Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (16 page)

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Authors: Khaled El-Rouayheb

BOOK: Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800
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Another poet who expressed a preference for the love of boys was the above-mentioned Iraqi Jirjis al-Adīb. His poem is longer and somewhat more earnest in tone than other contributions to this theme, and is worth quoting in full:
I looked into the opinion of those who fancy males and those who fancy females, and saw that preference went to the male.
For your love of beardless boys is bliss, and the distinction between the two is clear to me.
So fancy boys, I say, for among them are tender-featured lads whose eyes captivate the houris themselves.
And tell him who rejects my verdict and preference that I am like someone who presents mint-leaves to donkeys.
How far you are from [appreciating] red cheeks and supple physiques! You confuse hearsay with seeing for yourself.
The most attractive among them is the mature, whose character and manners have been refined since childhood.
Amongst them is the adolescent gazelle, whose talk revives the spirit and cures the ill.
Amongst them is the white-skinned with polished cheeks, in which you see figures as images in a mirror.
Amongst them is the copper-skinned with a radiant splendor that makes superfluous the glow of the moon.
Amongst them is the dark-skinned with manifest litheness. How lovely are the supple limbs of the dark-skinned!
Amongst them is the full-fledged, with sprouting cheeks like roses fenced with fresh basil.
So take for yourself what you choose, for becoming intimate with them is the pleasure of a lifetime.
You will be able to be near them and talk to them without segregation, fear or caution.
You will touch them in jest and kiss them in play; that—by my life—is the ultimate satisfaction.
And perhaps one day they enter the baths with you, and how lovely is it to see the beloved without clothes!
The body is visible, and the protrusion of the buttocks, and you may even catch a glimpse of him with the loin-cloth off.
And maybe one night they’ll agree to drink wine with you and to spend the night in sweet conversation.
How far is that from the guile of women and behavior of girls? Only a knower knows.
May God not bless the love of women and those who court them from among men.
They are hidden, rarely encountered, and hence their lover dies from lack of sight.
If they let their guard down and he gains access to them and he then hears someone at the door, he’ll shit in his pants from fear.
So if you must commit fornication with a woman, do not brandish the arse.
70
 
The poem’s contrast of the situation of the lover of boys and the lover of women is obviously related to the constraints imposed by gender segregation. As mentioned in the previous chapter, public gender segregation did not make “heterosexual” outlets unavailable to men—most adult men were married and those who were not could resort to prostitutes—but it did pose an obstacle to the kind of ambiguous, jesting courtship of which the poet was apparently so fond. It is of course also unlikely that public gender segregation succeeded in preventing all illicit affairs between men and women. However, one may suspect that the subterfuge and secrecy that would be involved in such affairs did not make for the playful ambiguity described by Jirjis al-Adīb, and that the women involved risked their reputation, even in the eyes of the men who sought their favors. By contrast, a teenage boy could hardly avoid rubbing shoulders with adult men, and could be courted without thereby being stigmatized as cheap. The point may be illustrated by an interesting discussion of the love of women by the above-mentioned Egyptian belletrist Ibn al-Wakīl al-Mallawī. In his work
Bughyat al-musāmir,
he collected classical Arabic stories on various themes such as courage and love, and supplemented these with similar stories from his own period. When dealing with love, he cited the stories of famous love couples from previous ages, both “heterosexual”
71
and pederastic, but he had only stories of pederastic love to add from his own time. He excused himself for not mentioning any contemporary love stories featuring men and women, saying that he knew of no such stories. He did not doubt that there were illicit affairs between men and women, but these, he said, involved libertines
(fussāq)
, not lovers (ʿ
ushshāq) .
Women were either of easy virtue, as much interested in fornication as the men who had af fairs with them, or virtuous and completely beyond reach.
72
Apparently, neither kind of woman could feature in the stories of refined and chaste love to which the chapter was devoted.
It is worth emphasizing that neither Jirjis al-Adīb nor Ibn al-Wakīl al-Mallawī portrayed women as sexually unattractive. Hence, one should be wary of interpreting their remarks as expressions of “homosexuality” as opposed to “heterosexuality.” In general, those who participated in the genre of “disputation” expressed preferences. The preferences could be based on considerations that had little to do with sexual desire, as in the case of Jirjis al-Adīb. Even when the considerations adduced were sexual or aesthetic, it is doubtful whether we are dealing with expressions of sexual orientation in the modern sense. Sexual or aesthetic preferences are not the same thing as sexual orientation. A modern “heterosexual” man may say that he has a weakness for blonde women. This will not normally mean that he never finds non-blondes sexually attractive. Belletrists of the early Ottoman period also engaged in disputations comparing Ethiopian and white women, or beardless and downy-cheeked youths.
73
In such cases, the “disputations” seem clearly to be expressions of preference rather than of sexual orientation. The comparisons between boys and women should, all else being equal, be interpreted in the same way. A good example of how modern sexual categories are inadequate to understanding the genre of
mufākharah
is the following couplet by the Damascene poet Ibrāhīm al-Akramī (d. 1638):
To the censurer who reproached me for loving boys I professed a noble motto:
I am but a son of Adam and therefore only ever fancy
(ahwā)
sons of Adam.
 
The couplet was cited by ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, who informed his readers that he heard it from the poet’s
son
Aḥmad.
74
Nābulusī apparently accepted the lines as sincere expressions of the poet’s inclinations. He invoked them in support of his contention that many prominent and respectable scholars, mystics, and poets have expressed their passionate love for handsome beardless youths. Yet he did not seem to find anything odd in the fact that Ibrāhīm al-Akramī had nevertheless fathered a son.
There is another reason for resisting the temptation to bring the modern concept of homosexuality to bear on the positions expressed in belletristic comparisons of the charms of women and boys. The participants in the disputations were adult men who expressed their preferences for either women or boys. None of the positions involved adult men being attracted to adult men with masculine features.
75
It was recognized that there were such men (the
maʾbūn
or
mukhannath)
but, as in the case of women, their tastes were not articulated in the belles-lettres of the period.
Of the various topics of disputation, the most frequently encountered in the belles-lettres of the period is the comparison of beardless and downy-cheeked youths. As in the case of the comparison of women and boys, one encounters three positions: a preference for one, or the other, or an equal attraction to both. The latter position was expressed by the above-mentioned Aleppine scholar Ahmad ibn al-Mullā. A friend of his, having noticed that he was inclined to a downy-cheeked youth
(muʿadhdhar),
teasingly challenged him to defend his position:
What fault lies with the beardless boy of smooth cheeks, who surpasses an anklet-wearer [i.e., a woman]?
With a countenance like the doe’s in beauty, and eyes which put to shame the gazelle’s.
With a polished cheek which in clearness exceeds gorgeous pearls. So why do you fancy, instead of him, beards like thorn-bushes? ...
 
Ibn al-Mullā replied:
I am enamored of everyone beautiful, admirable in description and deed. Whether he be beardless or a youth with beard-down, surpassing in beauty an anklet-wearer.
Musk has fenced off his rosy cheeks, afraid that we will strike them with arrows [i.e., glances].
He appears in a halo of beard-down, his face the radiant and beautiful moon. That is my love, my creed, and my opinion ...
76
 
The Damascene poet Muṣṭafā al-Ṣumādī (d. 1725) declared his own preference for the beardless:
Beard-down appears on the cheeks of the beloved and the turbid marks finish him off.
For this reason you will not find me enthralled by a cheek which beard-down has defamed.
I am enamored of pure, soft cheeks complementing a beauty that is impeccable.
77
 
The contrasting position was sometimes referred to as “the opinion of the people of Mosul,” at least since the time of Usāmah ibn Munqidh (d. 1138).
78
It was professed by the Aleppine judge ‛Aṭāllah al-Ṣādiqī (d. 1680/1) in the following lines:
I kissed a downy-cheeked youth with sweet dark-red lips and looked at that primeval beauty.
And asked for a lover’s rendezvous with him, so he answered: The time for my compassion or coquetry is past.
The water of beauty has dried up from my cheeks, and prettiness has disappeared from the branch of my upright physique.
I said: The description of a garden [i.e., the rosy cheeks] only becomes attractive if it is surrounded by sprouting vegetation.
Proceed to obey the motto of Ibn Munqidh and know that I have become the judge of Mosul.
79
 
A disputation between the beardless and the downy-cheeked youth was composed by the Damascene belletrist Muhammad Sa‛īd ibn al-Sammān (d. 1759). His tract on the subject, which is extant in a few manuscripts, was written in rhymed prose interspersed with verse. The author reproduced the rival claims of a beardless and a downy-cheeked youth, and then went on to state that their dispute left him bewildered and unable to decide who was in the right. He ended his tract by inviting other belletrists to help him out.
80
Several contemporary scholars/belletrists responded to Ibn al-Sammān’s invitation. The prominent Damascene scholar Ahmad al-Manīnī (d. 1759) wrote a short tract praising Ibn al-Sammān’s literary effort, and his skill in presenting both sides of the dispute. However, Manīnī himself expressed his firm conviction in the superiority of the beardless to the downy-cheeked:
It is evident to those of sound disposition and proper judgment that beauty is primarily and essentially an attribute of the smooth-cheeked ... for the attractive features of the downy-cheeked are also attractive features of the beardless ... Beard-down veils part of it [the boy’s beauty] and after its sprouting he retains some traces of bloom and freshness ... Do you not see that if the beard-down (
ʿidhār)
becomes a beard
(liḥyah)
his features become devoid of their finery, and his cheeks of their radiance, and darkness descends on light, and grass covers the beautiful face, and the lover and friend obtains respite?
81
 
On the other hand, the Aleppine scholar Muhammad al-Jamālī (d. 1760) expressed his sympathy with Ibn al-Sammān’s inability to choose between the two disputants:
To be fair is to suspend judgment, and to give good advice is to leave the option open, for neither the lily-cheeked nor the smooth- and radiant-cheeked are loved purely for their prettiness, beauty, handsomeness, and coquettish-ness, since loving those of attractive body but unattractive mind is not commendable. True love is chaste love for someone handsome who combines the many visible attractions and whose character is formed by elegance and molded by grace and refinement ... and he among the two who has these features unquestionably deserves pride of place, and is suitable for infatuation and worthy of love no matter to which of the two types he belongs.
82
 
Another Aleppine scholar, ‛Alī al-Dabbāgh al-Mīqātī (d. 1760), wrote a tract on the issue which is reproduced in its entirety in the published biographical dictionary of Murādī.
83
Following a well-established literary convention, Mīqātī initially stated how the work of Ibn al-Sammān had reminded him of his own days of youth and love, leading him to try his hand at composing a similar tract. He then went on to present the claims of the beardless boy, followed by those of the downy-cheeked. He concluded by defending the view that women were more appropriate objects of love than either the beardless or the downy-cheeked male youth:
It is not part of perfection to love men, and how apposite is he who said: Love is only for anklet-wearers, and a prominent notable has said: He who confines himself to women finds repose.
I love women and the love of women is a duty on every noble soul.
Shuʿayb, for his two daughters, received God’s spokesman Moses as servant.
 
And it is evident to those who look into the matter that two men under one bed cover is dangerous, for the active part may be surprised and find himself in the role of the passive agent ... and the best of advice to follow and heed is [the saying of the Prophet]: “From your world I was enamored of perfume and women.”
 

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