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

Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800
ISBN-10
0226729907
ISBN-13
9780226729909
Category
Social Science
Pages
221
Language
English
Published
2009-03-02
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Author
Khaled El-Rouayheb

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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