Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (5 page)

The confusion resulting from the assumption that
lūṭī
translates as “homosexual” may be seen, for example, in a modern discussion of the collection of erotic anecdotes entitled
Nuzhat al-albāb fīmā lā yūjad fī kitāb
by the Egyptian scholar Ahmad al-Tīfāshī (d. 1253). Having apparently been misled by a French translation, Robert Irwin asserts, in his absorbing and rewarding book
The Arabian Nights: A Companion,
that the sixth chapter of Tīfāshīʾs work deals with homosexuals, and goes on to give the “characteristic features” attributed to them:

Chapters 6-8 of al-Tīfāshīʾs book are in fact devoted to
al-lāṭā
(plural of
lūṭī
) and
al-murd al-muʾājirīn.
Even a cursory reading of the Arabic text (to which Irwin did not have access) reveals that the former term refers to adult men who desire to sodomize boys—that is, to “pederasts” rather than “homosexuals” —while the term
murd muʾājirīn
refers to beardless boy prostitutes who render sexual services to
al-lāṭā.
The quoted account of “characteristic features” runs these two categories together: it is the pederast who should have pleasant lodgings, books and wine, but it is the boy prostitute who may be recognized by his gaze, his legs, and the way he walks.
²⁶
What is even more damaging to the assumption that the term
lūṭī
is synonymous with “homosexual” is the fact that a later chapter of Tīfāshīʾs work (chapter 12) deals with
al-khināth—
that is, effeminate adult men who desire to be sodomized by (preferably very masculine) men. This category is clearly treated by the author as distinct from the previously mentioned
lāṭā
and
muʾājirīn
(the latter are beardless boys and their motives are depicted as pecuniary). It should be clear by now that the modern term “homosexual” hopelessly muddles certain native distinctions, and that insisting on using it in translation or paraphrase leads to serious misunderstanding.
²⁷
It is also clear that Tīfāshīʾ-s work cannot be invoked, as Irwin does, in support of the idea that some medieval Arabs thought of homosexuality as a “single condition” shared by those who prefer the active role and those who prefer the passive, nor of the idea that this single condition was considered by some to be “a form of illness.” There does not seem to be any support at all for the idea that pederasts were thought to suffer from an illness. One may admittedly encounter a few passages in which
liwāṭ
was called a
dāʾ
, and the latter term may in appropriate contexts mean “disease.” However, the term
dāʾ
was frequently used in a loose sense to cover any habit or character trait that was held to be reprehensible. The very passages or works that use the term
dāʾ
of
liwāṭ
also use it, for example, of stinginess (
bukhl
) or ignorance of religious stipulations (
jahl
).
²⁸
There were no medical discussions of
liwāṭ
or any other indication that a tendency to commit
liwāṭ
was held to be a disease in the strict sense, with a physiological basis, physical symptoms, and natural remedies.
²⁹
The
lūṭī
was instead widely represented as a morally dissolute person, a libertine (
fāsiq
), and this latter word was sometimes used as its synonym. Being a pederast was of ten spoken of in the same breath as being a drinker of wine: “he is suspected of drinking wine and being inclined to beardless boys”; “[he] loves boys and drink”; “he became famous for drinking wine and loving boys”; “both of them are unscrupulous wine-drinkers and rakes, well known for their carousing, and famous among rich and poor for kissing fair boys and fair girls.”
³⁰
As in the case of drinking alcohol, the antidote to pederasty was repentance. A story in a collection of humorous anecdotes, perhaps dating from the seventeenth century, started thus: “It was related that one of the
lūṭīs
repented (
tāba
) from sodomy (
liwāṭ
)
.”
³¹
In the romance of Baybars, men who make sexual advances to the young hero and his groom ʿUthmān are regularly beaten up until they say: “I repent at your hands, and swear by your head and eyes that I will no longer meet youngsters and commit
liwāṭ,”
or, “My master! I repent and recant for what I did, and regret and repent at your hands from this time on, and if I should revert to anything of the kind then kill me.”
³²
The following couplet by the poet Mamayah al-Rūmī also illustrates the tendency to assimilate pederasty to sins such as (heterosexual) fornication and drinking alcohol:

The concept of
liwāṭ
was thus to a large extent “behavioristic,” whereas
ubnah
was more likely to be seen as an inner condition that gave rise to, and hence explained, peculiar behavior.
Ubnah
was a pathological or abnormal state which, permanently or recurrently, overwhelmed the person afflicted: “I would see him drink alcohol until he was intoxicated ... and his
ubnah
would be aroused and he would remain restless until he would be done in his anus”; “I heard of a person of honorable status who was afflicted with the disease of
ubnah,
so, fearing that this would be divulged... he had a piece of wood in the shape of a penis made, and when the disease would be roused he would seclude himself... and lock the doors from fear of being discovered and treat himself with the wood... [afterwards] he would implore of God ... that this disease would cease.”
³⁹
At least during the phase in which his disease is active, the
ma’būn
was seen as being thoroughly saturated with his deviant sexual preference, and he was typically portrayed in the works of bawdy comedy
(mujūn)
as insatiable and indiscriminately promiscuous (except perhaps for his preference for virile and well-endowed men).
⁴⁰
Such a stock association is reiterated in a defamatory poem composed by the Damascene poet ‘Abd al-Hayy al-Khāl (d. 1715) of a contemporary whom he accused of being a passive sodomite (‘
ilq
):

The mentioned differences in the stereotypes of the
Lūṭī
and the
ma ʾbūn
seem to be related to the fact that only the latter was perceived as being at odds with the ideal of masculinity. Effeminacy was not a part of the image of the
Lūṭī.
Soldiers, for instance, had a reputation for being active sodomites.
⁴³
The
Sakbāns,
mercenary soldiers who roamed the Syrian countryside in the early seventeenth century, were according to a contemporary source notorious pederasts and took many boys captive when they looted the suburbs of Damascus in 1606, as did the Egyptian troops of Muhammad Bey Abū al-Dhahab after their sacking of Jaffa in 1775.
⁴⁴
The Ottoman historian and belletrist Muṣṭafa ʿAlī (d. 1600), who visited Egypt in 1599, held that a large proportion of the cavalrymen
(jundīs)
there were pederasts.
⁴⁵
According to the above-mentioned poet Mamayah al-Rūmī: