Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800

Type

Book

Authors

El-Rouayheb, Khaled

ISBN 10

0226729885

ISBN 13

9780226729886

Tags

Middle East, History, Islam, Non-Fiction, Culture, Historical, Islamic, Arabic, Middle Eastern, Gay

Description

Attitudes toward homosexuality in the pre-modern Arab-Islamic world are commonly depicted as schizophrenic—visible and tolerated on one hand, prohibited by Islam on the other. Khaled El-Rouayheb argues that this apparent paradox is based on the anachronistic assumption that homosexuality is a timeless, self-evident fact to which a particular culture reacts with some degree of tolerance or intolerance. Drawing on poetry, biographical literature, medicine, dream interpretation, and Islamic texts, he shows that the culture of the period lacked the concept of homosexuality.

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