Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (80 page)
122
Jabartī,
‘Ajā’ib al-āthār,
2:248. A mosque-preacher
(khatīb
) aged seventeen is mentioned in Murādī,
Silk al-durar
, 2:2-3.
123
Murādī,
Silk al-durar,
4:138.
124
Muhibbi,
Khulāsat al-athar,
1:105.
125
Muhibbī,
Khulāsat al-athar,
3:430.
126
Antākī,
Tazyīn al-asiwāq,
1:46. For a similar belief in ancient Greece, see Plato,
Symposium
196e.
127
Muhibbī,
Nafhat al-rayhānah,
1:60—61,2:145; Muhibbī
,Khulāsat al-athar
, 4:249, 3:151; Murādī,
Silk al-durar,
2:142.
128
Ghazzī,
al-Kawākib al-sā’irah,
3:22.
129
Ibn al-Samman, [
Tārīkh
], fol. 160a.
130
Ibn ‘Abd al-Bāqī,
Dīwān,
54.
131
Khafājī,
Rayhānat al-alibbā,
2:55; Muhibbi,
Nafhat al-rayhānah,
1:599-600; Muradi,
Silk al-durar,
1:291.
132
Lane,
The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians,
196.
133
The works composed by these scholars were almost exclusively in the fields of belles-lettres, history, and the sciences of language.
134
al-ʿĀmilī, Bahaʾ al-Dīn,
al-Kashkūl
, 1:76.
135
Zabidi,
Tāj al-ʿarūs,
26:158—59.
136
al-‘Amilī, Baha’ al-Dīn,
al-Kashkūl
, 2:300; Jazā’irī,
al-Anwār al-nu‘māniyyah,
3:161.
137
Saltī,
Sabābat al-mu‘ānī,
fol. 14b.
138
Antākī,
Tadhkirat ulī al-albāb,
3:176—77.
139
Antākī,
Tazyīn al-aswāq,
1: 46; see also Plato,
Symposium,
195b—196b.
140
Antākī,
Tazyīn al-aswāq
, 1:29; Nabulusi,
Ghāyat al-matlūb
,149.
141
Ibn al-Bakkaʾ,
Ghawānī al-ashwāq,
fol. 19b—20a.
142
Muhibbī,
Nafhat al-rayhānah,
1:283; Kanjī,
Bulūgh al-munā,
55—56.
143
Compare Antākī,
Tazyīn al-aswāq
, 1:43—44 and 1:50—59.
144
Singer,
The Nature of Love;
see especially 1:122—23, 2:3—4.
145
Giffen,
Theory of Profane Love among the Arabs
, 117.
146
Shirbīnī,
Hazz al-quhūf,
90—93. For other examples: ‘Urdī,
Ma ‘ādin al-dhahab,
332
(ma‘shūq);
Muhibbī,
Khulāṣat
al-athar,
4:35
(‘āshiq);
Antākī,
Tazyīn al-aswāq
, 2:54
( ‘ishq).
147
Antākī
Tazyīn al-aswāq,
2:171.
148
Muhibbī,
Nafhat al-rayhānah,
4:454.
149
The point is made by Meisami, “Arabic
Mujūn
Poetry,” 24.
150
This tradition and the controversy surrounding it is discussed in Giffen,
Theory of Profane Love among the Arabs
, 99—115.
151
In Islamic law, a martyr
(shahīd)
in the strict sense, who is to be buried without being washed, shrouded, and (according to some) prayed for, is the Muslim who dies fighting for his faith. However, jurists allowed martyr status in an extended sense to Muslims who, for example, died of plague, in childbirth, were murdered, and so on. Such martyrs were to be buried in the normal way but were thought to gain immediate access to heaven. See Kohlberg, “Shahīd.”
152
Giffen,
Theory of Profane Love among the Arabs,
127—29. Such an argument is cited in Karnī,
Munyat al-mubibbīn,
fol. 24a-b.
153
Saffārīnī,
Ghidhā’ al-albāb,
1:72.
154
Saltī,
Sabābat al-mu ‘ānī,
fol. 11b—12a; compare Karmī,
Munyat al-muhibbīn,
fol. 32a—b.
155
Nābulusī,
Ghāyat al-matlūb,
18.
156
Muhibbī,
Khulāsat al-athar,
2: 329.
157
Murādī,
Silk al-durar,
3: 45.
158
Ibn al-Hanbalī,
Durr al-habab,
1:148—49.
159
Murādī,
Silk al-durar,
4:243.
160
Karmī,
Munyat al-mubibbīn,
fol. 28a; al-‘Umarī, ‘Uthmān,
al-Rawd al-nadir,
1: 39—40.
164
Hamori, “Love Poetry
(ghazal),”
205. The tradition of pederastic but
‘udhrī
love poetry goes back at least to Khālid ibn Yazīd al-Kātib (d. 876); see Arazi,
Amour divin
et
amour profane.
165
Quoted in Muhibbī,
Khulāsat al-athar
, 2:452.
166
For such military imagery in love poetry, see Ibn al-Hanbalī,
Durr al-habab
, 2:145—46; Ibn Ma‘sūm,
Sulāfatal-‘asr,
227; Muhibbī,
Khulasat al-athar,
2:330, 3:452.
167
Būrīnī,
Sharh Dīwān Ibn al-Fārid,
1:33.
168
Ibn al-Hanbalī,
Durr al-habab,
1:1034—35.
169
Quoted in Muhibbī,
Khulāsat al-athar,
1:105.
170
Muhibbī,
Khulāsat al-athar,
1:118.
171
Būrīnī,
Sharh Dīwān Ibn al-Fārid,
2:55.
172
Muhibbī,
Khulāsat al-athar,
2:275.
173
The point is made by al-Suwaydī, ‘Abd al-Rahmān,
[Risālah
fi
al-mahabbah
]
,
fol. 104b.
174
This argument is used in Raghib Pasha,
Safīnat al-rāghib,
322; Munāwī,
al-Fayd alqadīr,
6 : 179—80.
175
Ghazzī, Kamal al-Dīn,
al-Wird al-unsī,
fol. 140b; a similar theory is to be found in Ibn Hazm (d. 1037),
Tawq al-hamāmah;
see Giffen,
Theory of Profane Love among
the
Arabs,
80.
176
Saltī,
Sabābat al-mu
ʿānī,
fol. 11a-b.
177
Buckingham,
Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia,
1: 149. This source was brought to my attention by S. O. Murray’s article “Some Nineteenth-Century Reports of Islamic Homosexualities.” I am not as convinced as Murray seems to be that the discussion tells us more about Buckingham’s culture than about Ismael’s.
178
Buckingham,
Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia
, 1 : 160.
179
Buckingham,
Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia,
1: 163.
180
In the legends surrounding the
‘udhrī
lovers, the couples sometimes marry, and this is said not to have affected their love. Yet the marriage invariably features as a lull in the narrative, which picks up when the lovers are separated again, by travel, parental intervention, or death (see, for example, Antākī,
Tazyīn al-aswāq,
1 : 131, 205, 286). Hamori succinctly describes marriage as a “much too prosaic relief” for
‘udhrī
idealization of passionate, unconsummated love (“Love Poetry
(ghazal),”
205).
181
Antākī,
Tazyīn al-aswāq
, 2 : 53—54.
182
Ibn al-Wakīl al-Maflawī,
Bughyat al-musāmir,
fol. 140b.
183
Saffārīnī,
Qar‘al-siyāt,
fol. 24b—25a. Saffārīnī is quoting Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah,
al-Dā’wa al-dawā’ ,
371—72.
184
Manīnī,
al-Fath al-wahbī,
2 : 56—57.
185
al-Suwaydī, ‘Abd al-Rahmān,
[Risālah fī al-mahabbah],
fol. 106b—107a.
186
Zabīdī,
Ithāf al-sādah al-muttaqīn,
6 : 184 (margin); Kāshānī,
al-Haqā’iq,
321.
187
For instance, Nābulusī invoked Ghazālī’s claim in his defense of the chaste love of boys; see
Ghāyat al-matlūb, 77.
188
Ramlī,
Nihāyat al-muhtāj,
2 : 497.
189
For the metaphysics of Ibn ‘Arabī, I have relied most heavily on Izutsu,
Sufism and Taoism,
part I. Helpful shorter surveys include Affifi, “Ibn ʿArabī”; Schimmel,
Mystical Dimensions of Islam,
ch. 6; Chittick,
The Sufi Path of Knowledge,
ch. 1.
190
The analogy with Platonism is made in Izutsu,
Sufism and Taoism,
163—64.
191
Lines 242—43 and 261—62 of Ibn al-Fārid’s
al-Tā’iyyah al-kubrā
entitled
Naẓm alsulūk.
The translation is my own. For annotated translations of the poem, see Nicholson,
Studies in Islamic Mysticism,
199ff.; and Homerin,
‘Umar ibn al-Fārid, 73ff
192
Nabulusī,
kashf al-sirr al-galhamiḍ,
fol.3a-b.
193
Nābulusī,
Kashf al-sirr al-ghāmid,
fol.4a-b.
194
Nābulusī,
Sharḥ Dīwān Ibn al-Fariḍ
,I:61.
195
Nābulusī,
Sharḥ Dīwān Ibn al-Farid
,2 : 234.
196
Nābulusī,
Sharḥ Dīwān Ibn al-Fariḍ,
1:201.
197
Nābulusī,
Sharḥ Dīwān Ibn al-Fariḍ,
1:34,1:61.
198
Nicholson,
The Tarjuman al-ashwaq,
1-9.
199
See the discussions in Munawi,
al-Fayd al-qadir
, 3:445 (tradition 3928) ; al-Azizi al-Bulaqi,
al-Siraj al-munir
, 2:251; Ajluni,
Kashf al-khafa
; 1: 379.
200
Nicholson,
Studies in Islamic Mysticism
121 (quoting
al-Insan al-ākamil
by Abd al-Karim al-Jili [d. 1428]). See also, Izutsu,
Sufism and Taoism,
2
18
ff.
201
Burton,
The Sotadic Zone,
pp. 18-19.
202
Ritter,
Das Meer der Seele
, ch. 26.
203
Discussions of the theme available in English also focus almost exclusively on the Persian mystical tradition; see Schimmel
Mystical Dimension of Islam,
287ff.; Schimmel, “Eros-Heavenly and Not So Heavenly—in Sufi Literature and Life”; Wafer, “Vision and Passion”; Wilson,
Scandal,
93ff
204
Unless otherwise indicated, information on Ayyūb is taken from Muḥibbī
khulāṣat al-athar
,
1:
428-33.
205
al-Ḥanbalī, Abū al-Mawāhib,
Mashyakhah
, 89,