Item
Before homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic world, 1500-1800
title
Before homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic world, 1500-1800
viaf
publisher
University of Chicago Press
publication year
2009
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.
education level
temporal
keywords
reviewer
Katie Arthur
was created by
El-Rouayheb, Khaled