Read Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 Online
Authors: Khaled El-Rouayheb
Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (69 page)
On one occasion when the poem itself does not specify the identity of the beloved, ʿAtt
a
r himself informed the reader that the poem was said of a certain young scribe called ʿAli
ibn Muhammad whom Khashsha
b loved passionately.
166
ar himself informed the reader that the poem was said of a certain young scribe called ʿAliibn Muhammad whom Khashshab loved passionately.166
It may appear that we are once again in the position we were in at the beginning of this study. Having established that the recognized interpreters of Islamic law held that an act was not permissible, we are faced with abundant evidence that it was nevertheless indulged in openly, by belletrists who had close personal ties with religious scholars, and often by religious scholars themselves. However, it is important to resist the temptation to use an anachronistic concept such as “homosexuality” to characterize the transgression committed. That concept is simply not fine-grained enough to capture certain distinctions that are essential to understanding the attitude of urban, literate Arab Muslims in the early Ottoman period. The belletrists and scholars were not openly committing
liwa
ṭ.
They simply composed love poetry that mainstream jurists held to be inappropriate. This transgression was hardly considered to be a major sin. It is difficult to believe that having intercrural intercourse with a boy was considered to be a minor sin, whereas saying chaste love poetry of a specified boy was considered a major sin. As mentioned previously, committing a minor sin was not held to be incompatible with the status of being an “upright” (
ʿadl
) person whose testimony is acceptable in a court of law, and such a sin was held to be atoned for by overall obedience to the law—unless it was committed repeatedly or habitually to such an extent that it would outweigh a person’s pious deeds.
liwa
ṭ.They simply composed love poetry that mainstream jurists held to be inappropriate. This transgression was hardly considered to be a major sin. It is difficult to believe that having intercrural intercourse with a boy was considered to be a minor sin, whereas saying chaste love poetry of a specified boy was considered a major sin. As mentioned previously, committing a minor sin was not held to be incompatible with the status of being an “upright” (
ʿadl
) person whose testimony is acceptable in a court of law, and such a sin was held to be atoned for by overall obedience to the law—unless it was committed repeatedly or habitually to such an extent that it would outweigh a person’s pious deeds.
To be sure, Ibn Hajar al-Haytami
did mention “saying love poetry of a boy even if his identity is not specified” as a major sin in a work entitled “Warnings against Committing Major Sins”
(al-Zawa
jir ʿan iqtira
f al-kaba
ʾir
)
.
However, as the title suggests, the work was avowedly of a homiletic nature, rather than an authoritative work of law. Ibn Hajar included all sins that could be said to meet one of the criteria for being a major sin that had at one time or other been suggested by jurists, and this led him to enumerate 467 major sins, whereas the great majority of Islamic scholars who tried to number major sins ended up with a number between seven and thirty.
167
Ibn Hajar was clearly not committed to the idea that all 467 listed sins should indeed be considered major sins. For instance, refraining from marriage (
altabattul)
is included in Ibn Hajar’s work as a major sin (number 241) simply because a saying attributed to the Prophet had cursed those who did not marry, and some scholars had suggested that an act qualified as a major sin if it had been cursed in the Qurʾan or in a
ḥadī
th.
Ibn Hajar himself pointed out to the reader that the position of the Sha
fiʿi
school to which he belonged was that choosing to remain unmarried was not even a sin, let alone a major one.
168
Ibn Hajar listed playing backgammon in
al-Zawa
jir
as a major sin (number 444), and though his ensuing discussion made it clear that many jurists disputed such a severe assessment of the act, he refrained from explicitly endorsing their view. However, in his major juridical work,
Tuhfat al-muḥta
j fī sharḥ al-Minhāj,
he simply stated “it is a minor sin”
(wa huwa min alṣaghāʾir
).
169
Similarly, looking with lust at a beardless boy, or at a woman other than a wife or concubine, is mentioned in
al-Zawājir
as a major sin (numbers 242 and 245), though Ibn Hajar himself pointed out that the considered position of jurists was that “the antecedents of fornication” were minor sins, and added that judging them to be major sins without additional qualification was “very implausible (
ba
ʿīd jïddan
).”
170
Saying love poetry of an unspecified boy was listed in
al-Zawājir
as a major sin because one jurist had held it to disqualify the poet from being a witness in court, and incompatibility with being a witness in court was another proposed criterion for being a major sin. However, Ibn Hajar went on to cite a host of other Shāfiʿī jurists who believed that saying love poetry of an unspecified boy was permissible, and hence not even a minor sin.
171
did mention “saying love poetry of a boy even if his identity is not specified” as a major sin in a work entitled “Warnings against Committing Major Sins”(al-Zawa
jir ʿan iqtiraf al-kabaʾir)
.
However, as the title suggests, the work was avowedly of a homiletic nature, rather than an authoritative work of law. Ibn Hajar included all sins that could be said to meet one of the criteria for being a major sin that had at one time or other been suggested by jurists, and this led him to enumerate 467 major sins, whereas the great majority of Islamic scholars who tried to number major sins ended up with a number between seven and thirty.
167
Ibn Hajar was clearly not committed to the idea that all 467 listed sins should indeed be considered major sins. For instance, refraining from marriage (
altabattul)
is included in Ibn Hajar’s work as a major sin (number 241) simply because a saying attributed to the Prophet had cursed those who did not marry, and some scholars had suggested that an act qualified as a major sin if it had been cursed in the Qurʾan or in a
ḥadī
th.Ibn Hajar himself pointed out to the reader that the position of the Sha
fiʿischool to which he belonged was that choosing to remain unmarried was not even a sin, let alone a major one.168
Ibn Hajar listed playing backgammon in
al-Zawa
jiras a major sin (number 444), and though his ensuing discussion made it clear that many jurists disputed such a severe assessment of the act, he refrained from explicitly endorsing their view. However, in his major juridical work,
Tuhfat al-muḥta
j fī sharḥ al-Minhāj,he simply stated “it is a minor sin”
(wa huwa min alṣaghāʾir
).
169
Similarly, looking with lust at a beardless boy, or at a woman other than a wife or concubine, is mentioned in
al-Zawājir
as a major sin (numbers 242 and 245), though Ibn Hajar himself pointed out that the considered position of jurists was that “the antecedents of fornication” were minor sins, and added that judging them to be major sins without additional qualification was “very implausible (
ba
ʿīd jïddan
).”
170
Saying love poetry of an unspecified boy was listed in
al-Zawājir
as a major sin because one jurist had held it to disqualify the poet from being a witness in court, and incompatibility with being a witness in court was another proposed criterion for being a major sin. However, Ibn Hajar went on to cite a host of other Shāfiʿī jurists who believed that saying love poetry of an unspecified boy was permissible, and hence not even a minor sin.
171
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