liwāṭ
in Paradise?
The discussion of the comparative gravity of
liwāṭ
and
zinā
was related to the question of the rationale behind their prohibition by God. As regards illicit vaginal intercourse, the reason adduced was invariably the danger of a confusion of lineages
(ikhilāṭ-al-ansāb.
It was often remarked by jurists that
zinā
was thus prohibited by all communities
(milal),
and not just the Islamic.
84
To the extent that rational arguments were given for the prohibition of
liwāṭ
, these appealed to the aforementioned belief that the divinely sanctioned purpose of sexual intercourse was to propagate the species. According to the Egyptian scholar ʿAbdal-Raʾūfal-Munāwī (d. 1622):
Everything created by God in this world He has made suitable for a specific function and so is not suitable for anything else, and He has made the male for [sexual] activity and the female for [sexual] passivity and has instilled in both of them the desire for procreation and the continuity of the species, so the person who reverses [this order of things] counteracts this divine wisdom.
85
The Egyptian scholar Sulayman al-Jamal (d. 1790) cited the following opinion:
God, the Blessed and Exalted, created man and instilled in him the desire for intercourse to ensure the continuity of the species and the peopling and prosperity of the world, and made women the object of sexual desire and the source of offspring; so if man abandons them and turns instead to other men, he dissipates and exceeds and contravenes because he puts something beside the proper place and locality for which it has been created, because the anus of men is not a place for childbirth, which is the purpose of this desire in man.
86
According to the Egyptian-based scholar Muhammad Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī (d. 1791):
It [i.e.,
liwāṭ
] is worse than
zinā
because zināis the placing of the seed in a fertile recipient in an improper way and is like planting in someone else’s land ... and in the case of
liwāṭ
the seed is destroyed, and its perpetrator is like those of whom God has said that they “destroy the tillage and the stock” [Qurʾan 2: 205 ], and for this reason He has condemned the people of Lot for “dissipation”
(isrāf)
, saying, “Lo, ye come unto men instead of women. Nay, but ye are wanton folk
(musrifūn).”
87
Muhammad al-Hurr al-‘Āmilī related a Shī‘ītradition according to which ʿAlī ibn Abī Talib had been asked by a heretic (
zindīq
for the reason behind the prohibition of
liwāṭ
‘Alī supposedly answered: “If carnal penetration of a boy
(ityān al-ghulām)
were permitted, men would dispense with women, and this would lead to the disruption of procreation and the inoperativeness of vaginas (
ta
ʿtīl
al-
furrūj)
, and from allowing this much evil would arise.”
88
The proposed justification for the prohibition of
liwāṭ
would of course not hold in a world in which there was sexual intercourse but no childbirth. Such a world was, according to premodern Islamic tradition, paradise. While the Qur‘an speaks somewhat vaguely of the (male) believers being “wed” to houris who were beautiful, loving, and virginal, the religious tradition elaborated on the sexual nature of this wedlock to an extent that many modern Muslims find distasteful: each man would receive dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of beautiful maidens; he would receive the potency of a hundred men; each maiden would be passionately fond of copulation and her hymen would be reconstituted after each intercourse.
89
Several scholars also discussed the issue of whether sodomy could be present in paradise. The issue was raised by one of the most prominent Ḥanafī jurists of the early Ottoman period, the Egyptian Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ibn Nujaym (d. 1563) in his
al-Ashbāh wa al-naẓāʾir
. With laconic brevity, he sketched three possibilities:
The prohibition of
liwat
is established by reason and so it will not be found in heaven; [2] and it has been said, [the prohibition is established solely] by revelation and so it will be found in it; [3] and it has been said, God the Exalted will create a group whose upper half will be like males and whose lower half will be like females; and the correct [position] is the first.
90
It is not clear what is meant by the assertion that
liwāṭ
will not be found in heaven if its proscription is established by reason. As later commentators of this passage pointed out, the dominant theological position amongst Sunny Muslims held that nothing can be religiously proscribed by reason alone. At most, human reason may comprehend the rationale behind some of the prohibitions established by divine revelation.
91
This is precisely what was attempted by the scholars who cited God’s purpose behind instilling sexual desire in mankind, and their arguments do not imply that
liwāṭ
would be absent in heaven. In any case, the grounds that Ibn Nujaym gave in other works for preferring the first conclusion have nothing to do with
liwāṭ
being prohibited by reason independently of revelation. In his
al-Bahr al-ra ‘iq,
an authoritative commentary on a compendium of Ḥanafī law, he appealed to the fact that the Qurʾan deplored
liwāṭ
and indirectly called it a “foul deed”
(khabīithah)
.
92
The problem with this argument, as pointed out by the Egyptian scholar Ahmad al-Ḥamawī(d. 1687) in his commentary on Ibn Nujaym’s
al-Ashbāh wa al-naẓa‘ir
, is that it does not follow from a thing being denounced in such terms that it would not be found in heaven. Wine is called a satanic “filth”
(rijs)
in the Qurʾan, but is nevertheless promised the believers in paradise. Ḥamawl himself grounded the absence of
liwāṭ
from paradise in the thesis that people will not have anuses in the hereafter, since they will not defecate. A similar resolution of the issue was offered by a prominent pupil of Ibn Nujaym, Muhammad al-Tumurtdsfi! (d. 1595).
93
The fact that such a conclusion was regarded as satisfactory suggests that what was at issue was anal, rather than homosexual, intercourse. This may also be inferred from the remark of Ibn ‘Abidin to the third of the alternatives mentioned by Ibn Nujaym; the idea that God would create beings who were male from the waist up, but with female sexual organs: “This has nothing to do with the issue since the dispute concerns anal intercourse
(al-ityāan ft l-dubur).
”
94
Ibn ‘Abidīn here seems to identify
liwāṭ
with anal intercourse and to dismiss the question of the gender of the penetrated partner as irrelevant. This was in accordance with especially Hanafī usage: Ibn Nujaym spelled out the principle that “anal intercourse with the unrelated woman is also
liwāṭ
95
However, the jurists’ use of the term was not entirely consistent. Ibn ʿĀbidīn himself commented thus on Haskafī’s assertion that
liwāṭ
is to be considered more reprehensible than
zina:
”Intercourse with males cannot be made permissible, in contrast to intercourse with females, which becomes legal through marriage or procurement [of a concubine].”
96
The implication here is clearly that
liwāṭ
is something a man commits with another man. On this account, the
lūṭī
is someone who commits sodomy with men, not women. Commenting on the perceived irrelevance of the third alternative of Ibn Nujaym, the Egyptian Ḥanafī scholar Ahmad al-Tahtāwī (d. 1816) stated that “the interest of the
lūṭī is
in the lower half and if it is like a female his interest will not be met.”
97
In juridical texts, the meaning of
liwāṭ
constantly oscillates in this way between the two senses of “
anal intercourse
between men” and “anal intercourse
between men.
” An emphasis on the bodily organs involved implied that the term could be extended to cover anal intercourse between a man and a woman; an emphasis on the gender of the people involved suggested that other forms of sexual intercourse between men could be termed
liwāṭ
. A similar ambiguity seems to have been characteristic of the medieval European concept of “sodomy,” which could even (in contrast to
liwāṭ
) be applied to cases of bestiality or oral intercourse.
98
Another
locus classicus
for the question of whether
liwāṭ
could be among the pleasures of paradise is the following passage describing an eleventh-century debate on the issue:
There occurred a discussion between Abū ‘All ibn al-Walīd al-Muʿtazilī and Abū Yūsuf al-Qazwīnī concerning the permissibility of intercourse with the boys of paradise (
al-wildān
). Ibn al-Walīd said, “It is not precluded that this should be part of the pleasures of paradise because of the cessation of its evil consequences, since it has been prohibited in this world because it involves the disruption of procreaction and because it [the anus] is the outlet of noxiousness
(adhā),
and these [procreation and excrement] are not to be found in paradise; for the same reason drinking wine will be permitted since it will not involve intoxication, boisterousness
(‘arbadah),
and the paralysis of reason, and so there is nothing to preclude the permissibility of taking pleasure in it.” So Abū Yusuf said, “The inclination to males is a flaw (
ʿāhah
) and is vile
(qabīḥ)
in itself because it [the anus] is a place that has not been created for intercourse, and for this it [
liwāṭ
] is, in contrast to wine, not permitted by any law, and it [the anus] is the outlet of impurity (
ḥadath
), and paradise is free from flaws.” So Ibn al-Walīd said, “The flaw is [to want] to be polluted with noxiousness
(adhā),
and if that is absent nothing remains but taking pleasure.”
99
Ibn al-Walīd al-Mu‘taziī (d. 1086) initially put forth the reasons for thinking that the prohibition of
liwāṭ
will not carry over into the next world: the prohibition is based partly on the this-worldly end of sexual intercourse, namely procreation, and partly on the “uncleanliness” of the anus. Neither factor would be relevant to a world in which sexual intercourse was for pleasure only, and in which there was neither procreation nor excrement. In the attempt to counter this argument, Abū Yusuf al-Qazwīnī (d. 1095) made a claim that may look like a “modern” disqualification of homosexuality as perverse : “The inclination to males is a flaw, and is vile in itself.” Such an understanding of the claim is, on closer consideration, questionable. Abū Yusuf stated that “the inclination to males is a flaw”
because
the anus has not been created for being sexually penetrated and is the outlet of noxious excrement. What appears at first sight as a disqualification of “homosexuality” is actually a disqualification of the desire to phallically penetrate the anus. This is indeed the way in which the statement is understood by the opponent who protests that the inclination to males is only a flaw to the extent that it involves polluting oneself with “noxiousness,” a clear reference to the excrement that a person would normally not want to touch with any part of his body. Both Abu Yūsuf’s argument and Ibn al-Walīd’s rejoinder apply equally to the desire to sodomize a woman. The desire to sodomize men is thus a “flaw” in the same sense as the desire to sodomize women. By contrast, the whole discussion presupposes that the desire to sodomize is not a “flaw” in the same sense as the desire to be sodomized. It would without doubt have seemed very outlandish to hold a serious discussion on whether the pleasures awaiting male believers in paradise could include being sodomized by beings especially created for that purpose.
The Iraqi scholar Mahmūd al-Alūsī (d. 1854) took issue with the position of Ibn al-Walīd al-Mu‘tazilī, and did so in terms that make it clear that the desire to sodomize was not regarded as a “flaw” in the same sense as the desire to be sodomized. Alūsī took Ibn al-Walīd al-Mu‘tazilī to be denying that
liwāṭ
is “contrary to natural disposition,” and countered by wondering whether Ibn al-Walīd would want to be anally penetrated in paradise. “If he wants today to be anally penetrated tomorrow, then the man is quite likely a
maʾbūn,
” that is, he would suffer from a pathological condition that it is safe to assume would not be present in paradise. Alūsī continued by pointing out that it would not help Ibn al-Walīd to “invoke the distinction between the active and the passive partner, as cannot but be clear to the clear-minded.”
100
Alūsī could hardly be claiming that someone who wants to sodomize boys in the future is also a
ma‘būn
now. Given the meaning of the term
maʾbūn
explicated in the first chapter of this study, such a claim would make no sense. His point is rather that once it is established that a passive sodomite has an unsound character and that paradise is free from character flaws, then it follows that there will be no passive sodomites, and hence no sodomy, in paradise. The whole issue of why the desire to sodomize should be regarded as a “flaw” is neatly sidestepped.