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I really don’t get the extreme & visceral animus most modern Muslims have towards homosexuality. Our pre-modern Arabic & Persian poetry is filled with desire for men (& sadly, boys), some of it is metaphorical, & some seems so because of lack of gender pronouns in Persian ...>
... but a lot of it is also gender specific. It’s not limited to poetry either, hard to read chronicles of medieval lives in the Islamicate regions & not find references of love b/w men, often b/w free & slave men, (which is why I believe that along with European colonialism ...>
... end of slavery also has something to do with this shift). Ibn Akhtam, head qadhi in the Abbasid caliphate, was also openly homosexual, & respected for his knowledge by even Ibn Hanbal. Just today I was reading about Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, a fascinating Andalusi woman ...>
... & love of her life, Ibn Zaydún, a great poet himself, had several male lovers. That’s not to say that it was ever seen as not a sin, but a sin like others sins, mass sentiment towards it was never this extreme. I don’t think there is any other sin we now despise as ...>
...viscerally as this particular sin. We don’t loathe movie dancers, singers, actors nearly as much as we loathe homosexuals. Why? We’re always negotiating b/w religion & sins we enjoy, we always have & always will. But homosexuality is not something we enjoy, it’s completely...>
... separate from us, so we feel it’s ok to despise those who live it. Also because we see it as something primarily sexual & not about love & identity & self-hood. Including gay love along with stories like Cinderella in schools might not make any difference to most children...>
... but a world of difference to a gay child, who otherwise has to suffer through years of mental torture to be comfortable with his or her identity. Once you grow up & if you’re sensitive, you realize that such people are all around you but hidden to most & often even to ...>
... themselves. I had a 15 year old gay friend in Karachi who committed suicide, another friend who was forced to marry a girl which ended tragically (we all secretly know of several such marriages), another friend who as a 12 year old touched a friend who made a big deal ...>
... all of us harassed him, later he became a model & is currently looking for a lesbian girl to marry because there is no way he can come out. I know two old women who’ve loved each other almost their entire lives, got married to other men, got divorced, but still can’t rid ...>
... themselves from their own guilt for loving a woman, & are living as divorced women separately when they could be living blissfuly with each other. Others gossip about them & giggle. We don’t have to turn homosexuals ourselves, we can’t even if we tried, but lets please ...>
... make lives of those who’re destined to live it easier.
Should have added this thread. It answers many of the qs asked here, especially about the post & pre-colonial shift in our attitude towards sexuality.
Guys, please go through responses here before you comment or QT. There’s a high chance your concern is already addressed,
