Hidden History of Homosexuality in Iran

“There are no Homosexuals in Iran.” — Mehmoud Ahmadenijad

I found this very good article here. The author has reviewed the book on history of homosexuality in Iran by the famous Iranian academic Janet Afray, who is a Professor of History and Women Studies at Purdue University and also is the president of International Society of Iranian Scholars. The book is called “Sexual Politics in Modern Iran”, deals with the constructions of gender and sexuality over a wider historical period. Her extensive reading of the ancient texts has demonstrated the rather “normal” nature of homosexual relationships in Pre-modern Iran. She demonstrates that the violent homophobia in Iran is the result of Western modern influence. I differ with the assertion on Marxist oriented “homophobia” . The fact of the matter is that with The Glorious Russian Revolution of 1917 homosexuality became de-criminalized in one of the first acts by the revolutionary government. The claim of “well documented condemnation of homosexuality by Marx” unfortunately is not very sound one. Passages from Engels have frequently been quoted by the anti-communists to spread of myth of “homophobia inherent in communism”. These passages are usually taken out of context and looked outside the “scientific base” of that time to condemn Engels. The Homosexual Liberation Movement always had a strong Marxist element. The Marxist social democratic parties of Germany and Europe were the first to show sensitivity to the homosexual cause and the later Gay Liberation Movement always had a strong Marxist element. The Stalinist regime reversed a lot of Leninist reforms, especially those regarding sexual freedoms and women’s rights and restored the “family”. These crimes should not be attributed to Marx and the Marxists. Anyway, the article is very good and I hope you like it.

Shaheryar Ali

IRAN’S HIDDEN HOMOSEXUAL HISTORY

Doug Ireland

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his infamous claim at a September 2007 Columbia University appearance that “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” the world laughed at the absurdity of this pretense.

Now, a forthcoming book by a leading Iranian scholar in exile, which details both the long history of homosexuality in that nation and the origins of the campaign to erase its traces, not only provides a superlative reply to Ahmadinejad, but demonstrates forcefully that political homophobia was a Western import to a culture in which same-sex relations were widely tolerated and frequently celebrated for well over a thousand years.

“Sexual Politics in Modern Iran,” to be published at the end of next month by Cambridge University Press, is a stunningly researched history and analysis of the evolution of gender and sexuality that will provide a transcendent tool both to the vibrant Iranian women’s movement today fighting the repression of the ayatollahs and to Iranian same-sexers hoping for liberation from a theocracy that condemns them to torture and death.

Its author, Janet Afary, president of the International Society of Iranian Scholars, is a professor of history and women’s studies at Purdue University who has already published several authoritative works on Iranian sexual politics, notably the revealing and award-winning “Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islam” (2005), in which she already demonstrated a remarkable sympathy for gay and lesbian people.

In her new book, Afary’s extensive section on pre-modern Iran, documented by a close reading of ancient texts, portrays the dominant form of same-sex relations as a highly-codified “status-defined homosexuality,” in which an older man – presumably the active partner in sex – acquired a younger partner, or amrad.

Afary demonstrates how, in this period, “male homoerotic relations in Iran were bound by rules of courtship such as the bestowal of presents, the teaching of literary texts, bodybuilding and military training, mentorship, and the development of social contacts that would help the junior partner’s career. Sometimes men exchanged vows, known as brotherhood sigehs [a form of contractual temporary marriage, lasting from a few hours to 99 years, common among heterosexuals] with homosocial or homosexual overtones.

“These relationships were not only about sex, but also about cultivating affection between the partners, placing certain responsibilities on the man with regard to the future of the boy. Sisterhood sigehs involving lesbian practices were also common in Iran. A long courtship was important in these relations. The couple traded gifts, traveled together to shrines, and occasionally spent the night together. Sigeh sisters might exchange vows on the last few days of the year, a time when the world ‘turned upside down,’ and women were granted certain powers over men.”

Examples of the codes governing same-sex relations were to be found in the “Mirror for Princes genre of literature (andarz nameh) [which] refers to both homosexual and heterosexual relations. Often written by fathers for sons, or viziers for sultans, these books contained separate chapter headings on the treatment of male companions and of wives.”

One such was the Qabus Nameh (1082-1083), in which a father advises a son: “As between women and youths, do not confine your inclinations to either sex; thus you may find enjoyment from both kinds without either of the two becoming inimical to you… During the summer let your desires incline toward youths, and during the winter towards women.”

Youth and Suitors

Afary dissects how “classical Persian literature (twelfth to fifteenth centuries)…overflowed with same-sex themes (such as passionate homoerotic allusions, symbolism, and even explicit references to beautiful young boys.)” This was true not only of the Sufi masters of this classical period but of “the poems of the great twentieth-century poet Iraj Mirza (1874-1926)… Classical poets also celebrated homosexual relationships between kings and their pages.”

Book Review: Sexual Ethics and Islam

Title: Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith and Jurisprudence
Author: Kecia Ali
Year: 2006
Available At: Amazon.com

Product Description

In this lucid and carefully constructed volume, feminist academic Kecia Ali examines classical Muslim texts and tries to evaluate whether a just system of sexual ethics is possible within an Islamic framework.

Comments

Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics and Islam is a fascinating and refreshing look at the ethics of sexual relations in the Islamic religious tradition. It opens up with a quote from Sherwin Bailey, a writer on Christian sexual ethics, which reminds us that “some of the sexual notions transmitted to us from the past are unfounded, and their effect has proved to be damaging; but while we may deplore this, we must also make the effort to understand where they originated and why they were accepted – and to realize that their advocates were rarely moved by malevolence or stupidity.” One would do well to remember this while studying any ancient or medieval tradition. Given how often we liberals and progressives seem to absurdly assume that history began with us, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment.

To start off with, Ali admits up front that her position is that of an American Muslim feminist who is completely free to decide which parts of the Shari’ah she wishes to follow and which parts she chooses to put aside (p. xxii):

Living in a nation where Islamic law has no coercive power, regardless of its moral weight for individual believers, I write as one with the luxury of deciding whether and how to apply religious doctrine in my own life – whether to arrange my affairs to follow the dictates of one or another school of jurisprudence, or the regulations in the Qur’an, or to follow civil law.

With this stated, Ali begins her discussion of the thorny theological problems in deriving a humanistic, egalitarian sexual ethos from the orthodox Islamic juristic tradition. To her credit, she does not avoid taboo and uncomfortable topics, and with keen logic and insight, exposes the clash between classical Islamic thought and modern sensibilities, while also appreciating some of its strengths, such as the overall sex-positivity of Imam Ghazali, whose recognition of the importance of female sexual satisfaction was remarkably progressive for that age. Another positive aspect of the Islamic tradition is that it has historically been open to contraception (through the practice of coitus interruptus) and has allowed non-procreative sex, contra Christianity. Thus, Islam can be seen to encourage both sexual openness and family planning to some degree.

However, there are considerable issues in the Islamic tradition as well. Ali questions whether the doctrine of mahr (the dowery paid by a husband to his wife) remains relevant today in a world in which men and women both work and earn money. She also feels that polygamy is no longer applicable in our age (but does not touch the topic of gender-egalitarian polyamory, which is relevant because polygamy is usually despised in polyamorous circles). She points out that the traditional attitude according to which a woman was obligated to be sexually available to her husband whenever he wanted her had practical and legal consequences: “Most jurists viewed the husband’s support of his wife as an exchange for her sexual availability to him, and agreed that her sexual refusal constituted grounds for suspension of her support” (p. 11). She adds: “The early jurists would have considered marital rape an oxymoron; rape (ightisab, ‘usurpation’) was a property crime that by definition could not be committed by the husband, who obtained a legitimate (but non-transferable) proprietary interest over his wife’s sexual capacity through the marriage contract, incurring the obligation to pay dower in exchange” (p. 12). The non-recognition of marital rape as being a serious crime is in fact defended by traditional Muslim scholars even today.

Book Review: The Search for Beauty in Islam

Title: The Search for Beauty in Islam: A Conference of the Books
Author: Khaled Abou El Fadl
Year: 2001
Available At: Amazon.com

From the Back Cover

In this updated and expanded edition of The Search for Beauty in Islam, Abou El Fadl offers eye-opening and enlightening insights into the contemporary realities of the current state of Islam and the West. Through a conference of the books, an imagined conference of Muslim intellects from centuries past, Abou El Fadl examines the ugliness that has come to plague Muslim realities and attempts to reclaim what he maintains is a core moral value in Islam — the value of beauty. Abou El Fadl argues that the rekindling of the forgotten value of beauty is essential for Muslims today to take back what has been lost to the fundamentalist forces that have denigrated their religion.

Comments

When 9/11 happened, Khaled Abou El Fadl was clearly deeply shaken. In an interview with PBS, he said: “In many ways, 9/11 made me care far less about what my fellow human beings [thought] of me, and care much more about my accountability before God ultimately. God, I believe, is beautiful, and seeks beauty. It is my burden and privilege and virtue to go out and try to create beauty, as much beauty that is reflective of the beauty of God.”

He also voiced a personal concern at the time: “My son is going to ask me, ‘How could this have happened in the name of the religion you follow?’ How can I justify, not just to neighbors and friends, but how can I justify to my son that this happened in the name of the faith that [I am] committed to? … In order to be able to respect myself before my son, I must be able to say, ‘Here is what I’ve done.’ … Otherwise, I really don’t think you can hold your head high and have a sense of dignity about yourself if you can’t clearly confront the fact that this remarkable amount of ugliness was committed in the name of the faith that you believe in. ” In his elegantly written book, The Search for Beauty in Islam: A Conference of the Books, El Fadl sets out to counter the ugliness in puritanical and Wahhabi Islam. True to his post-9/11 affirmation of his responsibility to his son, the book opens up with the statement: “This book is dedicated to my son Cherif; may the Conference find him and may he find beauty.”