"The Categorization of Gender and Sexual Irregularity in Medieval Arabic Vice Lists," in Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub, eds., Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity (New York: Routlegde, 1991), pp. 50-79.

"The Effeminates of Early Medina," in
Journal of the American Oriental Society 111 (1991), pp. 671-93.

Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World 1500–1800
book review

For those interested in male-male sexuality and eroticism in the Muslim world, this book is a must, precisely because it does not try to cover the entire (geographical and historical) range, but limits itself to texts written by members of the male Arab urban elite from 1516 to 1800, i.e. from the Ottoman conquest of the Syrian lands to the onset of westernization. However it is not restricted to a few key texts as in the ground-breaking articles of Everett K. Rowson, but scans a wide spectrum of biographical, poetic and legal works for information about the subject. As stated in the introduction, the focus is not  “on homosexual behavior in the past, but on how such behavior was perceived, represented” and valued (9). It is a concise book and targets non-Arabists. In spite of a lack of quotes in Arabic and not discussing controversial interpretations even experts stand to gain from it.

The concept of male homosexuality [let alone homosexuality tout court A.S.] did not exist in the Arab-Islamic Middle East in the early Ottoman period. There was simply no … concept … applicable to all… men who were sexually attracted to members of their own sex [and only them] … Distinctions elided by the concept of homosexuality appeared [then to be very] significant: between the active and the passive partner; between passionate love and carnal lust; between permissible and prohibited sexual acts. (153)

This sums it up succinctly. Each of the main chapters makes a central point:

1 “biographical and bawdy works from the period tend to distinguish conceptually between the active pederast and the effeminate pathic.” (9f.)

2 amorous poems from the period tend to be about unrequited love, not about sex.

3 law books do not condemn inclinations, but acts (primarily anal intercourse).

None of this is entirely new: Rowson, Bruce Dunne and I have established the conceptual division. Thomas Bauer wrote (in German) about earlier poets and I examined the (earlier) law books. But el-Rouayheb does not only broaden the base by venturing into a hitherto neglected period, but gains new insight into each of the three aspects, or makes them clearer.

We have known for some time that liwāṭ and ubna are not active and passive counterparts, but that one refers to an action, the other to an inclination, a disease. But it is nice to have a quote from a 17^th century jurist, who states that to call someone maʾbūn does not amount to saying that he did have illicit sex, because the word does not imply acting on one’s inclinations (20), and to have an anecdote about an honorable man being so afflicted by ubna  that he has to apply a dildo to his itching spot, whenever the urge gets too strong, and in so doing avoiding sodomy (20).
Khaled el-Rouayheb shows that sometimes liwāṭ was an act of aggression, and he shows that is was often transgenerational; he mentions prostitution, slavery, coffeehouses and baths; and he discusses, whether pederasts were considered a species apart or just normal guys with a certain preference (like a mushroom aficionado or a pigeon fancier).

The chapter “Aesthetes” is about poetry, both love poems and ṣūfī  poems. In it he fights three misconseptions:

– That these poems show how tolerant Islam was toward homosexuality.

– That they are about girls and women even if using masculine grammatical form.

– That they are purely conventional, poetic exercises rather than expressions of feeling.

He shows that poems are not only about literature, but also about life. However in his desire to stress the difference to modern Western life where passion is just a step leading to carnal fulfillment, he gives the impression that falling in love with a boy does not imply desiring the boy and has nothing to do with sex. Precisely because singing a boy's beauty was licit and coition with him was not, these men had an interest in erecting a conceptual barrier between falling for and actively pursuing vice, and virtuous men took pleasure in gazing and sighing, but the real thing was more carnal – historical material and studies from much later suggest it.

اﻟﻠﻮاﻁ

I should take it as a compliment that he is not giving me credit for establishing that the meaning of liwāṭ is anal intercourse. He is too young to know that before I proved this, orientalists were too ignorant, imprecise or prudish to say so. Wehr, Biberstein Kazimirsky, Pellat, Ullmann call(ed) it “pederasty.”

By showing that it can be done by males to females I established the fact that the core definition is anal intercourse.

Kh.e.-R. writes: a lūṭī is “in the strict legal sense [someone who] had indulged in anal intercourse with another man, [the non-juridical meaning was] less specific as to the nature of the act committed,” the non-technical meaning being boyizer (someone inclined to boys). The more extended meaning of lūṭī was also act-defined, but less specific as to the nature of the act committed.
This is not so!

To show the reasonableness of his contention el-Rouayheb would have to come up with examples of lūṭīs known for sucking, licking, blowing, jerking, fisting or spanking boys or men as much as for fucking them (in the anus or between the buttocks or thighs). His assertion “other forms of sexual intercourse betwen men COULD be termed liwāṭ” (131) is not good enough. Why does he keep his juicy sources to himself? Or does he have no cases either?

Equally wrong is the notion that “In Islamic law, the lūṭī  is a man who commits liwāṭ (i.e. anal intercourse with another man), regardless of whether he commits it as an active or passive partner.” (16). – On the next page he writes: “[these remarks] reveal that even jurists were prone to make the tacit assumption that liwāṭ was active rather than passive sodomy, and that the paradigmatic lūṭī was … the active-insertive partner.” (17)

I see it like this: in the Arabic language and in Islamic law the lūṭī (or lāʾiṭ) is the sodomizer, the sodomized being the malūṭ bihi. But as in Leviticus 20:13 (If a man lies with a male as one lies with a woman, both have done an abhorrent thing: they shall be put to death) so in Islamic law: the punishment for both is the same. Kh.e.-R. does not tell his reader that many of the juridical texts he uses are glosses to a commentary on a summary. As in Medieval Europe ― and due to the praxis of learning the summaries by heart all the more so ― there were often quasi-canonical summaries of canonical juridical manuals, which were so condensed that they demanded commentaries, and these were glossed in turn. Whereas the earlier manuals speak of top and bottom, active and passive, penetrator and penetree, sodomizer (lūṭī) and sodomized, the summaries often mention only the sodomist (lūṭī), because the punishment is the same for both parties. Later “lūṭī” gets glossed as “the active and the passive.” What al-Rouayheb reads as “lūṭī, which we jurists define as »active or passive sodomist«” I read as “»… lūṭī«, which here is short for »active or passive sodomist.«” He makes too much of a very condensed phrase – or a careless one of the kind he is guilty of himself: “identification of sexual penetration with dishonor” (13) instead of “identification of being sexually penetrated with dishonor”.

Several times he misrepresents the juridical meaning of lūṭī; but one time he finds an acceptable formula: “[in the religious-juridical context] one may encounter the otherwise atypical use of the word lūṭī to designate the passive as well as the active sodomite.” (23)

There are a couple of minor mistakes that do not diminish the book's merits, but rather reflect on the scholars who proofread the manuscript before it was sent to press.

I have two wishes: many readers for the book under review, and many more books by this up and coming scholar for the community.