the Middle East has been influenced by its
history and geography.[citation needed] Hellenistic elements can be recognized
in the use of the wine boy as a symbol of homoerotic passion, and in such ideas
as that pederasty is absent from 'primitive' cultures since there a boy can
learn all he needs from his father, but that people of high civilization
require the erotic attraction of boys to motivate experienced men to teach the
boys lovingly.[citation needed] [4]
The valorization of youthful male beauty is found in the Qur?an itself: "And
there shall wait on them [the god fearing men] youths of their own, as fair as
virgin pearls." (Qur?an 52:24; 56:17; 76:19). Islamic jurisprudence generally
considers that attraction towards beautiful youths is normal and natural. The
Hanbalite jurist Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200) is reputed to have said that "He who
claims that he experiences no desire when looking at beautiful boys or youths
is a liar, and if we could believe him he would be an animal, and not a human
being." [5] However, anal intercourse (liwa?), is proscribed and men are
advised to be even more wary of attraction to beautiful boys than to beautiful
women, through religious injunctions exhorting them to resist this temptation.
It is related that the Prophet Muhammad enjoined his followers to "Beware of
beardless youth for they are a greater source of mischief than young maidens."
[6]
Likewise, the imam and legal scholar Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 783 CE) asserted,
regarding sexual temptation, that "If every woman has one devil accompanying
her, then a handsome lad has seventeen."[7]
Love of beauty, another quality praised in the hadith which records Muhammad as
having said that God is beautiful and loves beauty, and that a handsome face
refreshes the eye, was seen as a mark of refined and sophisticated character,
even in the appreciation of beautiful boys. The 17th c. Persian philosopher
Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi asserted that
We do not find anyone of those who have a refined heart and a delicate
character . . . to be void of this love at one time or another in their life,
but we find all coarse souls, harsh hearts and dry characters . . . devoid of
this type of love, most of them restricting themselves to the love of men for
women and the love of women for men with the aim of mating and cohabitation, as
is in the nature of all animals [...] [8]
At the other extreme, non-sublimated pederastic relationships were widespread,
and widely documented in the poetry and art of the cultures involved, including
in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Libertine poets such as the Baghdad
poet Abu Nuwas (750?-813?) flaunted their sexual conquests, often Christian
wine boys, some of whom they plied with wine in order to subdue. [9] While some
of these poems appear to describe affectionate relationships, others are clear
depictions of rape, as is this quatrain by Mamayah al-Rumi:
The art of liwa? is the way of masculinity and might
So leave Laylah to Majnun, and Azzah with Kuthayyir,
And go up to every beardless boy, strip him, and even if he cries,
Present him with your prick and fuck him by force. [10]
In order for any such act, whether willing or not, to be a punishable offense
one had to consummate it and be caught at it, which required witnesses of four
men or eight women. If one was not caught at it, however, it was thought that
one would still be punished in the fires of hell.[citation needed]
Persia
Some sources have posited that same-sex relations may have been introduced by
the hordes of the early Soghdian (Central Asian Iranian) conqueror Afrasiab.
The local population is said to have been greatly shocked by the popularity
among his people for "the vice against nature." The Zoroastrian priests reacted
strongly, and decreed that any man caught in the act could be put to death - a
stronger sanction than that against murderers. [11][4]
The origin of pederasty in ancient Persia was debated even in ancient times.
Herodotus claimed they had learned it from the Greeks: "...and [the Persians']
luxurious practices are of all kinds, and all borrowed: the Greeks taught them
pederasty."[12] However, Plutarch asserts that the Persians used eunuch boys
"the Greek way" long before they had seen the Grecian main. [13] Despite these
historians, Richard Francis Burton was of the opinion that the Persians had
picked up the habit from the people inhabiting the Tigris-Euphrates Valley.[14]
More recently, the Persian literary historian Zabih Allah Safa called pederasty
"the shameful inheritance of a period of moral turpitude which began to
contaminate Iran from the [tenth and eleventh centuries AD] especially from the
reign of the [Turkic] slave [kings] and the yellowskin Sinitic tribes."[15]
In Islamic Persia, where, as Louis Crompton claims, "boy love flourished
spectacularly," literature also made frequent use of the pederastic topos,
often referred to as baccheh bazi, (the boy game). Omar Khayyám's (d. 1123)
quatrains, Farid al-Din Attar (d. 1220), Rumi (d. 1273), Sa'adi (d. 1291) in
his Rose Garden, Hafez Shirazi (d. 1389) in his ghazals, Jami (d. 1492), and
even Iraj Mirza (d. 1926) wrote works "replete with homoerotic allusions, as
well as explicit references to beautiful young boys and to the practice of
pederasty." [16]
The practice was not without its critics, such as Sanai of Ghazni. The poet
mocks the pederastic practices of his time, embodied in the doings of the
Khvaja of Herat, who takes his catamite into the mosque for a quick tryst:
Not finding shelter he became perturbed,
The mosque, he reasoned, would be undisturbed.
But he is discovered by a devout man, who, in his blame, echoes a traditional
attack on same-sex relations:
"These sinful ways of yours," -that was his shout-
Have ruined all the crops and caused the drought!
[17]
Sanai drives the irony home by having the devout man, after the Khvaja makes
his embarrassed escape, mount the boy and complete the act.
The pederastic topos in medieval Persian verse is so pervasive that it has been
an obstacle for translations of these works into western languages. As Dick
Davis comments, "A further cultural barrier, and one that can prove
particularly difficult to negotiate, is the prevalence of the cult of pederasty
in much medieval Persian verse." He notes that many translators have taken
advantage of the fact that pronouns are not gender specific but notes that the
translator "in availing himself of this help he is, as he knows, often fudging
the issue, quietly bowdlerizing the texts."[5] This is held to be true even of
major works, such as the Gulistan (Rose Garden) of Sa'adi. English translators
even in the tamer episodes of the "Gulistan" turn boys into girls and change
anecdotes about pederasty into tales of heterosexual love. [18]
The visual arts also were inspired by the male love tradition. Though there are
a few examples which are sexually suggestive, most of the time the works
reflect the Sufi sensibilites which locate the attraction in the gaze. Thus
very often we see depictions of male couples, a mature man in the company of a
comely youth who is the object of his attention. Many of the artistic works of
Reza Abbasi, whose patron was the Safavid monarch Shah Abbas, depict such
handsome youths, often in the role of saqi, or "wine pourer," either alone or
in the company of a man.
Thomas Herbert, the twenty one year old secretary to the English ambassador to
Persia, later reported that at Abbas' court (some time between 1627 and 1629)
he saw, "Ganymede boys in vests of gold, rich bespangled turbans, and choice
sandals, their curled hair dangling about their shoulders, with rolling eyes
and vermilion cheeks." This was also a time when male houses of prostitution
amrad khaneh, "houses of the beardless," were legally recognized and paid
taxes. Regarding this trade, John Chardin, traveling through Persia at the
time, reported that he had found "numerous houses of male prostitution, but
none offering females." John Fryer, who traveled to Persia in the late
seventeenth century, was of the opinion that "The Persians, when they let go
their modesty.. covet boys as much as women."
The notoriety of the Persians for boyish pleasures was such that in the late
nineteenth century Richard Francis Burton referred to Central Asian pederasty
as "the Persian vice." He confirmed the findings of Chardin, indicating that
the boy bordellos continued to exist, adding that "the boys are prepared with
extreme care by diet, baths, depilation, unguents and a host of artists in
cosmetics." He accounted for the tastes of the Persians by postulating that the
habit began in boyhood, when Persian boys used each other for sexual pleasure,
in a game known as alish-takish. Later in life, after marrying and begetting
children, "Paterfamilias returns to the Ganymede," according to Burton.[19]
[edit] The Ottoman Empire
The Early Modern Ottoman, despite being an Islamic Empire, produced many
primary sources which indicate the existence of male-male love among the
habitants of the empire. At present, many historians are still having
disagreements with regard to male-male relationships in Early Modern Ottoman
society- some argue on the gender of the beloveds being portrayed in poems[20],
some disagree on the tolerance for sodomy[21], and some have different opinions
with regard to the nature of male-male relationships in the Early Modern
Ottoman. These variations in opinions and the sometimes seemingly contradicting
primary sources - literary work describing male-male relationships and yet laws
prohibiting sodomy - create a constantly evolving field of study.
[edit] The Validity of Literary Works as Primary Sources
It is extremely crucial that before examining the nature of amorous
relationship between two males in the Ottoman Empire, the reliability and
objectivity of the primary sources with regard to this field be discussed. This
is because, if the primary sources cannot provide solid evidence to the
existence of male-male relationships, then it is perhaps futile to further
discuss the aforementioned theme.[citation needed][dubious - discuss]
Among the categories of primary sources that would very often be cited upon
when discussing male-male relationships in the Ottoman Empire is the literary
works produced by local habitants. Nonetheless, Khaled El-Rouayheb mentioned
that there are a number of historians, namely J. C. Bürgel, Frank Rosenthal,
and Susanne Enderwitz who have expressed skepticism towards the reflection of
such literature on the actual lifestyle during the Ottoman period.[22] However,
El-Rouayheb did express that although it would not be completely true that the
authors' real experiences were expressed in their literary work, the
profuseness of literary work of a particular genre would at least imply that
contemporary society was not repulsed by such a genre or that contemporary
society could relate to such a genre.[23]
[edit] The Existence of Male-Male Love
Even if it is granted that literary works during the Ottoman period could be
used as valid primary sources that reflect on the lifestyle of the habitants of
the Ottoman Empire, Khaled El-Rouayheb expressed in another piece of his work,
The Love of Boys in Arabic Poetry of the Early Ottoman Period, 1500 - 1800,
that many historians "give readers the impression that many love poetry of that
period usually portrayed female beloved." In the aforementioned paper,
El-Rouayheb later argued that "the portrayed beloved was often, perhaps most
often, a male youth." In summary, he based his arguments on the physical
description, namely the beard, of the beloved, the name of the beloved, the
usage of masculine gender terms when speaking of the beloved, and extra-poetic
information attached to the poems.[24]
The following are excerpts from poems used for each of El-Rouayheb's claim:
i. beard-down('idhar) - Ahmad al-Bahnasi (d. 1148/1735): There he is with the
night of the face's 'idhar when it darkened.
ii. beloved's name - Ibrahim al-Akrami (d. 1047/1638): After you, my desire
'Ali, I've divorced of the vine and love poetry.
iii. the word "boy" - Muhammad al-Mahasini (d. 1062/1662): I fancy him, a
lithesome boy of paradise.
[edit] Women-Lovers & Boy-Lovers
It is perhaps necessary to point out that the abundance of literary work which
portrayed male beloveds does not warrant the hypothesis that male-male
relationships were dominant over male-female relationships during the Ottoman
period.[citation needed]
In fact, the existence of literary works with both women-lovers and boy-lovers
would substantiate the prevalence of both the "categories" of lovers. An
example of such a work would be Deli Birader's 'The Repeller of Grief and
Remover of Anxiety' - "a lengthy work in prose with several poems embedded in
it."[25] There are seven chapters in Birader's work. Chapter 2 was titled
"Boy-lovers and women-lovers", chapter 3 was titled "How to enjoy the company
of boys" and chapter 4 was titled "How to enjoy the company of girls".
Since Birader's work was perhaps targeted at the male population of
contemporary society, hence, the existence of these chapters would, at most,
imply the existence of women-lovers and boy-lovers in contemporary society but
would indicate nothing about the ratio of women-lovers to boy-lovers.[citation
needed]
[edit] Age Discrimination - Beardless Boys and Downy-Cheeked Youth
In many of the poems with boy-beloveds, there seems to be a distinction in the
age of the boy-beloveds, namely, between beardless boys and downy-cheeked
youths, where authors often expressed preference for one over the other.
Syrian scholar Muhammad Khalil al-Muradi "devoted 12 pages of his biographical
work to reproducing a tract . entitled 'Throwing off the reins in describing
the devoid of, and the embellished with, beard-down' . [which depicts] a
disputation in which the beardless boy and the downy-cheeked youth advance
their respective boasts as to who was the most appropriate object of passionate
love."[26] The following excerpts of poems also exemplify the correlation
between age and beauty in the minds of the authors.
'Abd al-Hayy al-Khal (d. 1117/1705): I used to say that my heart would forget
[you] when 'arid[27] appeared on your cheeks
Mustafa al-Sumadi (d. 1137/1725): If beard-down appears on the cheeks of the
beloved, it will leave him dusted and dried
In chapter 3 - 'How to enjoy the company of boys' - of Deli Birader's 'The
Repeller of Grief and Remover of Anxiety', Birader described a few group of
lovers - those that find beauty in exquisite boys, those who love güzeshte
(boys who have passed puberty), those who think of "beauties who has already
grown black and thick moustaches" and another who strive to find old men with
white beards. [28] These examples imply how contemporary authors' preference
for male subjects was defined by the age of the subjects.
[edit] Sodomy & Islam
Perhaps one of the most abstruse aspects of male-male relationship in the
Ottoman Empire is its coexistence with the Islamic law, which according to a
number of historians today condemns "homosexuality".
Historian Marshall Hodgson wrote that in medieval Islamic civilization,
"despite strong Shar'i disapproval, the sexual relations of a mature man with
a subordinate youth were so readily accepted in upper-class circles. The
fashion entered poetry, especially the Persian."
Bernard Lewis also wrote that,
"homosexuality is condemned and forbidden by the holy law of Islam, but there
are times and places in Islamic history when the ban on homosexual love seems
no stronger than the ban on adultery."
[29]
It is tremendously important to remember that when discussing about male-male
relationships during the Ottoman period, the modern perception of homosexuality
should not be imposed without hesitation. Khaled El-Rouayheb suggested that
what Islamic law prohibits is sexual intercourse between men -sodomy, and that
Islamic religious scholars of that period clearly did not believe that falling
in love with a boy or expressing love in poetry was also illicit.[30] Perhaps
by taking a look at Deli Birader's 'The Repeller of Grief and Remover of
Anxiety', El-Rouayheb's claim can be better understood. The following is an
excerpt from the third chapter of Birader's work:
He confronts a silver ass
And attains all he desires
All at once, he raises his gown
And take the silver dome in front
Then he makes his cock as hard as a rock
And plunges it up to the black hair at its base,
These are then names contemptible lovers, and the leader of sinners, lûtî,
gulâmpâre,[31] 'white money black face.'
Their beloved may prevent them from verifying his to the point and contend
themselves with being next to him, now sucking his lips, now embracing him, and
their foolish hearts are deluded by him: He gets a playful beloved
He follows the path of loyalty in love
His limit should be fooling around
He should never cross this limit
He should pull him aside, into his embrace
And delude his foolish heart with that much
These are then named as loyal lovers, and favorable sweethearts,
mahbub-perest, a a double side drum ...
[32]
Through the contemporary author, Birader, it can be deduced that society was
perhaps less tolerant towards carnal affection between two men, which was
probably perceived to be prohibited by Islamic laws at that time, and more
tolerant towards love between two men who are celibate. This concept of
societal mindset would explain the profusion of poetry describing love for a
male-beloved in an Islamic society.
[edit] Roles in Male-Male Relationships - Active & Passive Sodomite
Although sodomy altogether was prohibited by the Islamic laws during the
Ottoman period, certain sources indicate that active and passive sodomy were
viewed by society with different degrees of disdain.
Chapter six of Deli Birader's 'The Repeller of Grief and Remover of Anxiety',
was about queers and transvestite. In the aforementioned chapter, Birader
started off with an introductory as following:
"This chapter describes the shameful states and infamous acts of abominable
queers and transvestites."
He later clarified his definition of queers, by writing "queers demand to get
fucked and look for men with large cocks and pay for sex and are famous for
this."[33] Khaled El-Rouayheb clarified that the penetrator was often seen as
the dominant "male" and the penetrated was often seen as the submissive
"female". Hence, from the aforementioned point of view, society stigmatized and
dishonored penetrated male for taking on a "female" role, while the penetrator
was often exempted from such dishonor. [34]
[edit] Bathhouses and Coffeehouses
There exist primary sources that indicate the hiring of handsome boys as
workers in bathhouses(hammam) and coffeehouses. These objectifications of
handsome boys in Early Modern Ottoman would further substantiate an Ottoman
society that had a fair toleration towards non-carnal affection towards boys.
Cam Hobhouse, in his travels, came across the following verses, written on the
window of a hammam probably describing a worker of the hammam (tellak):
Dear Youth, whose form and face unite
To lead my sinful soul astray;
Whose wanton willing looks invite
To every bliss, and teach the way,
Ah spare thyself, thyself and me,
Withhold the too-distracting joy;
Ah cease so fair and fond to be,
And look less lovely, or more coy.[35]
Also, the following is an excerpt of a poem praising the beauty of a
coffeehouse waiter (Saqi) called Ibrahim al-Suyuri in the Diwan of 'Inayati's
poetry:
Come, let us polish our rusty souls with the Ibrahimic visage.
Come, let us gaze at the luminous moon which puts the bright sun to shame.
Come, let us look at the tender branch, swaying in radiant garments.
Come, let us take the cup from the lavish hand. [36]
Nonetheless, it should not be implied that sexual activity was conducted with
these workers.
A Damascene scholar Muhammad Najm al-Din al-Ghazzi once commented:
Consensus has now been reached that it [coffee] is permissible in itself. As
for passing it around like an alcoholic beverage, and playing musical
instruments in association with it, and taking it from handsome beardless boys
while looking at them and pinching their behinds, there is no doubt as to its
prohibition.[37]
An Egpytian scholar 'Abd al-Ra'uf al-Munawi urged the owner of a bath not to
employ handsome boys to avoid being classed with pimps and procurers on
Judgment Day. Khaled El-Rouayheb also wrote that "in some instances, legal
action was taken against the more disreputable establishments on the basis of
their association with immorality and prostitution." [38]
These evidences imply that despite an acknowledgment of handsome boys being
hired as workers, sexual practices with these workers were not tolerated.
Societal perception towards handsome workers in the bathhouses and coffeehouses
seems parallel to the perception that expressions of love but not sodomy were
tolerable.
[edit] Perception of Christendom
The sexual doings of the Turks came under frequent criticism by their Christian
neighbors. The Chronicles of the Moldavian Land mention that the Ottomans upon
the sack of Crimea in 1475, sailed away with a galleon filled with one hundred
and fifty young boys destined for "the filthy sodomy of the whoring Turk."
Thomas Sherley, held captive by the Ottomans between 1603 and 1605 under harsh
circumstances, reported in his Discourse of the Turks that "For their
Sodommerye they use it soe publiquely and impudentlye as an honest Christian
woulde shame to companye his wyffe as they do with their buggeringe boys." John
Cam Hobhouse an early traveller to Istanbul with his friend Lord Byron
described the köçek dances as "beastly" and the anonymous poem Don Leon
(written in the voice of Byron and ascribed to him by some), referred to
Turkish boy prostitution as a "monstrous scene." Osman Agha of Temesvar who
fell captive to the Austrians in 1688 wrote in his memoirs that one night an
Austrian boy approached him for sex, telling him "for I know all Turks are
pederasts".[39]
[edit] Central Asia
In central Asia the practice is reputed to have long been widespread. The
paragon of the practice can be said to be the love between Mahmood of Ghazni
and his slave, Ayaz. The Sultan is seen as an example of the man who, because
of the power of his love, becomes "a slave to his slave." Ayaz came to be
recognized as the ideal beloved, and a model of purity in Sufi literature. The
two have gained pride of place among the favorite pairs of lovers in Persian
literature. Modern scholars, such as Prods Oktor Skjorvø, the Aga Khan
Professor of Iranian at Harvard University, consider the relationship between
the two to have been one example of the pederasty practiced at the Turkish
Courts: "Under the Turkish Ghaznavid, Seljuq, and Khawarazmshah rulers of Iran
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, pederasty was quite common in courtly
circles." [6]
In the Terminal Essay of his translation of the Arabian Nights, Richard Francis
Burton notes that, "The Afghans are commercial travellers on a large scale and
each caravan is accompanied by a number of boys and lads almost in woman's
attire with kohl'd eyes and rouged cheeks, long tresses and henna'd fingers and
toes, riding luxuriously in Kajawas or camel-panniers: they are called Kuch-i
safari, or travelling wives, and the husbands trudge patiently by their sides."
Burton also reports a pederastic proverb common in the area: Women for
breeding, boys for pleasure, but melons for sheer delight.[40]
Though no longer widely practiced, such boy marriages nevertheless still occur.
However, in part as a result of resurgent Islamic fundamentalism, they are less
well received than in former times. In late 2005, the Afghan refugee Liaquat
Ali, 42, and his Pakistani beloved, Markeen Afridi, 16, were both threatened
with death by the tribal elders, subsequent to their public and ceremonial
wedding in the Tribal Territories.(The Sydney Morning Herald)
In the aftermath of the US-Afghan war, western mainstream media have reported
derisively on patterns of adult/adolescent male relationships, documented in
Kandahar in Afghanistan (The New Yorker) and in Pakistan (The Boston Globe),
often conflating them with pedophilia. The youth in these relationships,
usually in his early- to mid-teens, is known alternatively as haliq, "beautiful
boy," or ashna, "dear friend," and the man as mehboob, "lover," from the
Persian mohabbat, "love," related to its Arabic counterpart, mahabbâh. The term
balkay, referring to a beardless boy sexually available to men has also been
reported.[41] The prevalence of homosexual relationships in Kandahar and other
Pashtun areas has been explained in these articles as a behavior resulting from
strict gender segregation (Los Angeles Times) and "without any moral or
educational value."
These reports however have been characterized as "privileging a political spin
over more precise and informative writing," and as suffering from ethnocentric
bias (Stephanie Skier, in queer.). Brian James Baer, writing in the Gay and
Lesbian Review (March-April, 2003), claimed that "their subtext was clearly
aimed at discrediting the Pashtun tradition by equating it with the ultimate
American taboo, adult sex with minors," and that "Western journalists insisted
on reducing relationships that are often long-term emotional bonds to a crude
sexual bargain." In contrast, alternative media have carried accounts by native
sources describing married men engaging youths in mutually affectionate long
term relationships[citation needed].
Besides relationships following the pederastic model, cases of sexual brutality
by men against youths - in this instance as one aspect of the military use of
children - have also been documented. In Afghanistan, out of the thousands of
Pakistani boys recruited by mullahs under the guise of jihad to fight for the
Taliban, it is thought that about 1500 survived, only to be held for ransom in
private jails, where they were being systematically abused J. Gettleman in the
L. A. Times, July 2001. Also, commercial sexual exploitation of boys in
Pakistan is reported to be widespread despite the fact that prostitution of
minors is illegal and there is a death penalty for child abusers, according to
the Bangkok-based international child protection campaign group, ECPAT (End
Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual
Purposes).
In the northern, Turkic-speaking areas, one manifestation of the pederastic
tradition were the entertainers known as bacchá (a Turkic Uzbeki term
etymologically related to the Persian bachcheh, "boy" or "child", sometimes
with the connotation of "catamite"). A bacchá, typically an adolescent, was a
performer practiced in erotic songs and suggestive dancing. He wore resplendent
attire and makeup, and would also be available as a sex worker. These Muslim
bachás were trained from childhood and carried on their trade until their beard
began to grow. Though after the Russian conquest the tradition was suppressed
by tsarist authorities, early Russian explorers were able to document the
practice.
[edit] Mughal India
The Mughal period saw strong pederastic influences in the arts and literature.
Poetry in ghazal form was a favorite means of such expression, produced by
poets such as Mir Taqi Mir.
See also Homosexuality and Islam, Köçek, and Hammam
Sufi outlook
Main articles: Nazar ill'al-murd and Homosexuality and Islam
The manifestations of pederastic attraction vary. At one extreme they are
indeed of a chaste nature, incorporated into Islamic mysticism (see Sufism) as
a meditation known in Arabic as Nazar ill'al-murd, "contemplation of the
beardless," or Shahed-bazi, "witness play" in Persian. This 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.
Richard Francis Burton, in his "Terminal Essay" (Part D) to the Arabian Nights
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: "Devotion of the moth to the taper is purer and more fervent than
the Bulbul's love for the Rose."
In an illuminated manuscript of Sufi poet Abdul-Rahman Jami's (1414-1492) Haft
Awrang (see manuscript), 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 chose that man who sees beyond the mere physical and expresses a
love for his inner qualities). 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.
Nazar was a principal expression of a male love that, according to the
teachings, was not to be consummated physically.
Not all followed the teachings 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." (Abu 'Abdur-Rahman as-Sulami, pp. 78-79) Others also
suspected the motives of dervishes who professed to love only the appearance of
the boys, as reflected in this Egyptian proverb: In his father's home a boy's
chastity is safe, but let him become a dervish and the buggers will queue up
behind him. [42]
Conservative Muslim theologians condemned the custom of contemplating the
beauty of young 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!" 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." Despite
opposition from the clerics, the practice has survived in Islamic countries
until only recent years, according to Murray and Roscoe. See References section
below
[edit] Modern scholarship
The traditional tolerance, literary and religious, for chaste pederastic love
affairs which was prevalent since the 800s began to be eroded in the mid-1800s
by the adoption of European Victorian attitudes by the new westernized
elite.[citation needed] Historical material is reported to be systematically
distorted.[citation needed] In his monograph on same-sex relations in the
pre-modern Middle East, Khaled El-Rouayheb demonstrates how Persian and Arabic
love poetry and other literary material is routinely heterosexualized or
devalued in critical studies authored by post-colonial Arab and Islamic
scholars.[43] Similarly, the works of Abu Nuwas, widely available in their
entirety in the Arab world until modern times, were first published in
expurgated form in Cairo in 1932.[44]
In his monograph on same-sex relations in the pre-modern Middle East, Khaled
El-Rouayheb demonstrates how Persian and Arabic love poetry and other literary
material is routinely heterosexualized or devalued in critical studies authored
by post-colonial Arab and Islamic scholars. (El-Rouhayeb, 2005) Under the rule
of both the Pahlavi dynasty monarchy and the Islamic Republic in Iran, Janet
Afary claims that "Classical Persian literature - like the poems of Attar (died
1220), Rumi (d. 1273), Sa'di (d. 1291), Hafez (d. 1389), Jami (d. 1492), and
even those of the 20th century Iraj Mirza (d. 1926) - are replete with
homoerotic allusions, as well as explicit references to beautiful young boys
and to the practice of pederasty." She further states that "professors of
literature have been forced to teach that these extraordinarily beautiful gay
love poems aren't really gay at all and that their very explicit references to
same-sex love are really all about men and women." [7][45]
Two Western scholars ignore such material. In a 1999 review in The Spectator of
an anthology of Classical Arabic literature, the reviewer, R.I. Penguin, says
of the author's editorial decision to focus on nature poems if a featured
author: "Irwin is to be admired for sticking to a fair-minded overview of the
whole field; Sanawbari's work, for instance, is described thus: 'Besides nature
poems, he also produced mudhakarat, or poems addressed to small boys. However,
in this anthology we will stick to the nature poems.' Quite right; the nature
poems are much more interesting." Irwin also notes that "...there are some
practices in the poetic language which sound bizarre, like the convention that
if the metre demands it, the masculine pronoun may be substituted for the
feminine one, with deeply confusing results in love poetry. The Arabs were
fairly polymorphously perverse, but probably not so much as their love poetry
makes them sound." [46]
[edit] See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Pederasty
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Pederastic proverbs
a.. Pederasty
b.. Islamic Law
c.. Hammam
d.. Kocek
e.. Abu Nuwas
f.. Ghilman
g.. Homosexuality and Islam
h.. Jami
i.. Pederasty in the modern world
[edit] References
a.. 'Abdur-Rahman as-Sulami, Abu. Early Sufi Women, Dhikr an-niswa
al-muta'abbidat as-sufiyyat. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999.
b.. Crompton, Louis. Homosexuality and Civilization. Belknap, Harvard, 2003.
(ISBN 0-674-01197-X)
c.. Gomez, Emilio Garcia (Ed.) In Praise of Boys: Moorish Poems from
Al-Andalus Translated from the Spanish by Erskine Lane. Gay Sunshine Press,
1975.
d.. Kennedy, Philip F. The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abu Nuwas
and the Literary Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. (ISBN 0-19-826392-9)
e.. Khaled El-Rouayheb. The Love of Boys in Arabic Poetry of the Early
Ottoman Period, 1500 - 1800. Middle Eastern Literatures; January 2005, vol.8,
no.1.
f.. Khaled El-Rouayheb. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500
- 1800. Chicago; January 2005. (ISBN 0-226-72988-5)
g.. Kuru, Selim S. 2000. A Sixteenth Century Scholar: Deli Birader and His
"Dafi`ü'l-Gumum Ve Rafi`ü'l-Humum." Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard
University.
h.. Lacey, E.A. (Trans.) The Delight of Hearts: Or, What You Will Not Find in
Any Book. Gay Sunshine Press, 1988.
i.. Murray, Stephen O. and Will Roscoe, et al. Islamic Homosexualities:
Culture, History, and Literature. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
ISBN 0-8147-7468-7
j.. Ritter, Hellmut. Das Meer der Seele, 1955 (English translation The Ocean
of the Soul, 2003). (Chapters 24, 25 ,26).
k.. Wilson, Peter Lambourn. Contemplation of the Unbearded - The Rubaiyyat of
Awhadoddin Kermani. Paidika, Vol.3, No.4 (1995).
l.. Roth, Norman. "The Care and Feeding of Gazelles" - medieval Hebrew and
Arabic Love Poetry. Poetics of Love in the Middle Ages, 1989.
m.. Roth, Norman. Fawn of My Delights - boy-love in Hebrew and Arabic Verse.
Sex in the Middle Ages. 1991.
n.. Roth, Norman. Boy-love in Medieval Arabic Verse. Paidika, Vol.3, No.3,
1994.
o.. Schild, Maarten. The Irresistible Beauty of Boys - Middle Eastern
attitudes about boy-love. Paidika, Vol.1, No.3.
p.. Sikand, Yoginder. A Martyr for Love - Hazrat Sayed Sarmad, a Sufi gay
mystic. Perversions, Vol.1, No.4. Spring 1995.
q.. Williamson, Casey R. Williamson. Where did that boy go? - the missing
boy-beloved in post-colonial Persian literature.
r.. Wright, J. W. & Everett Rowson. Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic
Literature. 1998.
[edit] Further reading
a.. Ze'evi, Dror. Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman
Middle East, 1500-1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
b.. Aldrich, Robert. Gay Life and Culture: A World History. London: Thames &
Hudson Ltd, 2006.
c.. Andrews, Walter G. and Mehmet Kalpakh. The Age of Beloveds. Durham and
London: Duke University Press, 2005.
d.. Khaled El-Rouayheb. The Love of Boys in Arabic Poetry of the Early
Ottoman Period, 1500 - 1800. Middle Eastern Literatures; January 2005, vol.8,
no.1.
e.. Khaled El-Rouayheb. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500
- 1800. Chicago; January 2005. (ISBN 0-226-72988-5)
[edit] Notes
1.. ^ Walter Andrews and Mehmet Kalpakli, The Age of Beloveds: Love and the
Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society, Durham and
London, 2005
2.. ^ Ralph Russell, The Urdu Ghazal-A Rejoinder to Frances W. Pritchett and
William L. Hanaway, Annual of Urdu Studies, p.98
3.. ^ Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Conventions of Love, Love of Conventions: Urdu
Love Poetry in the Eighteenth Century, unpublished paper, 2001
4.. ^ The Rasa'il Ikhwan as-Safa', a tenth century Iraqi philosophical and
religious encyclopedia.
5.. ^ James T. Monroe, in Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature, p.
117
6.. ^ Murray and Roscoe, 1997, passim
7.. ^ Mukhtar, M. H. Tarbiyat-e-Aulad aur Islam [The Upbringing of Children
in Islam]. dar-ut-Tasneef, Jamiat ul-Ulum il-Islamiyyah alla-ma Banuri Town
Karachi. English translation by Rafiq Abdur Rahman. Transl. esp. Chapter 11:
Responsibility for Sexual Education.
8.. ^ Khaled El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World,
1500-1800 Chicago, 2005 p.58
9.. ^ Kennedy, 1997, pp.221,224
10.. ^ El-Rouayheb, 2005, p.21
11.. ^ Westermarck, Edward: The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas.
London 1908, 1912, 1971
12.. ^ Herodotus, Histories;I.135, tr. A.D. Godley
13.. ^ Plutarch, De Malig. Herod. xiii.ll
14.. ^ Richard F. Burton, Terminal Essay
15.. ^ Paul Sprachman, "Le beau garçon sans merci: The Homoerotic Tale in
Arabic and Persian" in Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature, ed. J.
Wright and K. Rowson, New York, 1997, p.199
16.. ^ Janet Afary, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the
Seductions of Islam
17.. ^ From the Garden of Truth and Path to Enlightenment (tr. Paul
Sprachman)
18.. ^ Minoo S. Southgate, "Men, Women and Boys: Love and Sex in the Works of
Sa'adi" in Asian Homosexuality ed. Wayne Dynes; p.289
19.. ^ R. F. Burton, ibid.
20.. ^ refer to subsection[1]
21.. ^ refer to subsection[2]
22.. ^ El-Rouayheb, Khaled. Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World,
1500-1800. p. 76
23.. ^ El-Rouayheb, Khaled. Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World,
1500-1800. p. 77
24.. ^ El-Rouayheb, Khaled. The Love of Boys in Arabic Poetry of the Early
Ottoman Period, 1500 - 1800. Middle Eastern Literatures; January 2005, vol.8,
no.1.
25.. ^ Kuru, Selim S. 2000. A Sixteenth Century Scholar: Deli Birader and His
"Dafi`ü'l-Gumum Ve Rafi`ü'l-Humum." Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard
University. p. 189-191
26.. ^ El-Rouayheb, Khaled. The Love of Boys in Arabic Poetry of the Early
Ottoman Period, 1500 - 1800. Middle Eastern Literatures; January 2005, vol.8,
no.1. p.5
27.. ^ 'arid in this context means bread down. El-Rouayheb, Khaled. The Love
of Boys in Arabic Poetry of the Early Ottoman Period, 1500 - 1800. p. 4
28.. ^ Kuru, Selim S. 2000. A Sixteenth Century Scholar: Deli Birader and His
"Dafi`ü'l-Gumum Ve Rafi`ü'l-Humum." Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard
University. p. 188-92
29.. ^ El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World,
1500-1800. p. 3
30.. ^ El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World,
1500-1800. p. 3
31.. ^ A note provided by Selim suggested that gulampare and mahbub-perest
are both boy lovers but the former implying sexual and the second platonic
love. Kuru, Selim S. 2000.
32.. ^ Kuru, Selim S. 2000. A Sixteenth Century Scholar: Deli Birader and His
"Dafi`ü'l-Gumum Ve Rafi`ü'l-Humum." Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard
University. P. 184-185
33.. ^ Kuru, Selim S. 2000. A Sixteenth Century Scholar: Deli Birader and His
"Dafi`ü'l-Gumum Ve Rafi`ü'l-Humum." Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard
University. P. 258
34.. ^ El-Rouayheb, Khaled. Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World,
1500-1800. p. 153
35.. ^ Hobby-O - Greece (The Diary of John Cam Hobhouse, October 22nd 1809,
edited by Peter Cochran)[3]
36.. ^ El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World,
1500-1800. p. 42
37.. ^ El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World,
1500-1800. p. 41
38.. ^ El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World,
1500-1800. p. 42
39.. ^ Temesvarli Osman Aga, Gâvurlarin Esiri, Istanbul, 1971
40.. ^ Sir Richard Burton, Kama Sutra: the Hindu art of lovemaking, intro.
Pathan proverb, also reported in similar forms from the Arab countries, Iran
and North Africa.
41.. ^ Ismail, M., NGO Coalition on Child Rights - NWFP / UNICEF Community
Perceptions of Male Child Sexual Abuse in North West Frontier Province,
Pakistan, NGO Coalition on Child Rights, 1998
42.. ^ Yusuf Al-Shirbini's 17th c. Kitab Hazz Al-Quhuf as per Khaled
El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 Chicago,
2005; p.37
43.. ^ El-Rouayheb, 2005, p.156
44.. ^ "Cultures od Denial"; article on the book Unspeakable Love: Gay and
Lesbian Life in the Middle East in Al-Ahram, 4 May-10 May 2006, #793
45.. ^ Janet Afary & Kevin Anderson, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution:
Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, (University of Chicago Press, 2005
46.. ^
[http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_199911/ai_n8854441 "An
orchard you can take on your lap"; Spectator, The, 27 November 1999 by Hensher,
Philip]
External links
a.. The Androphile Project - The World History of Male Love
b.. "Recognition vs. Acceptance: Islamic Discourses on Homosexuality"
c.. Islam and Homosexuality -- Ottoman Culture
d.. Homosexuality in Kitab-i-Aqdas
e.. Homoerotism and Homosexuality in Islam
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