Jim
Before we go there, doe's any Pacifica Station devote air time to "Heterosexual
Issues" such as: "Male Bashing", "Feminization of Boys, Men, Masculinity in the
General Society", "Challenges of Male Parenting", "Healthy Heterosexual
Relationships", promote a campaign to outlaw the scourge of Infant torture and
genital mutilations called "circumcision", the attack on the family as an
institution, and the white male unemployment crisis?
For the record: KPFT devotes a 1/2 hour a week with "The Whole Mother Show" to
its credit (responded to prodding) at least, offered timid programs devoted to
the issue of "male genital mutilation". The GLBT Community on the other hand
get over 4 hrs./week.
Jim, any of the above raise your ire and determination to see changes in
Pacifica Programing as much, or more then...?
Charity, like reforms, should begin at home!
...made in america
Visit: myspace.com/reallyquittingamerica
For the "people made in america".
--- On Sun, 6/29/08, jdemaegt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <jdemaegt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: jdemaegt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <jdemaegt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [PacificaRadiowaves] Pederasty in the Islamic lands
To: NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, fulcrumsofchange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
pacificaradiowaves@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, rocklandfriendsofwbai@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
freekpfk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sunday, June 29, 2008, 10:19 AM
ÂÂÂ I think we need a program on
Homosexuality and on Pederasty andÂon 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?
ÂÂÂÂAnd as far as homosexuality in Islamic
countries goes, Âas the article below indicates the presentÂpopular
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?
ÂÂÂ 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.
ÂÂÂÂFrom 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."
ÂÂÂ And what about the love of
your boys as an antidote for the stress and tension of the modern world?
ÂÂÂ From below: "In chapter 3 â âHow to enjoy
the company of boysâ â of Deli Biraderâs âThe Repeller of Grief and Remover of
Anxietyâ,.... ...."
------------ --------- ------
ÂÂÂ So would having a program on various forms
of Sexuality andÂSex on the Pacifica stations be "good programming" ? And
would such a program increase listenership? I think it would.
Â
ÂÂÂ 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
ÂÂ(Redirected from Pederasty
in the Islamic lands)
Â
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" â passion â which could
have as object a beautiful beardless boy as easily as a woman, is prominent in
literature.
Contents[hide]
1 Literature and
teachings
2 Individual
regions
2.1 Middle East
2.1.1 Persia
2.1.2 The Ottoman
Empire
2.1.2.1 The Validity of
Literary Works as Primary Sources
2.1.2.2 The Existence
of Male-Male Love
2.1.2.3 Women-Lovers
& Boy-Lovers
2.1.2.4 Age
Discrimination â Beardless Boys and Downy-Cheeked Youth
2.1.2.5 Sodomy &
Islam
2.1.2.6 Roles in
Male-Male Relationships - Active & Passive Sodomite
2.1.2.7 Bathhouses and
Coffeehouses
2.1.2.8 Perception of
Christendom
2.2 Central Asia
2.3 Mughal India
3 Sufi outlook
4 Modern
scholarship
5 See also
6 References
7 Further reading
8 Notes
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.
ÂIndividual regions
ÂMiddle East
Â
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 QurÊÄn itself: "And
there shall
wait on them [the god fearing men] youths of their own, as fair as virgin
pearls." (QurÊÄn 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
(liwÄá), 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
AbÅ NÅwÄs
(750?â813?) 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 liwÄá 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]
ÂPersia
Â
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 KhayyÃm'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," âthat was his shoutâ
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 societyâ 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 â literary work describing
male-male relationships and yet laws prohibiting sodomy â 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
â 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. BÃrgel, 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 authorsâ 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 â 1800, that
many historians âgive readers the impression that many love poetry of that
period usually portrayed female beloved.â In the aforementioned paper,
El-Rouayheb later argued that âthe portrayed beloved was often, perhaps most
often, a male youth.â 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-Rouayhebâs
claim:
i. beard-down(âidhÄr) - Ahmad al-BahnasÄ (d. 1148/1735): There he is with
the night of the faceâs âidhÄr when it darkened.
ii. belovedâs name â
IbrÄhÄm al-AkramÄ (d. 1047/1638): After you, my desire âAli, Iâve divorced of
the vine and love poetry.
iii. the word âboyâ â Muhammad al-MahÄsinÄ (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 âcategoriesâ of
lovers.
An example of such a work would be Deli Biraderâs âThe Repeller of Grief and
Remover of Anxietyâ â âa lengthy work in prose with several poems embedded in
it.â[25]
There are seven chapters in Biraderâs work. Chapter 2 was titled âBoy-lovers
and
women-loversâ , chapter 3 was titled âHow to enjoy the company of boysâ and
chapter 4 was titled âHow to enjoy the company of girlsâ.
Since Biraderâs 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 â 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 KhalÄl al-MurÄdÄ âdevoted 12 pages of his
biographical work to reproducing a tract â entitled âThrowing off the reins in
describing the devoid of, and the embellished with, beard-downâ â [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.â[26]
The following excerpts of poems also exemplify the correlation between age and
beauty in the minds of the authors.
âAbd al-Hayy al-KhÄl (d. 1117/1705): I used to say that my heart would
forget [you] when âÄrid[27]
appeared on your cheeks
MustafÄ al-SumÄdÄ (d. 1137/1725): If beard-down
appears on the cheeks of the beloved, it will leave him dusted and
dried
In chapter 3 â âHow to enjoy the company of boysâ â of Deli Biraderâs âThe
Repeller of Grief and Remover of Anxietyâ, Birader described a few group of
lovers â those that find beauty in exquisite boys, those who love gÃzeshte
(boys
who have passed puberty), those who think of âbeauties who has already grown
black and thick moustachesâ and another who strive to find old men with white
beards. [28]
These examples imply how contemporary authorsâ 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 âhomosexualityâ.
Historian Marshall Hodgson wrote
that in medieval Islamic civilization,
âdespite strong Sharâi disapproval, the sexual relations of a mature man
with a subordinate youth were so readily accepted in upper-class circlesâ The
fashion entered poetry, especially the Persian.â
Bernard Lewis also wrote
that,
âhomosexuality 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 adulteryââ
[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 Biraderâs âThe Repeller of Grief and Remover
of
Anxietyâ, El-Rouayhebâs claim can be better understood. The following is an
excerpt from the third chapter of Biraderâs 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, lÃtÃ,
gulÃmpÃre,[31]
âwhite money black face.â
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 Biraderâs âThe Repeller of Grief and Remover of Anxietyâ,
was about queers and transvestite. In the
aforementioned chapter, Birader started off with an introductory as
following:
âThis chapter describes the shameful states and infamous acts of abominable
queers and transvestites.â
He later clarified his definition of queers, by writing âqueers demand to get
fucked and look for men with large cocks and pay for sex and are famous for
this.â[33]
Khaled El-Rouayheb clarified that the penetrator was often seen as the dominant
âmaleâ and the penetrated was often seen as the submissive âfemaleâ. Hence,
from
the aforementioned point of view, society stigmatized and dishonored penetrated
male for taking on a âfemaleâ role, while the penetrator was often exempted
from
such dishonor. [34]
[edit]
Bathhouses and Coffeehouses
Â
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 (SÄqÄ) called IbrÄhÄm al-SuyÅrÄ in the DÄwÄn of âInÄyÄtÄâs
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 handâ [36]
Nonetheless, it should not be implied that sexual activity was conducted with
these workers.
A Damascene scholar Muhammad Najm al-DÄn al-GhazzÄ 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 âAbd al-RaâÅf al-MunÄwÄ 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 âin some instances, legal action was taken
against the more disreputable establishments on the basis of their association
with immorality and prostitution.â [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 kÃÃek 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 TemeÅvar 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
Â
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
SkjÅrvÃ, 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,
mahabbÃh. 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 bacchà (a Turkic Uzbeki term
etymologically related to the Persian
bachcheh, "boy" or "child", sometimes with the connotation of
"catamite"). A bacchÃ, 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
bachÃs 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, KÃÃek,
and Hammam
ÂSufi outlook
Â
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 Rabiâa
al-âAdawiyya
(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 â like the poems of Attar (died 1220), Rumi
(d. 1273), Saâdi
(d. 1291), Hafez
(d. 1389), Jami (d.
1492), and even those of the 20th century Iraj Mirza (d. 1926) â 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 arenât 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
Pederasty
Islamic Law
Hammam
Kocek
Abu
Nuwas
Ghilman
Homosexuality and
Islam
Jami
Pederasty in
the modern world
[edit]
References
'Abdur-Rahman as-Sulami, Abu. Early Sufi Women, Dhikr an-niswa
al-muta'abbidat as-sufiyyat. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999.
Crompton, Louis. Homosexuality and Civilization. Belknap, Harvard,
2003. (ISBN
0-674-01197- X)
Gomez, Emilio Garcia (Ed.) In Praise of Boys: Moorish Poems from
Al-Andalus Translated from the Spanish by Erskine Lane. Gay Sunshine
Press, 1975.
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)
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.
Khaled El-Rouayheb. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World,
1500 - 1800. Chicago; January 2005. (ISBN
0-226-72988- 5)
Kuru, Selim S. 2000. A Sixteenth Century Scholar: Deli Birader and His
"Dafi`Ã'l-Gumum Ve Rafi`Ã'l-Humum. " Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard
University.
Lacey, E.A. (Trans.) The Delight of Hearts: Or, What You Will Not Find
in Any Book. Gay Sunshine Press, 1988.
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
Ritter, Hellmut. Das Meer der Seele, 1955 (English translation The
Ocean of the Soul, 2003). (Chapters 24, 25 ,26).
Wilson, Peter Lambourn. Contemplation of the Unbearded - The Rubaiyyat
of Awhadoddin Kermani. Paidika, Vol.3, No.4 (1995).
Roth, Norman. "The Care and Feeding of Gazelles" - medieval Hebrew and
Arabic Love Poetry. Poetics of Love in the Middle Ages, 1989.
Roth, Norman. Fawn of My Delights - boy-love in Hebrew and Arabic
Verse. Sex in the Middle Ages. 1991.
Roth, Norman. Boy-love in Medieval Arabic Verse. Paidika, Vol.3,
No.3, 1994.
Schild, Maarten. The Irresistible Beauty of Boys - Middle Eastern
attitudes about boy-love. Paidika, Vol.1, No.3.
Sikand, Yoginder. A Martyr for Love - Hazrat Sayed Sarmad, a Sufi gay
mystic. Perversions, Vol.1, No.4. Spring 1995.
Williamson, Casey R. Williamson. Where did that boy go? - the missing
boy-beloved in post-colonial Persian literature.
Wright, J. W. & Everett Rowson. Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic
Literature. 1998.
[edit]
Further reading
Ze'evi, Dror. Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the
Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900. Berkeley: University of California Press,
2006.
Aldrich, Robert. Gay Life and Culture: A World History. London:
Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2006.
Andrews, Walter G. and Mehmet Kalpakh. The Age of Beloveds. Durham
and London: Duke University Press, 2005.
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.
Khaled El-Rouayheb. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World,
1500 - 1800. Chicago; January 2005. (ISBN
0-226-72988- 5)
[edit]
Notes
^
Walter Andrews and Mehmet Kalpakli, The Age of Beloveds: Love and the
Beloved in EarlyâModern Ottoman and European Culture and Society, Durham
and London, 2005
^
Ralph Russell, The Urdu GhazalâA Rejoinder to Frances W. Pritchett and
William L. Hanaway, Annual of Urdu Studies, p.98
^
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Conventions of Love, Love of Conventions: Urdu Love
Poetry in the Eighteenth Century, unpublished paper, 2001
^
The Rasa'il
Ikhwan as-Safa', a tenth century Iraqi philosophical and religious
encyclopedia.
^
James T. Monroe, in Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature, p.
117
^
Murray and Roscoe, 1997, passim
^
Mukhtar, M. H. Tarbiyat-e-Aulad aur Islam [The Upbringing of Children in
Islam]. dar-ut-Tasneef, Jamiat ul-UlÅm il-Islamiyyah alla-ma Banuri Town
Karachi. English translation by Rafiq Abdur Rahman. Transl. esp. Chapter 11:
Responsibility for Sexual Education.
^
Khaled El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World,
1500-1800 Chicago, 2005 p.58
^
Kennedy, 1997, pp.221,224
^
El-Rouayheb, 2005, p.21
^
Westermarck, Edward: The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas. London
1908, 1912, 1971
^
Herodotus, Histories;I.135, tr. A.D. Godley
^
Plutarch, De Malig. Herod. xiii.ll
^
Richard F. Burton, Terminal Essay
^
Paul Sprachman, "Le beau garÃon 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
^
Janet Afary, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions
of Islam
^
From the Garden of Truth and Path to Enlightenment (tr. Paul Sprachman)
^
Minoo S. Southgate, "Men, Women and Boys: Love and Sex in the Works of
Sa'adi"
in Asian Homosexuality ed. Wayne Dynes; p.289
^
R. F. Burton, ibid.
^
refer to subsection[1]
^
refer to subsection[2]
^
El-Rouayheb, Khaled. Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World, 1500-1800. p.
76
^
El-Rouayheb, Khaled. Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World, 1500-1800. p.
77
^
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.
^
Kuru, Selim S. 2000. A Sixteenth Century Scholar: Deli Birader and His
"Dafi`Ã'l-Gumum Ve Rafi`Ã'l-Humum. " Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard
University. p. 189-191
^
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
^
âÄrid 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
^
Kuru, Selim S. 2000. A Sixteenth Century Scholar: Deli Birader and His
"Dafi`Ã'l-Gumum Ve Rafi`Ã'l-Humum. " Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard
University. p. 188-92
^
El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World, 1500-1800. p.
3
^
El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World, 1500-1800. p.
3
^
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.
^
Kuru, Selim S. 2000. A Sixteenth Century Scholar: Deli Birader and His
"Dafi`Ã'l-Gumum Ve Rafi`Ã'l-Humum. " Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard
University. P. 184-185
^
Kuru, Selim S. 2000. A Sixteenth Century Scholar: Deli Birader and His
"Dafi`Ã'l-Gumum Ve Rafi`Ã'l-Humum. " Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard
University. P. 258
^
El-Rouayheb, Khaled. Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World, 1500-1800. p.
153
^
Hobby-O - Greece (The Diary of John Cam Hobhouse, October 22nd 1809, edited
by
Peter Cochran)[3]
^
El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World, 1500-1800. p.
42
^
El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World, 1500-1800. p.
41
^
El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arabic World, 1500-1800. p.
42
^
TemeÅvarlÄ Osman AÄa, GÃvurlarÄn Esiri, Istanbul, 1971
^
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.
^
Ismail, M., NGO Coalition on Child Rights â NWFP / UNICEF Community
Perceptions of Male Child Sexual Abuse in North West Frontier Province,
Pakistan, NGO Coalition on Child Rights, 1998
^
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
^
El-Rouayheb, 2005, p.156
^
"Cultures od
Denial"; article on the book Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the
Middle East in Al-Ahram, 4 Mayâ10 May 2006, #793
^
Janet Afary & Kevin Anderson, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution:
Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, (University of Chicago Press, 2005
^
[http://www.findarti cles.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]
ÂExternal links
The Androphile Project â The
World History of Male Love
"Recognition vs. Acceptance: Islamic Discourses on
Homosexuality"
Islam and Homosexuality -- Ottoman Culture
Homosexuality in Kitab-i-Aqdas
Homoerotism and Homosexuality in Islam
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