Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (24 page)
The belletrist Muhammad al-Ghula
mi
(d. 1772/3), a close friend of Suwaydi
, related the story and reproduced the petition in his poetic anthology
Shamma
mat al-ʿanbar.
He added that the youth asked him for an independent opinion concerning the literary quality of Suwaydi
’s petition, and was told that it was indeed of a fine quality.
115
(3) The above-mentioned ʿAbdallah al-Suwaydi
related that while he was in Damascus, a local friend of his, a perfumist by the name of Ahmad ibn al-Nuqṭah, asked him to write a tract
(maqa
mah)
in rhymed prose extolling the beauty of his beloved, Muhammad ibn Shaykh al-H
aram, and pronouncing him to be the “sultan of the handsome,” more beautiful than the other handsome youths of the city such as Hasan al-H
arasti
, Muhammad al-Bakri
, Sha
kir al-ʿUmari
, ʿAbd al-Rah
ma
n al-Mani
ni
, Yu
suf al-Jundi