TY - BOOK ID - 7239784 TI - Before homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic world, 1500-1800 : Khaled El-Rouayheb. PY - 2005 SN - 9780226729886 9780226729893 9780226729885 0226729893 0226729885 9786612426865 1282426869 0226729907 9780226729909 9781282426863 6612426861 PB - Chicago University of Chicago Press DB - UniCat KW - Homosexuality KW - Sodomy KW - Homosexuality in literature KW - History KW - Homosexuality in literature. KW - Buggery KW - Pederasty KW - Sex crimes KW - Same-sex attraction KW - Sexual orientation KW - Bisexuality KW - History. KW - Homosexuality - Arab countries - History KW - Sodomy - Arab countries - History KW - Religious aspects KW - Islam UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:7239784 AB - Attitudes toward homosexuality in the pre-modern Arab-Islamic world are commonly depicted as schizophrenic. On the one hand, Arabic love poetry, biographical works, and bawdy satires suggest that homosexuality was a visible and tolerated part of Arab-Islamic elite culture before the nineteenth century. On the other hand, Islam supposedly considers homosexuality an abomination and prescribes severe punishment for it. El-Rouayheb shows 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, belles lettres, biographical literature, medicine, physiognomy, dream interpretation, and Islamic legal, mystical, and homiletic texts, he shows that the culture of the period lacked the concept of homosexuality. Instead, paramount importance was given to distinctions that are not captured by that term--between active and passive sexual roles, between passionate infatuation and lust, and between penetrative and nonpenetrative intercourse.--From publisher description. ER -