Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (38 page)

With this majestic praise of sexual intercourse, Imam al-Ghazali begins his book that deals with sex, procreation, marriage, and romantic relations. Imam al-Ghazali is very forthright in talking about sex. In this respect, he represents the whole tradition of Islamic scholars, who never shied away from a frank (and often delightfully raunchy) discussion of sex with all its dangers and delights, following in this way the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad. If we can judge by the traditions passed down from him, it appears that Muhammad challenged his society not only in the realms of faith and ritual, but also in the realm of sexual pleasure and the complex relationships it creates.

In comparison with many other religious traditions, it has often been noted that Islam is a religion that has evaluated sexual life positively. Articulating the integral relationship between spirituality and sexuality is one way that the Prophet Muhammad challenged his society. It remains for us, today, to

continually struggle with that challenge. The system of norms, rules, and laws created by Muslims in the past (a collective body we call
Shari‘ah
) does not absolve us of this challenge. It may, in fact, create complexities that drive us to reinvestigate the topic while presenting obstacles to a just resolution of those complexities. Scholars in the contemporary period have not lived up to the standards and frankness of pre-modern Islamic scholars, and much work has yet to be done on the question of sexuality in Islamic scripture, law, and society. Many scholars and Islamic leaders in the present shy away from honest discussions of sex and sexuality, with all its promise and problems. Muslims in pre-modern times certainly were not shy about discussing matters of sex, so why should we be prudish? The most basic goal of this essay is to return to us contemporary Muslims the “awe and bewilderment” that al-Ghazali felt when considering sexual pleasure.

Sexuality is connected not just to spirituality, but to politics as well. What is required of us in political situations is an acute sense of justice, but we often ignore or obscure justice when it comes to matters of sex and sexuality. We need to think more clearly about “intimate citizenship,” how the personal, emotional, and sexual dimensions of our lives (which are often locked away as “private”) actually have very public and often political consequences.
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Questions of sex and sexuality become incendiary when members of a religious community feel threatened by or in conflict with external “enemies.” Under such conditions, religious communities maintain restrictions and develop ideologies governing sexuality and gender. In our contemporary age, this is a serious problem, in both Muslim-majority societies in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and also among Muslim minorities in the West. We see fundamentalist groups securing political power through the persecution of women, sexual minorities, and gender minorities. Even in North America, where many in the Muslim community feel threatened, the discourse around sexuality and especially homosexuality can become quite ideological and even violent. The Qur’an demands an acute sense of justice from all Muslims. Justice does not allow us to displace political

tensions and economic inequalities onto sexual and intimate relationships. Conversely, open discussion of human sexuality helps us perceive more clearly ethical issues in the more public social fields of politics, economics, and criminal law.

What do we mean by sexuality? We certainly mean more than lust. The concept of sexuality identifies an integral dimension of each individual’s personality: “an indicator of our core being, a sexuality which interweaves thoughts, desires, motivations, acts and psychological and mental well-being within its meaning.”
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The critical re-evaluation of sex and sexuality grows out of the feminist re-evaluation of gender and the constraints that gender imposed on women. As feminist scholars critique the assumed superiority of patriarchal masculinities, space is opened for a deeper introspection about sex – not in the light of gender alone but also in the light of sexuality. The success of any project

to free sexual practices from the constraints of patriarchy depends ultimately on the success of freeing women (and eventually men too) from the same dominance of patriarchal structures of power.

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The mass media in the West assert that Islam is a “repressive” religion. However, comparison with other religious traditions reveals that Islam is a sex-positive world religion. In Muhammad’s teachings (as in the Qur’an), sexuality is not an obstacle to spirituality in general. Rather sexuality is a field where spirituality plays out, as it does in economic life, ritual practice or political struggle. Even conservative religious scholars saw sexuality in a positive light.
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The Qur’an does not blame sex or sexual desire for the “fall” of Adam and his mate from Eden, nor do Muslims in general see sex as part of fleshly corruption in the life of this world. Rather, sexual desire is part of creation and expresses Allah’s wisdom. It brings divided people together, forces them to confront spiritual and ethical truths, and allows for continuity between generations.

This characteristic distinguishes Islam from its Abrahamic cousins. Authorities in the Judaic tradition often see sex as positive only in procreative results, and Christianity (like many interpretations of Buddhism) harbors deeply negative assessments of sexual activity. Early Christian leaders struggled with the question of whether the faithful should have sex at all, and speculated with horror whether the resurrection would be “bodily” with sexual organs and sexual desires. In contrast, the Qur’an depicts a heaven that is not just bodily, but sensually delightful and even sexually blissful.

In posing the radical legitimacy of the practice of sexuality, Islam helped in the formation of a specific form of culture. The continuous outpouring of oneirism [cultivation of dream visions], combined with the most delicate and most elaborate eroticism, gave birth to a particularly original and attractive mode of life . . . To be attentive to one’s own body, to assume it in its totality, to take one’s own fantasies seriously, to make the quest for orgasm an essential aim of earthly life and even of the life to come, are some of the aims of Islam.
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With these words, the Tunisian sociologist Abdelwahab Bouhdiba tries to preserve the Islamic challenge of connecting eroticism with spirituality.

The Prophet Muhammad is remembered as saying, “Three things were made beloved to me in this world of yours: women, perfume and prayer.”
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This saying has given generations of Muslims pause to consider the intimate connection between beauty, sexual desire, and worship of the One God. The general picture that emerges from the traditions preserved about the Prophet’s teachings is that sexual activity is an important form of worshipful pleasure. It embraces sexual play (the giving and receiving of erotic pleasure) in many forms as a good in and

of itself, without being restricted to procreative acts. One
hadith
scholar, ‘Ali Muttaqi (who died in 1567
CCEE
) relates these prophetic traditions about the benefits of sexual play with one’s partner:

A man’s sexual play with his partner, when accompanied by sincere intent, causes him to be rewarded by Allah. As the Prophet is reported to have said, “Allah is pleased with a man’s playing with his wife, and records a reward for him and makes a worthy provision in the world for him because of it.” There is another hadith that says “When a man gazes at his wife and she gazes at him, God looks at them both with a gaze that is compassion and mercy.”
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This openness to sexual play is within established relationships, in which partners acknowledge their relationship through some kind of contract. Such relationships were not historically limited to formally matrimonial relationships (
nikah
), but included sexual relations through informal contract (
mut‘a
), ownership in slavery, and other less formally legalized relationships.
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Contemporary Islamic communities, especially in the West, tend to demand exclusively matrimonial relationships. However, this was never the exclusive norm in pre-modern Islamic societies, where other kinds of sexual relationships were legal and socially sanctioned.

Islamic society’s acceptance of sexual pleasure as a good in itself explains its openness to the use of contraception.
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Beyond its procreative function, sexual play was valued for establishing effective and emotional bonds of caring between partners. The Qur’an addresses the question of non-procreative sexual acts directly and affirms them (in Surat al-Baqara 2:223, though interpretation of this verse was always the subject of contest and debate).
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In summary, the Islamic tradition has valued the pursuit of sexual pleasure positively. Sexual play was not limited to marital relations, but was permissible in other kinds of contractual relationships. Sexual pleasure was not restricted to procreation, but was seen as spiritually and socially beneficial in itself, such that some kinds of contraception were encouraged. This positive assessment of sexual pleasure was traditionally limited to sex between a male and a female. A “heterosexist” assumption underlies all these positive assessments. Accordingly, Muslim jurists saw their primary duty to regulate sexual activity that might lead to the birth of illegitimate children or situations of unclear parentage.

However, is it honest to assume that all Muslims are heterosexual in their sexual orientation and practices? Is it factual to assert that genders are clearly divided by physical nature rather than by socialization? Is it realistic to pretend that sexual desire is always only between a man and a woman? The ambiguities that arise from exceptions to the heterosexist assumption are always a challenge to any human community, and Muslims are no exception. Muslim scholars and jurists of the past certainly confronted these issues and offered certain answers to the questions they raise.

In the light of new biological knowledge about genetics and sociological knowledge about personality development, the traditional answers may no longer be convincing. This is especially true now that several generations of Muslim feminist scholars have questioned the patriarchal assumptions behind so many practices that Muslims popularly consider integral to their religious tradition. Inspired by feminist critiques, some Muslims who are attuned to sexuality are taking the contemporary situation as an opportunity to return to the sources of Islamic religious beliefs in order to reassess questions of sexuality and its diversity. An honest and subtle examination of these sources (the Qur’an, the prophetic traditions, and the decisions of Islamic jurists) reveals more ambiguities than the defenders of “orthodoxy” care to admit. This study will illuminate these ambiguities to show how they are productive ambiguities. These ambiguities should urge those Muslims with a keen sense of justice and a firm hold on reason to entertain the possibility of reassessing the Islamic tradition’s stand regarding homosexuality as part of rethinking its stand on sexuality in general.

This study begins with what might seem like a radical notion, that Islam does not address homosexuality. It might be conceivable that particular Muslims in particular situations addressed issues related to something we currently call “homosexuality.”
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We must be instantly suspicious of statements like “Islam says . . .” or “The Shari‘ah says . . .” as if these abstractions actually speak. Things do not speak. Only people speak. Although all Muslims revere the Qur’an and respect the Prophet Muhammad, statements about these sources of divine guidance are interpretations of them. Such interpretations are always expressed and advocated by people. And people, even Islamic leaders, are never infallible. There must be room for an educated and sensitive dialogue about even these most intimate (and sometimes scandalous) topics.

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Before turning to the topic of homosexuality in all its controversy, let us return to the more general category of sexuality. We should approach homosexuality from the wider perspective of diverse sexualities. We should begin by asking whether the Qur’an positively assesses diversity in creation and among human beings. We should observe the Qur’an’s positive assessment of diversity in gender, race and ethnicity, color, language, and culture, and then turn to ask whether this positive assessment might include diversity in sexuality as one more dimension of the creation of humanity.

Such a basic question might seem absurd to Muslims who identify as gay or lesbian. Like many Christians and Jews, Muslims tend to put religion behind them when they begin to identify as gay or lesbian, in reaction to the rejection they experience from their families and religious communities. They tend to leave behind the active participation in religion (as ritual or community) even if they

feel nostalgia for the sense of belonging that religion promises or retain a sense of distinctive identity in coming from a Muslim background. Many gay and lesbian Muslims feel that Islam is antiquated, oppressive, or hopelessly corrupted by a patriarchal elite. In avoiding the Islamic community, many embrace gay and lesbian communities, hoping to feel comfort and belonging under the rubric of “homosexuality” that they were denied under the rubric of “Islam.”

For gay and lesbian Muslims, the term “homosexuality” represents the acknowledgement that there is a natural diversity in sexuality in human societies. For them, it may be disquieting to examine the origins of that term “homosexuality.” When it was invented and interpreted in Europe and America in the late nineteenth century, “homosexuality” did not represent an acceptance of diversity in sexuality. The term was popularized in medical clinics to identify a “deviant” sexuality in order to classify people, control their behavior, and “cure” them or confine them. Western societies are still deeply divided over whether there is and should be a natural diversity in the sexuality of its members, though more and more thoughtful people are accepting that homosexuality is not a sickness, weakness, or sin, but rather is a natural variation in human character.
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This should give gay and lesbian Muslims reason to be courageous and optimistic, for terms mean what they mean as a result of discussion, debate, and struggle. Like the term “homosexuality,” the term “Islam” can (and inevitably does) mean different things to different generations and communities. It may not be inevitable that “Islam” stands in opposition to “homosexual” in a relation of contradiction.