Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature
by Stephen O. Murray
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Description
The dramatic impact of Islamic fundamentalism in recent years has skewed our image of Islamic history and culture. Stereotypes depict Islamic societies as economically backward, hyper-patriarchal, and fanatically religious. But in fact, the Islamic world encompasses a great diversity of cultures and a great deal of variation within those cultures in terms of gender roles and sexuality. The first collection on this topic from a historical and anthropological perspective, Homosexuality in the show more Muslim World reveals that patterns of male and female homosexuality have existed and often flourished within the Islamic world. Indeed, same-sex relations have, until quite recently, been much more tolerated under Islam than in the Christian West. Based on the latest theoretical perspectives in gender studies, feminism, and gay studies, Homosexuality in the Muslim World includes cultural and historical analyses of the entire Islamic world, not just the so-called Middle East. Essays show both age-stratified patterns of homosexuality, as revealed in the erotic and romantic poetry of medieval poets, and gender-based patterns, in which both men and women might, to varying degrees, choose to live as members of the opposite sex. The contributors draw on historical documents, literary texts, ethnographic observation and direct observation by both Muslim and non-Muslim authors to show the considerable diversity of Islamic societies and the existence of tolerated gender and sexual variances. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
It's the only book of its kind I have ever found, and one of the best books on Islamic culture that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Sincere in the attempt to avoid Orientalist exoticist nonsense and immensely readable.
A varied edited collection of works on homosexual male impulses in the Arab and Islamic mind in history and today.
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15+ Works 424 Members
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Sexuality and Gender Studies, LGBTQ+, History, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 306.62 — Society, government, & culture Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Social Behavior - Dating, Marriage, Divorce Religious institutions
- LCC
- HQ76.3 .I75 .M87 — Social sciences The family. Marriage, Women and Sexuality The Family. Marriage. Women Sexual life Homosexuality. Lesbianism
- BISAC
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- Members
- 119
- Popularity
- 272,927
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.89)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
