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"Ellis has written a very honest and brave book about a ghastly human experience which has, one learns, much less to do with the primordial past than about the future."-"Ecclesiastical History",
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The dramatic impact of Islamic fundamentalism in recent years has skewed our image of Islamic history and culture. Stereotypes depict Islamic societies as economically backward, hyper-patriarchal, and fanatically religious. But in fact, the Islamic world encompasses a great diversity of cultures and a great deal of variation within those cultures in terms of gender roles and sexuality.
The first collection on this topic from a historical and anthropological perspective, Homosexuality in the Muslim World reveals that patterns of male and female homosexuality have existed and often flourished within the Islamic world. Indeed, same-sex relations have, until quite recently, been much more tolerated under Islam than in the Christian West.
Based on the latest theoretical perspectives in gender studies, feminism, and gay studies, Homosexuality in the Muslim World includes cultural and historical analyses of the entire Islamic world, not just the so-called Middle East. Essays show both age-stratified patterns of homosexuality, as revealed in the erotic and romantic poetry of medieval poets, and gender-based patterns, in which both men and women might, to varying degrees, choose to live as members of the opposite sex. The contributors draw on historical documents, literary texts, ethnographic observation and direct observation by both Muslim and non-Muslim authors to show the considerable diversity of Islamic societies and the existence of tolerated gender and sexual variances.
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This is not to say that homosexuality is part of the religion. As Roscoe's chapter shows, the area conquered/converted by Muslims had a history of accommodations of pederasty and gender-dichotomized homosexuality (the two types have been mixed in many places with entertainers who have been both young and effeminate). Murray's longest chapter on "the will not to know" about what anyone who looked or thought about what's going on has a wide utility (he specifically links it to Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" "policy").
The chapters on literature -- especially those of Jim Wafer -- push perhaps too hard for a homosexual (rather than homoerotic) readings. The line between "history" and 'anthropology" is blurred, and the contemporary materials are mostly non-Arab, centering on Pakistan.
This is not to say that homosexuality is part of the religion. As Roscoe's chapter shows, the area conquered/converted by Muslims had a history of accommodations of pederasty and gender-dichotomized homosexuality (the two types have been mixed in many places with entertainers who have been both young and effeminate). Murray's longest chapter on "the will not to know" about what anyone who looked or thought about what's going on has a wide utility (he specifically links it to Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" "policy").
The chapters on literature -- especially those of Jim Wafer -- push perhaps too hard for a homosexual (rather than homoerotic) readings. The line between "history" and `anthropology" is blurred, and the contemporary materials are mostly non-Arab, centering on Pakistan.
As with so much else in the sexual realm, Islamic norms differ profoundly from Western ones. The authors establish several points: (1) Islam treats homosexuality far less harshly than does Judaism or Christianity. (2) Sex between men results in part from the segregation of women and in part from the poetic and folk heritage holding that the penetration of a pretty boy is the ultimate in sexual delight. (3) Sex between men is frowned upon, but accepted so long as the participants also marry and have children; and also if they keep quiet about this activity. (4) The key distinction is not hetero- vs. homosexual but active vs. passive; men are expected to seek penetration (with wives, prostitutes, males, animals); the only real shame is attached to serving in the female role. (5) Youths usually serve in the female role and can leave behind this shame by graduating to the male role. (6) The great Muslim emphasis on family life renders homosexuality far less threatening to Muslim societies than to Western ones (Muslim men seeking formally to marry each other remains unimaginable).
In the most startling parts of Islamic Homosexualities, Murray and Roscoe re-interpret important historical developments through the prism of male sex among Muslims. For example, they make a plausible case that sexual attraction was a significant impetus for the development of military slavery throughout the Muslim world. Less persuasively, they speculate that the relaxed Muslim attitude on this subject incited medieval European hostility to homosexuality as a way for those otherwise backward peoples to feel superior to Muslims.
Middle East Quarterly, June 1997
There is little information about lesbians in the book. In fact, there are only two lesbian voices in the book! A "Balkan Sworn Virgin" and a "Gender-Crossing in Southern Iraq." Beside those, the book is all about the boys, the boys and just some more boys.
I will tell you right now, the last part of the book is my favorite! Why? Because it is packed with stuff from our time. While it was interesting reading about Muslim fags in the Ottoman Empire, it couldn't be compared with the current situations in places like Pakistan. Delicious, Oh my Goodness! And I don't mean that in a sexual way, mind you. But rather it feeds the soul. Hassan Mujtaba, a journalist, hits the road and you can just take big guesses what he finds!
Without giving away the nutrious stories in the book, let me just say that it remains the top on my "best" list... for... ever!
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