Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (39 page)

A basic strategy for questioning dominant Muslim interpretations of Islam is not to reject Islam as an entire tradition. Rather we should return to Islam’s most basic principles, knowing that the details of dominant interpretations may not be in accord with the basic principles.

At its most basic level, Islam is a religion that positively assesses natural diversity in creation and in human societies. Despite the chauvinism of many Muslims, the Qur’an announces the radical idea of diversity in religion. Allah has sent many Prophets, speaking in different languages, bringing ethical teachings and exhortations to different nations, giving rise to a confusing array of ritual practices and legal norms. Islam has a unique history of being a confessional, universal, and missionary religion that nonetheless accepts and protects other religious communities, guaranteeing the security of their members. As a corollary, the Qur’an accepts diversity in tribal, ethnic, and national groupings. The Qur’an’s vision stands in stark contrast to the Biblical portrayal of the Tower of Babel (in which God scatters humanity into different groups with mutually incomprehensible languages as a punishment for their competition with God). The Qur’an addresses humanity, saying, “We created you different tribes and nations so that you may come to know one another and acknowledge that the most honorable among you are those that stay the most conscious of Allah” (Surat al-Hujurat 49:13).
15

The Qur’an respects diversity in physical appearance, constitution, stature, and color of human beings as a natural consequence of Divine wisdom in creation. Muslim feminists have shown that the Qur’an celebrates the creation of women as equal to men, asserting that the differences between them are complementary and are an ethical challenge. The Qur’an does not portray Eve as having been created from Adam’s rib, as if she were derivative or inferior.
16
Islamic scholars have traditionally acknowledged that Allah created two genders and also created people who cannot be categorized through a binary construction of gender. One Islamic scholar, ‘Ali Muttaqi, displays this acknowledgement clearly in the introduction to his book on marriage and sexual play.

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to God who created male and female as partners, then mixed the two in a display of Divine power by creating hermaphrodites as well. Praise be to the One who favored humanity over all the rest of creation and made the continuation of the world to rest upon the conjugal union of the male with the female.
17

Beyond the fundamental category of gender, the Qur’an asserts that human beings are created in variety and assesses this variation positively. “From among Allah’s signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the difference of your tongues and the variation of your colors [
alwan
]” (Surat al-Rum 30:22).
18
Alwan
is the plural of the word
lawn
, which literally means “color” but figuratively stands for shade or type, and can describe variation of texture, flavor, and kind (as in dishes of food).
19
Alwan
therefore implies the existence of variations among people, not in outward appearance only but also in inward disposition. Another verse declares “that everyone acts according to his or her own disposition [
shakila
]” (Surat al-Isra’ 17:84). This suggests that human nature that has been created diverse, not just in language, ethnicity, and appearance, but also in inward disposition and personality.

It is not a long step from these profound examples to ask whether the Qur’an accepts diversity in sexual disposition and orientation. The Qur’an never states this clearly, since there is no term in the Qur’an for “sexuality” in its abstract meaning (just as there is no term in the Qur’an for “gender”).
20
The above examples show that the Qur’an asserts that creation is diverse on so many levels and that this variation is not random or mistaken and is never to be assessed negatively. With the Qur’an’s vivid portrayal of diversity at so many levels of the natural and human world, it would be logical to assume that this diversity of creation plays out on the level of sexuality as well. It is also plausible to assert that, if some Muslims find it necessary to deny that sexual diversity is part of the natural created world, then the burden of proof rests on their shoulders to illustrate their denial from the Qur’anic discourse itself. The Qur’an certainly implies that some people are different in their sexual desires than others when it

mentions “men who are not in need of women” (Surat al-Nur 24: 30).
21
The Qur’an includes such men in a list of people whose presence does not require of women social modesty or seclusion (along with male relatives and children who have not attained sexual maturity). It is not clear what inner disposition caused such men to not be attracted to women. Perhaps they simply have no sexual desire (due to age, illness or self-control that involves an inner disposition that could be characterized as “asexual”) or perhaps they experience sexual desire that is not attuned to women (which suggests an inner disposition that involves sexual orientation that could be conceived as “homosexual”). In either case, the Qur’an offers an example without negative judgment about men who do not conform to patriarchal assumptions that men are always, inevitably, and uncontrollably attracted sexually to women.
22

This example from the Qur’an is suggestive, but not indicative. It is clarified by the fact that the Prophet Muhammad knew of men in his era who belonged to this category of “men who are not attracted to women.” In Arab society at the time of the Prophet, there were men who lived outside the patriarchal hetero- normal sexual economy (
mukhanath
), as described in the detailed study of Everett Rowson.
23
The evidence presented by Rowson from early Islamic literature shows that the Prophet accepted these men-who-acted-like-women as citizens in Medina, as long as they did not transgress certain ethical rules. They attracted the criticism of the Prophet only when they helped arrange clandestine affairs between men and women (since they were in the unique position of having access to both women’s secluded spaces and the more public space of men).

It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the Qur’an accepts the existence of diversity in sexuality and sexual orientation. This is the basic fact that must be acknowledged before moving on to address any particular legal regulation of sexual acts or sexual relationships. In other words, Islamic discourse based on the Qur’an did not use a discourse of “natural” or “unnatural” to describe sexualities. European Christians introduced this concept of “natural” versus “unnatural” to describe variation in sexuality and sexual actions. It has remained the keystone of denunciations of homosexuality long after Christianity ceased to function as the moral touchstone for Western societies. Contemporary Muslims who explicitly denounce homosexuality as “un-Islamic” adopt this dichotomy of natural and unnatural, and apply it as if it were indigenous to the Islamic tradition and to the Qur’an.
24
This is a sign of bad faith, and a signal that contemporary Muslim moralists are not insulated from modernity, even as they depict gay and lesbian Muslims as corrupted by modernity. Gay and lesbian Muslims are certainly not required to accept the posturing of self-righteous defenders of a “tradition” that they anachronistically defend with conceptual tools from Christian thought and modern Euro-American culture. These same

moralists and fundamentalists blithely assert that there are no homosexual people in Islamic communities (or if they are they should be killed). On the

contrary, when one looks through the historical and literary records of Islamic civilization, one finds a rich archive of same-sex sexual desires and expressions, written by or reported about respected members of society: literati, educated elites, and religious scholars.
25
This is so much the case that one might consider Islamic societies (like classical Greece) to provide a vivid illustration of a “homosexual-friendly” environment in world history. In fact, medieval and early modern Christian Europeans have often engaged in polemics against Muslims by accusing them of being “sodomitical” and of engaging openly in same-sex practices; this rhetoric was an integral part of the Christian campaigns to re-conquer Spain.
26

How ironic, then, that modern Western scholars have averred to Muslim jurists’ views of sexual morality, those jurists who were always a minority voice and often had no social power to enforce their views. It is surprising that most modern Western scholars consistently ignore the observations of medieval European scholars as well as the rich literary and historical examples of same-sex relationships among pre-modern Muslims. The situation among Western scholars has not changed since the time of John Addington Symmonds (who first used the word “homosexual” in English prose in 1883), who remarked that homosexuals are a topic that scholars “touch with reluctance and dispatch with impatience.”
27

If medieval Westerners condemned Muslims for being completely permissive, modern Westerners have recognized only the most repressive elements among Muslims as spokespersons for their religious beliefs and practices. In this, modern Western scholars are certainly acting out their own indigenous forms of homophobia in the mis-recognition or erasure of gay and lesbian Muslims, who might protest, along with the poet Ghalib, that they were not created by mistake no matter who may seek to erase their presence.

Oh Lord, why does time move to obliterate my every trace? I’m no misspelling chalked on the tablet of the universe

In punishment, go ahead, torment me any way you see fit I’m no infidel in the end, but just a simple sinner
28

It is as if Ghalib were echoing (with a note of sarcasm) the benediction of Imam al-Ghazali: “praise be to God, the marvels of whose creation are not subject to the arrows of accident.” If sexuality is inherent in a person’s personality, then sexual diversity is a part of creation, which is never accidental but is always marvelous.

Here we have to pause, and scrutinize this evident clash of pre-modern and modern terms of understanding sexuality. Under the conditions of modernity, as it developed in Europe and America, the terms for the debate over sexual diversity are “homosexuality” with its derivative terms “heterosexuality” and “bisexuality.” As mentioned above, these conceptual terms are unique to modern societies. While we cannot avoid the terms, we admit that they are contested and

debated. It is also crucial for the Muslim community to understand the subtlety of these terms before refuting or denouncing them. Many contemporary analysts are uncomfortable with the term “homosexuality,” since it is clinically prescriptive and was invented at the end of the nineteenth century. The term presumes a binary and irreducible opposition between two sexual orientations: “heterosexuality,” which is normative, and “homosexuality” which is derivative (and therefore judged to be perverted, inverted, sick, criminal, or somehow unnatural or undesirable). Some historians of sexuality posit that “homosexuals” did not exist before the creation of the term “homosexuality”; they claim that homosexual people, like the term “homosexual” itself, are products of the peculiar conditions of modernity. This argument is the cornerstone of a political position that religious traditions have nothing to say about homosexuality or modern homosexuals, since their ancient scriptures have no term to describe them. Other historians of sexuality take a less nominalist position and argue that “homosexuality” is a particularly modern lens through which to see types of

people, behaviors, and dispositions that exist in a more universal way in all societies.
29
They argue that an apple is an apple whether one calls it
Apfel
,
tufah
, or
sib
, even if the word/concept in English, German, Arabic, or Persian might have different metaphoric associations and cultural connotations. The argument between “essentialists” and “constructionists” over the usefulness of the term “homosexuality” has been a very productive argument with no easy resolution. Many historians of sexuality have reacted against the binary opposition asserted by the language of “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality.” Many now prefer to use a more open-ended term, “queer,” to describe all sexual orientations and practices that fall outside the narrow constraints of patriarchal procreative sexuality (called “hetero-normativity”). “Queer” would include

same-sex eroticism between men and men or between women and women. It would also include variations of bisexual eroticism in which men might engage in sexual attraction or practices with both men and women (either in series or simultaneously) and women might engage in the same with both women and men. At its conceptual frontier, “queer” would also include celibacy as a sexual practice that falls outside hetero-normative sexuality. More complex would be sexual practices that include gender-crossing identification, as with men who take on social roles described as “female” (through dress, language, or behavior), or women who take on roles described as “male.”

The term “queer” allows for a more descriptive and complex analysis of a variety of sexual orientations and practices that are very distinct, but united in their common difference from hetero-normative sexuality. “Queer” is also a literal translation of the Arabic term
shudhudh
which is currently applied to the phenomena of homosexuality in humanistic studies and journalism.
Shudhudh
literally means “odd” in the sense of numerically unusual or rare. “Queer” also has a further merit, in that even heterosexual and normative sexual practices of the past may seem “queer” to heterosexuals in the present. For instance, the

notion that Islamic law and prophetic example permitted sexual relationships with slaves who were “owned” rather than “married” appears to many contemporary Muslims very strange and even shameful (since most Islamic communities today do not habitually own slaves any more, with some exceptions). Investigating queer people of the past makes us realize the general “queerness of the past.”