Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (57 page)

scholar, ʿAbd al-Ba

al-Zurqa

(d. 1688), likewise asserted, in the context of discussing the issue of looking at beardless boys, that “the transgression of the eye is a minor sin which is atoned for by overall obedience to the law.”
¹²⁷The underlying principle assumed by Zurqa

was that major sins required repentance to be wiped off the sinner’s debit side on the Final Reckoning, while minor sins did not. The latter would be compensated for by simply avoiding major sins. Even if the minor sins were committed repeatedly and willfully (
maʿal-iṣra

r
), they would be compensated for by supererogatory works, even if the perpetrator did not repent.
¹²⁸It was in this spirit that scholars tended to understand the Qurʾanic dictum that “good works remove evil works” (11:114).
¹²⁹Some scholars believed that the “venial faults” (
lamam
) mentioned in the following Qurʾanic verse: “Those who shun great sins and iniquities, all but venial faults, verily thy Lord is of ample forgiveness” (53 : 32), referred specifically to nonpenetrative sexual acts.
¹³⁰In accordance with such a scaling of the seriousness of sins, jurists envisaged situations in which one would be religiously obliged to perform a minor sin to ward off a more serious situation. For instance, the Egyptian jurist Shihab al-Di

n Ahmad al-Ramli

(d. 1550) was asked whether it was permissible for a lover to kiss an unrelated woman or a boy if, in line with accepted medical theory, he feared that he would die if his passion remained frustrated. Ramli

answered that kissing the object of one’s passion in such a situation was not only permissible but actually a duty, and that it was incumbent on the beloved woman or boy to allow this.
¹³¹

Falling in love with a boy was widely considered to be an involuntary act, and as such outside the scope of religious condemnation. Many, perhaps most, religious scholars were prepared to concede that a person who died from unconsummated love for a boy could earn the status of a martyr (
shahīd
), which would guarantee him a place in heaven. The “martyrs-of-love” tradition, mentioned in the previous chapter, though perhaps never completely uncontroversial, seems to have been regarded as respectable by most scholars. In the fifteenth century, its authenticity was upheld by influential experts on
ḥadīth
such as Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqala

(d. 1449) and Muhammad al-Sakha

(d. 1497), and it found its way into
al-Ja

miʿ al-ṣaghi

r,
a very influential compilation of traditions by Jala

l al-Di

n al-Suyu

ṭi

(d. 1505). In the popular topically arranged reworking of Suyu

ṭi

ʾs compilation by the Meccan-based scholar ʿAli

al-Muttaqi