Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (66 page)

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Authors: Khaled El-Rouayheb

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Karmi

ʾs juridical verdict was as follows:

And also not eligible for being a witness in court is a poet who is excessive in praising when paid and in rebuking when not paid, or who says poetry which involves praising alcoholic beverages or beardless boys or a specified woman not available for licit sexual intercourse, and he is thereby a sinner (
fa
siq
), and the relating of such poetry [by others] is not prohibited.
¹⁵⁴

On the face of it, such a verdict should have precluded the verses just cited. It is possible, however, that the proscription was intended to apply to those who routinely composed such poetry, and not to those who made one or two contributions to the genre. The term “poet” (
sha

ʿir
) in the quotation from Karmi

could, in other words, be intended to refer to full-time practitioners, and not to anyone who composed a poem. This would, for instance, be in line with the verdict of the Ḥanafi

jurist Ibn ʿAbidi

n, which was that only excessive preoccupation with love poetry was improper. “Small amounts of such poetry is unobjectionable,” Ibn ʿAbidi

n added, “if the intent is to display witticisms, subtleties, nice comparisons, and elegant expressions, even if it is of physiques and cheeks.ʾʾ
¹⁵⁵It is also possible that Karmi

did not intend his remark to apply to cases where there was no real boy at all, and the poem was just a means of exhibiting a scholar’s literary skills. In his tract on love entitled
Munyat al-muḥibbi

n wa bughyat al-ʿa

shiqi

n,
Karmi

, after citing many poems said of beardless or downy-cheeked boys, added this comment:

Eminent scholars and exemplary religious leaders have often indulged in this art of verse and love poetry, as is known to those who are acquainted with their books, and this is not a blemish or fault on their part, for their likes are too dignified for such shortcomings, rather this is part of their noble nature and due to their knowledge that poetry is the art of the eloquent and cures the heart of ailments.
¹⁵⁶

Karmi

went on to cite several of his own love poems, which conform to the standards of the time in portraying the unreciprocated, chaste love of a woman or boy.
¹⁵⁷Karmi

ʾs understanding of the principle that saying love poetry of a boy is prohibited may have been shared by some Ima

Shi

ʿi

scholars. Several Shi

ʿi

scholars and poets, such as Baha

ʾ al-Di

n al-ʿA

mili

(d. 1621), Ibn Maʿtu

q al-Ḥuwayzi

(d. 1676), and Ibn Maʿṣu