Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (8 page)
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Authors: Khaled El-Rouayheb
BOOK: Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800
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Interestingly, an adolescent youth was himself expected to be sexually attracted to women and it seems to have been a common ploy of those desirous of a youth to adopt a woman as bait.
93
It is also possible that adolescent youths themselves regularly courted younger, prepubescent boys. “Serial” relationships
(al-ʿishq al-musalsal),
in which the beloved of one man is himself the lover of a woman or boy, are not unknown to the Arabic lore on profane love.
94
According to a couplet by the Damascene Ibrāhīm al-Suʾālātī (d. 1684):
93
It is also possible that adolescent youths themselves regularly courted younger, prepubescent boys. “Serial” relationships
(al-ʿishq al-musalsal),
in which the beloved of one man is himself the lover of a woman or boy, are not unknown to the Arabic lore on profane love.
94
According to a couplet by the Damascene Ibrāhīm al-Suʾālātī (d. 1684):
The beloved has fallen in love with a gazelle like himself, and is afflicted by amorous rapture.He was a beloved and is now a lover, and thus love has passed its judgment [both] for and against him.
95
The “male” sexual potential of an adolescent youth was not confined to intercourse with women or younger boys. Behind closed doors, one could not tell for certain whether the man or the boy had been the active partner, and the uncertainty could be exploited in the bawdy and defamatory literature, as shown by the previously mentioned anecdote involving a man and a boy each insisting that they had been the active partner. An anonymous line of poetry spelled out this latent uncertainty:
He who is civil in
Liwāt
is not assumed to involve a third party, and if he is alone with his boy, only God knows who does the fucking.
96
Such poems and anecdotes are clearly “parasitical” in the sense that they consciously break with the dominant, stereotypical representation of pederastic relationships. Yet they do suggest that these dominant depictions were not always adequate to the actual behavior of individuals, and that there was some awareness of this at the time. Not only does there exist the odd indication that boys could sometimes assume the “active” role, but there are also indications that some men had sex with other adult men. Thus the effeminate adult men portrayed in the bawdy literature do not seem to have had particular difficulties in finding other adult men willing to have sex with them. It is also likely that some pederastic relationships continued long after the “passive” partner could reasonably be passed off as a “boy.” Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī claimed that this was precisely what some heretical Egyptian dervishes tended to do, and saw therein a confirmation of their rustic, unrefined character.
97
It is doubtful whether such men were thought to actually prefer adult men to boys or women. It seems more likely that the assumption was that they were helping themselves to whatever orifice happened to be at hand. The assumption that rough and masculine men will behave in this manner is one that is still very much alive, as evinced by the stereotype that contemporary Latin American or Arab men, though they may actually prefer to have sex with women, will readily resort to effeminate men or Western homosexual tourists as the second-best thing.
98
The tendency to bugger men of all ages was also denounced by the above-mentioned Iraqi scholar Muhammad Amīn al-ʿUmarī as “an abomination
(fāhishah)
which is not perpetrated except by someone with a coarse character and a malicious soul.”
99
The Social Context of Pederasty97
It is doubtful whether such men were thought to actually prefer adult men to boys or women. It seems more likely that the assumption was that they were helping themselves to whatever orifice happened to be at hand. The assumption that rough and masculine men will behave in this manner is one that is still very much alive, as evinced by the stereotype that contemporary Latin American or Arab men, though they may actually prefer to have sex with women, will readily resort to effeminate men or Western homosexual tourists as the second-best thing.
98
The tendency to bugger men of all ages was also denounced by the above-mentioned Iraqi scholar Muhammad Amīn al-ʿUmarī as “an abomination
(fāhishah)
which is not perpetrated except by someone with a coarse character and a malicious soul.”
99
The homosexuality represented in the texts of the early Ottoman period was, on the whole, of the pederastic, “transgenerational” or “age-structured” type well known from classical Greece and Rome. It is not that this was the only type that was thought to exist; nor was it the only type that was acceptable—it was not acceptable to many—but it was the type that was conceived as being usual. Even those religious scholars who inveighed the most strongly against sodomy and its antecedents warned against gazing at
boys
, against being alone with a
boy
in a private place, against composing love poetry of
boys
, and so on. That an adult man who was not a
maʾbūn
or
mukhannath
should actually prefer fully developed adult men to teenage boys is an idea that seems not to have been seriously entertained.
boys
, against being alone with a
boy
in a private place, against composing love poetry of
boys
, and so on. That an adult man who was not a
maʾbūn
or
mukhannath
should actually prefer fully developed adult men to teenage boys is an idea that seems not to have been seriously entertained.
Rather than desiring and having intercourse with each other, pederasts competed and sometimes fought amongst themselves for boys. The Damascene poet Darwīsh al-Tālawī (d. 1606) alluded in verse to one such conflict between a chief judge of Damascus and a footman (
çuhadār
), and was himself deprived of a young, handsome slave whom he loved by the Druze Emir of Mt. Lebanon, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Maʿnī (d. 1635), while passing through the city of Sidon.
100
The above-mentioned Mustafā ʿAlī, in his description of Egypt in 1599, noted that the cavalrymen there often quarreled amongst themselves, usually about boys or horses—this in contrast to soldiers in the Turkish regions of the Empire, among whom he claimed “nobody covets another person’s possessions or horse or boy.”
101
çuhadār
), and was himself deprived of a young, handsome slave whom he loved by the Druze Emir of Mt. Lebanon, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Maʿnī (d. 1635), while passing through the city of Sidon.
100
The above-mentioned Mustafā ʿAlī, in his description of Egypt in 1599, noted that the cavalrymen there often quarreled amongst themselves, usually about boys or horses—this in contrast to soldiers in the Turkish regions of the Empire, among whom he claimed “nobody covets another person’s possessions or horse or boy.”
101
In the modern West, sexual relations between men tend to be perceived as essentially relations between two persons of the same gender who, because of a psychological orientation or the unavailability of members of the opposite sex, have intercourse with one another. Such liaisons are therefore thought to be especially common in all-male environments: the military, boarding schools, saunas, monasteries, prisons, etc. In the early Ottoman Arab East,
liwāt
was usually thought to involve a man and a boy, and it thus tended to be associated, at least in the popular imagination, with social contexts in which the mixing of generations was especially marked. This is not to say that
liwāt
was, or was believed to be, confined to such contexts. The generations were not segregated in the way the genders were, and the opportunities for pederastic courtship were correspondingly diffuse. However, it seems clear that certain social environments were thought to be especially suspect (or promising) precisely to the extent that, in them, the mixing of men and boys was particularly intense, or could occur hidden from the public eye. This applies first and foremost to the following realms: education; mystic orders; slavery and servitude; coffeehouses and public baths.
Educationliwāt
was usually thought to involve a man and a boy, and it thus tended to be associated, at least in the popular imagination, with social contexts in which the mixing of generations was especially marked. This is not to say that
liwāt
was, or was believed to be, confined to such contexts. The generations were not segregated in the way the genders were, and the opportunities for pederastic courtship were correspondingly diffuse. However, it seems clear that certain social environments were thought to be especially suspect (or promising) precisely to the extent that, in them, the mixing of men and boys was particularly intense, or could occur hidden from the public eye. This applies first and foremost to the following realms: education; mystic orders; slavery and servitude; coffeehouses and public baths.
Education in the premodern Arab-Islamic world was a highly personalized affair, and speaking of an educational “institution” or “system” can easily be misleading. A student studied, free of charge, at the hands of individual teachers, and it was from these, rather than from any school, that he derived his certificate
(ijāzah)
and prestige.
102
Biographical notices of a scholar almost always indicate his teachers, and almost never the names of the schools he might have attended. The latter might constitute the physical setting for conducting a class, but was of little further significance; a mosque or private home could do as well. A student would typically acquire certificates from several scholars, but would also normally have one to whom he was especially close, and who was singled out in the biographical literature by phrases such as “he was attached to”
(intamā ilā, ikhtaṣṣa bi
), “he accompanied”
(sahaba, lāzama),
“he served”
(khadama).
As indicated by such expressions, the professional and the personal—to use an anachronistic distinction—were inextricably merged in such a relationship. The teacher was simultaneously a mentor and a patron, the student a client, disciple, and servant. The educational relationship’s strongly personalized character, together with the fact that a student would be attached to a teacher at an age in which he was widely regarded—even by staunch moralists—to be attractive to adult men, explains why it featured prominently in discourses, both apologetic and hostile, on pederastic love. According to the Persian philosopher Mulla Sadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 1640/1), the divine purpose behind the existence of refined pederastic attraction was precisely to induce men to frequent and care for boys, thereby ensuring that the arts and sciences of civilization would be transmitted from generation to generation. This kind of attraction was therefore absent among “primitive” peoples such as the Bedouins, Kurds, Turcomans, and Black Africans. Brute heterosexual desire, by contrast, served to perpetuate the species, and was universal among mankind.
103
The argument is hardly original with Mulla Sadrā; it was propounded, in much the same words, by the Neoplatonist “Brethren of Purity”
(Ikhwān al-Safā)
in the tenth century, and is strikingly reminiscent of the Platonic conception of adult men procreating physically with attractive women, and intellectually with attractive boys.
104
From a very different perspective, the Meccan scholar and jurist Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (d. 1566) stressed that
(ijāzah)
and prestige.
102
Biographical notices of a scholar almost always indicate his teachers, and almost never the names of the schools he might have attended. The latter might constitute the physical setting for conducting a class, but was of little further significance; a mosque or private home could do as well. A student would typically acquire certificates from several scholars, but would also normally have one to whom he was especially close, and who was singled out in the biographical literature by phrases such as “he was attached to”
(intamā ilā, ikhtaṣṣa bi
), “he accompanied”
(sahaba, lāzama),
“he served”
(khadama).
As indicated by such expressions, the professional and the personal—to use an anachronistic distinction—were inextricably merged in such a relationship. The teacher was simultaneously a mentor and a patron, the student a client, disciple, and servant. The educational relationship’s strongly personalized character, together with the fact that a student would be attached to a teacher at an age in which he was widely regarded—even by staunch moralists—to be attractive to adult men, explains why it featured prominently in discourses, both apologetic and hostile, on pederastic love. According to the Persian philosopher Mulla Sadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 1640/1), the divine purpose behind the existence of refined pederastic attraction was precisely to induce men to frequent and care for boys, thereby ensuring that the arts and sciences of civilization would be transmitted from generation to generation. This kind of attraction was therefore absent among “primitive” peoples such as the Bedouins, Kurds, Turcomans, and Black Africans. Brute heterosexual desire, by contrast, served to perpetuate the species, and was universal among mankind.
103
The argument is hardly original with Mulla Sadrā; it was propounded, in much the same words, by the Neoplatonist “Brethren of Purity”
(Ikhwān al-Safā)
in the tenth century, and is strikingly reminiscent of the Platonic conception of adult men procreating physically with attractive women, and intellectually with attractive boys.
104
From a very different perspective, the Meccan scholar and jurist Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (d. 1566) stressed that
it is imperative for a teacher to safeguard his sight from the handsome beardless boy as much as possible—even though he is allowed [to look at him] in the absence of lust, for the exclusive purpose of teaching—because it might lead to unsettlement or temptation.
105
In the biographical literature, there are several examples of scholars who went to great lengths to live up to such strictures, for example seating particularly handsome students in such a manner as to avoid facing them.
106
That many scholars also succumbed to the temptation is also abundantly attested: the brother of the biographer and scholar Ahmad al-Khālidī (d. 1624/5), resident in Safad in Palestine, was charged with sexually assaulting one of his students; the Damascene scholar Ahmad al-Tībī al-Saghīr (d. 1586) was rumored to have had an affair with his student ʿAbd al-Latīf ibn al-jābī (d. 1617); the Damascene poet ʿAbd al-Hayy Tarrazalrayhān (d. 1688) was overcome with remorse when, in disloyalty to a beloved, he took a liking to one of his students; the Iraqi belletrist Muhammad al-Ghulāmī (d. 1772/3) composed a short elegy when a student he fancied died.
107
The Egyptian scholar and poet ʿAbdallah al-Shabrāwī (d. 1758), the previously mentioned Rector of the Azhar college in Cairo, addressed to a former student a love poem which was unusually earnest and unadorned by the standards of the time:
106
That many scholars also succumbed to the temptation is also abundantly attested: the brother of the biographer and scholar Ahmad al-Khālidī (d. 1624/5), resident in Safad in Palestine, was charged with sexually assaulting one of his students; the Damascene scholar Ahmad al-Tībī al-Saghīr (d. 1586) was rumored to have had an affair with his student ʿAbd al-Latīf ibn al-jābī (d. 1617); the Damascene poet ʿAbd al-Hayy Tarrazalrayhān (d. 1688) was overcome with remorse when, in disloyalty to a beloved, he took a liking to one of his students; the Iraqi belletrist Muhammad al-Ghulāmī (d. 1772/3) composed a short elegy when a student he fancied died.
107
The Egyptian scholar and poet ʿAbdallah al-Shabrāwī (d. 1758), the previously mentioned Rector of the Azhar college in Cairo, addressed to a former student a love poem which was unusually earnest and unadorned by the standards of the time:
O gazelle! You whose movements are a snare for mankind.
What have you done to a lover who is anxious and visibly ailing?
Overflowing with cares, love-struck, ill, infatuated with your love.
Who is enraptured with joy if you confer a greeting one day.
And who, if you walk past, cries: “How sweet you are with that bearing!”...
Allow me, I implore you, to speak to you; there is nothing less than speaking!
And stay true to a past bond, when you and I were together.
The days you came to me and were not so far from the age of weaning.
The days you came to me to gain elements of culture with diligence.
The days I enjoyed your favor, and fate was smiling at me.
The days happiness was my guest, and my fortune was made.The days you were called “boy!”
(yāghulām)—
and the term “boy!” is beneath you...
108
It should be added that, within the educational setting, pederastic relationships were not necessarily confined to those involving teachers and students. The age difference between students could be considerable, and liaisons between the older and the younger of them were not inconceivable. When the scholar and mystic Murad al-Bukhārī (d. 1720) founded the Muradiyyah college in Damascus, he stipulated that it not house beardless boys or married men (who would bring their wives with them), presumably from the fear of tempting the other students on the premises.
109
Mystic (Sufi) Orders109
The Egyptian poet Hasan al-Badrī al-Ḥijāzī (d. 1718/9) was known for his biting criticisms of what he perceived to be signs of the moral decay of his times. Some of his most venomous verses were reserved for the “long-haired”
(ulī al-shaʿrah)
mystics:
(ulī al-shaʿrah)
mystics:
But they are in depravity the most elevated of men, as you see without doubts.They have taken beardless boys as their aim unabashedly, thus coveting perdition.And called them their beginnings
(bidāyātihim) -
of dishonor, evil, and disgrace.
110
There is reason to think that the poet was thinking of one particular Sufi order active in Egypt, the Mutāwiʿah. From condemnations of the order by scholars such as Muhammad Abū al-Fath al-Dajjānī (d. 1660/1) and ʿAll al-ʿAdawī (d. 1775), it seems that members of the order were notorious for picking especially handsome young novices whom they called
bidāyāt,
and for claiming that it was permitted to be alone with them and to touch their bodies. Adult members of the order apparently had the young, handsome novices sit behind them during their communal rites, and got them to embrace the adult participants, who, as often happened, became ecstatic. This embrace was apparently referred to as “the repose of the dervishes”
(rāḥat alfuqarāʾ
).
111
It is not really possible to reconstruct the theoretical justification for these practices from such hostile discussions. The practices may well be related to a line of thinking that is well known to historians of Islamic mysticism. According to a tradition which goes back to Plato, and which has been shown (above all by Helmut Ritter) to have survived in Islamic mysticism, a beautiful human countenance, typically in the form of a handsome beardless youth, could serve as the channel for the manifestation of absolute, divine Beauty.
112
The Syrian mystic Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī- (d. 1749) composed a tract condemning certain mystics active in Syria in his time, who were wont to look at “beautiful countenances”
(al-wujūh al-hisān)
and who justified their practice by invoking the principle that “all beauty is the beauty of God.” Bakrī countered that true mystics adhered strictly to Islamic law, according to which looking at beautiful unrelated women and handsome beardless boys was out of bounds.
113
The biographical entries on Sufis of the period confirm that the practice of contemplating handsome boys was still thought to be a living tradition: “he would on occasion appreciate a beautiful form, and urge his companions to look at it”; “he was accused of liking to look at boys”; “as to his inclination to beautiful forms, that has been confirmed beyond doubt”; “he threw off the reins in loving awe-inspiring beauty, and so became exposed to malicious gossip.”
114
bidāyāt,
and for claiming that it was permitted to be alone with them and to touch their bodies. Adult members of the order apparently had the young, handsome novices sit behind them during their communal rites, and got them to embrace the adult participants, who, as often happened, became ecstatic. This embrace was apparently referred to as “the repose of the dervishes”
(rāḥat alfuqarāʾ
).
111
It is not really possible to reconstruct the theoretical justification for these practices from such hostile discussions. The practices may well be related to a line of thinking that is well known to historians of Islamic mysticism. According to a tradition which goes back to Plato, and which has been shown (above all by Helmut Ritter) to have survived in Islamic mysticism, a beautiful human countenance, typically in the form of a handsome beardless youth, could serve as the channel for the manifestation of absolute, divine Beauty.
112
The Syrian mystic Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī- (d. 1749) composed a tract condemning certain mystics active in Syria in his time, who were wont to look at “beautiful countenances”
(al-wujūh al-hisān)
and who justified their practice by invoking the principle that “all beauty is the beauty of God.” Bakrī countered that true mystics adhered strictly to Islamic law, according to which looking at beautiful unrelated women and handsome beardless boys was out of bounds.
113
The biographical entries on Sufis of the period confirm that the practice of contemplating handsome boys was still thought to be a living tradition: “he would on occasion appreciate a beautiful form, and urge his companions to look at it”; “he was accused of liking to look at boys”; “as to his inclination to beautiful forms, that has been confirmed beyond doubt”; “he threw off the reins in loving awe-inspiring beauty, and so became exposed to malicious gossip.”
114
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