By town, I mean the Syrian blogosphere. Roused partly by Syrian bloggers who have taken to the vocal defense of sexual freedoms like Razan Ghazzawi, a small group has declared a week of blogging against homosexuality to resist what it sees as an ominous Gay Agenda on Syrian blogs. They have been met by an equally vocal set of bloggers condemning the campaign’s obviously discriminatory and homophobic overtones.
As a precursor, anybody interested in the sexual politics of the Middle East should, as a matter of course, read Joseph Massad’s Desiring Arabs before daring to make generalizations about homophobia in the Middle East. It was only a few months ago that voters in California–California!–voted to legalize discrimination against same-sex couples, so it would seem strange if we wrote this Syrian campaign off to the inferiority or so-called Islamofascism of other parts of the world, when the same is happening in our own backyards in the States.
That said, let’s talk a little about the Syrian campaign against homosexuality. It relies on at least three problematic claims. The first is a scientific claim that homosexuality is “unnatural.” The second is a moral-religious claim that homosexuality is a forbidden “deviancy.” More of a motif than an explicit claim, the third is that homosexuality in the Middle East is the result of Western culture’s corrupting influence.
Despite the last claim’s strong undertones of nativism, of protecting local morals from the corrupting influence of the outsiders, same-sex sexual activity and desire is well-documented in the history of the Muslim and Arab worlds. The mere fact that the Qur’an and other scriptures identify same-sex sex as forbidden, for example, is an acknowledgement that it was at the very least a conceivable practice at the time. Abbasid poets like Abi Nuwwas, in the heart of the Baghdad caliphate, wrote poetry freely, often discussing sexual exploits (in one poem about a band of marauders, he writes “We took to him [a young boy] one by one, and with him we broke our fast of loneliness.”). These are two very small points, but they certainly challenge the notion that same-sex sexual activity is a new phenomenon to the Arab world. I don’t make these points to vilify anyone, but rather to point out that in order to understand these issues, we need to have a more sophisticated approach than simply a nationalist/nativist discourse about the supposed foreign origins of this sexual behavior. The ironic thing here, explored in depth in Massad’s book, is the fact that a lot of contemporary anti-homosexuality arguments actually entered Arab discourse by way of American Christian fundamentalist groups. So while some of the Syrian bloggers leading this campaign have claimed that homosexuality is a disease that has infected the Arab world by way of America, it is actually the case that this perception of same-sex activities itself is what has come from America.
On this note, Razan made an interesting comment on her blog, suggesting that the campaign is more a defense of a heterosexual/Syrian identity than it is in opposition to homosexuality/foreignness per se. In other words, she says that campaign leaders have been prompted by a threat to their own identity, rather than an inherent opposition to homosexuality. This might be echoed by some of the campaigners’ calls that these issues should be kept in the closet, rather than discussed or practiced in public. Despite this erstwhile tolerance-without-equality, Abu Kareem says that the campaigners “speak of homosexuals as if they were strange alien creatures out to decimate the world.” In that regard, these bloggers sound a lot like Jerry “AIDS is God’s Wrath on Homosexuals” Falwell or Ronald “It’s Nature’s Wrath” Reagan.
The more interesting point however revolves around the campaign’s first two claims, about scientific normality and moral/sexual deviancy. Normality and deviancy are two ends of a single binary. Each is defined exclusively as the opposite of its other. This duality can be applied to different fields and settings but its use here demands attention because one term is used in its scientific context, and the other is used in a moral context. In this way, the moralist discourse assimilates the scientific discourse in order to undergird its own claims. In a sense, this assimilation reflects an absolute weakness on the part of the moralist discourse, which apparently has left God as its authority and turned to some sort of pseudo-science, as another Syrian blogger Yazan has put it.
Even the idea that there is such a thing as scientifically normal behavior is extremely problematic in this context. It confuses numerical or statistical data with what is “proper” or “correct.” The problem applies whether the inquiry about homosexuality comes from the social sciences or the life sciences (of course, the inquiry itself presupposes homosexuality as an oddity, as very little is said about interrogating heterosexuality in a scientific way). In any case, as Ian Hacking has argued, in normalizing a statistic, we go from calling something rare or infrequent to calling it abnormal. Implicit in this label is the claim that the way a human is supposed to be differs from the so-called abnormal human. At the end of the day, though, this is not a judgment supported by science, but rather one that reflects the biases or normative preferences of the person making the claim. We can consider a case where somebody goes out to “measure” the number of people in a society who are identifiably homosexual (this is an absurd scenario that relies on false categories of people based on sexual practice, but for the sake of argument I’ll let the horrendous methodology stand) and concludes that 10% of all people in the United States are homosexual. Does that mean they’re abnormal because they differ from the other 90%? If that’s the case, would it be similarly ‘abnormal’ for 10% of Americans to be Muslim, Arab, Black, Mormon, gray-eyed? The point is that it’s unsound to make judgments about what is ‘normal’ and what is ‘abnormal’ based on surveys of people with respect to arbitrary criteria.
As for the idea of sexual deviancy in a religious or moral sense, this campaign is still vulnerable to serious criticisms. One motivation for the campaign was to reject the use of the word al-Mithaliyyah, an Arabic term used for homosexuality, and instead to promote the term ash-shudhudh al-jinsi, or sexual deviancy. Of course, it’s erroneous to say that in Islam, only same-sex sexual activities are “deviant.” This term traditionally includes pre-marital, extra-marital, fetishized, incestuous, inter-special sexual practices as well, but many use it today to refer exclusively to same-sex sexual practices. So it only points to the homophobic and discriminatory character of this campaign that they even twist the religious terminologies in order to promote their narrow agenda against sexual practices that make them uncomfortable.
As Abu Kareem had said, the anti-homosexuality campaign was mostly a flop, bu
t its failure is only a small victory in the small Syrian blog networks because, as Razan has pointed out, Syrian society remains particularly homophobic whether or not the bloggers persist in their insults. A blog post criticizing the campaign is one thing, but support for these groups within our respective societies is another.
Photograph is from a sit-in in Beirut, Lebanon in February 2009. Original here.
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homosexuality is simply a metaphysical given about individuals, like height or race or nose shape. A trait, morally neutral. I see the onus of evidence on the “gayness is wrong” crowd not on gays to prove “normalcy” or any such claptrap. I once happened to help a younger man I met on a.p.o. work out his homosexuality and how to come out to his parents (remotely via email, for what little that was worth). One day he quipped in an email about the day that it dawned on him that he was gay: “Everybody keeps trying to define the issue of being gay in relation to the opposite sex. They do not understand that for me, it isn’t about women at all.” That was his epiphany. There’s more to the whole issue, of course, but the point I stuck with, using that insight, is that whatever the physical and/or psychological origins of homosexuality may be, it is a *trait* like any other. Like nose hair, it isn’t a moral issue.
Posted by Mike | March 21, 2009, 5:18 amI like the way you put it all togather. It is interesting to look back at our history and realize how much tolerance we had 200 years ago in comparison to what we are facing now.
Posted by The Observer | March 22, 2009, 7:22 amAnd as I think Massad says, the word "shudhudh" was not really used to describe sexual matters before the nehda…correct me if i'm wrong, it's been a bit since i read the book (which i think aims a lot higher than it actually hits, but that's another story). great write-up of the campaign.
Posted by Sarah | March 22, 2009, 7:39 pmYou could be right Sarah, I honestly don't remember because like you I haven't read the book in a while. There is of course much more complexity to Massad's argument than I did justice to in my post, and probably much to criticize as well. I still think it should be required reading though
Posted by yaman | March 22, 2009, 8:02 pmvoters in California did not vote to legalize discrimination against same-sex couples – that's laughable – they voted to have "marriage" remain as it always has been in American culture, a union between one man and one woman. "Civil unions" are for gay people. You must remember the importance of "marriage" in American and Anglo society – it is defined by religion and by tradition. It was the gays who intended to force their beliefs on the majority by redefining a word that has been defined for centuries. Homosexuallity was once considered a mental illness. It was removed from the realm of being a treatable disease to being a lifestyle choice in America, where individual freedom and personal choice is highly valued. Civil unions were created for gay people who wanted to enter into a legal living arrangement. And so "gay marriage" should equal Civil Union, and "marriage" should continue to be defined as it has been for centuries.
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:01 pmWho is "we"? 200 yrs ago in America homosexuality was illegal. In some Arab countries you can still be executed just like 200 yrs ago.
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:05 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the ” target=”_blank”>http://www.aswat.com/en Aswat website ? And what do you think about ” target=”_blank”>http://www.irshadmanji.com/ Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:08 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the ” target=”_blank”>http://www.aswat.com/en Aswat website ? And what do you think about ” target=”_blank”>http://www.irshadmanji.com/ Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:08 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the ” target=”_blank”>http://www.aswat.com/en Aswat website ? And what do you think about ” target=”_blank”>http://www.irshadmanji.com/ Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:08 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the ” target=”_blank”>http://www.aswat.com/en Aswat website ? And what do you think about ” target=”_blank”>http://www.irshadmanji.com/ Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:08 pmThe doctrine you espouse is quite familiar to the United States, but in a different context. There was a time when anti-segregationists attempted to "force their beliefs" onto the White Majority, much to this "majority's" dismay. The doctrine that the annoyed White Majority espoused was that of "separate and equal" schooling systems for white versus black students. Decades later, common logic rejected the notion and recognized that separate was inherently unequal. Today, you say that "the gays" are trying to force their belief onto the Straight Majority by 'redefining' a word. You suggest they accept a similar framework of being separate and supposedly equal. The truth is, in practice, no civil union has legally been equal to marriage in the US, in terms of benefit and the like. Secondarily, the same lesson of segregation applies: separate is inherently unequal. This isn't a case of a minority imposing its views on the majority. It's a case of identifying the majority as discriminatory and as having no right to impose that discriminatory view on the minority. So, no, you don't have a good solution, either practically or morally. You have a discriminatory one. Give it a few years, and common wisdom will turn on your apologetic pseudo-logic as well.
Posted by yaman | March 23, 2009, 10:10 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the Aswat website ? And what do you think about Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:11 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the Aswat website ? And what do you think about Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:11 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the Aswat website ? And what do you think about Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:11 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the Aswat website ? And what do you think about Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:11 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many Muslims support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the Aswat website ? And what do you think about Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:13 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many Muslims support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the Aswat website ? And what do you think about Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:13 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many Muslims support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the Aswat website ? And what do you think about Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:13 pmI think it is safe to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, and many Muslims support the idea of killing homosexuals. Is there anything in the world that has more human rights abuses done in its name, than islam? On a lighter note – have you ever seen the Aswat website ? And what do you think about Irshad Manji ?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 23, 2009, 10:13 pmI don't think it is safe for you to say that because I doubt you have read Islamic texts on this issue over the course of the past 1500 years. But maybe I am wrong, and your extensive survey of Muslims around the world qualifies you in making vast generalizations like that.
Posted by yaman | March 23, 2009, 10:22 pmin 'we' I mean the arab world. The execution of homosexuals in the Arab world today is based on the inherited french rule. Before that, the whole arab world enjoyed much sexual freedom, way better than what we have today.
Posted by The Observer | March 24, 2009, 7:02 amIrshad Manji sucks A**. No qualifications. Only published because she's a critic. Great Post Yaman.
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | March 25, 2009, 10:46 amPretty ignorant thing of you to say Eagle, especially considering that homosexuality was once accepted or tolerated in parts of the world where there was a Muslim majority. Homosexuality did not become the taboo it is today in the Muslim world until the 1800's, and this is for various reasons including the influence that Imperial powers had on Muslim majority lands at the time. The history of Islam and homosexuality is a long one Eagle. I suggest you actually do some reading from real sources instead of plastering us with your half made opinions or someone else's propaganda. Also, Irshad Manji is not a reliable source if your looking for Islamic reform commentaries. I highly suggest you read Reza Aslan if your interested in seeing where "progressive," "left leaning" or just regular plain old Muslims are taking their faith.
Posted by Arayus | March 25, 2009, 5:30 pmMinorities in America do not like having the gay marriage issue associated with their civil rights movement. For one thing, minorities had real struggles to go through to achieve equal rights, and they faced real dangers. This is simply not the same for the homosexual community… they do not face the water-hoses and the police dogs, or the lynchings, that minorites faced at one time in this country. And the civil rights cause was a just cause. Oddly enough, many in the civil rights movements of the past were also Christians. You do a great injustice to those who achieved real civil rights in this country by attempting to tie homosexual issues to them. They are two completely different things. A discriminatory view on a minority? No. Again, for hundreds of years marriage has been defined as between one man and one woman.
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 27, 2009, 12:48 amWe know that there are no gays in Tehran because of extermination, but what about the rest of the Muslim world? Homosexuality is in the Koran strongly condemned. Still, homosexuality is wide-spread in many Muslim countries. Homosexuality is mentioned in the Koran, and in a negative manner. In 4:20 sex between two men is defined as punishable, but not with death. It is moreover a forgivable act. 27:56 define male homosexuals as "ignorant", 7:79 the same as fairly moderate condemned by being "people who exceed." In 26:172, it is told the same story as in the Bible in which the town of Sodom is destroyed as a punishment of the homosexual acts there, but a better light is cast upon this in 29:28, where it explained that people are assaulted on the highway and homosexually raped. Homosexuality mentioned in the hadiths also avoid passing definite condemnations on homosexuality. Still, the term "illegal sexual intercourse" is frequently used. This may be a generic term into which both adultery and homosexuality falls into. In such a case, the punishment is stoning to death (see Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 82, Number 810). Contrary to both Christianity and Judaism, which both today have a practice milder than the scriptural obligations, many Muslim communities practice strong punishment on homosexuality, in many cases even death penalty.
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 27, 2009, 12:51 amIt is a well established fact that many famous Muslims were practicing homosexuals who looked towards the Koran to justify their actions. For example, Babar, the moghul king was madly in love with a young boy named Baburi. Kuttubuddin Aibak, another Muslim ruler of India used to dress up as a woman and dance in a vulgar manner. In some societies, homosexuality is part of a deep-rooted pre-Islamic culture. In other societies, homosexuality is best seen in conjunction with the strict regulations of non-marital sex.
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 27, 2009, 12:55 amIrshad Manji is pretty bright and funny. Did you see her debate Assad Abukhalil after the big cartoon fiasco?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 27, 2009, 12:57 amThe history of Islam and homosexuality isn't about pedophilia or cross dressing (those are different topics). Please try again Eagle.
Posted by Arayus | March 27, 2009, 1:32 amVerse 4:20 does not even deal with anything remotely related to punishment or homosexuality 4:19-20: "Oh you who believe, it is not lawful for you to inherit the women by force, nor that you become harsh with them to take away some of what you have given them, unless they commit a clear lewdness. And live with them in kindness. If you dislike them, then perhaps you may dislike something and God makes in it such good. Where is the punishment for homosexuality in those verses? ANYWAY, Islamic scholars and Orientalists have debated the meaning of the term Al Fahisha for centuries. This is the word that is commonly translated as being the behavior of the people of Lot, which many people assume to mean homosexuality. Even at Al-Azhar university there is no common consensus that this is the actual meaning of the word. What all Islamic scholars do believe however, is that the word actually means a type of "obscene behavior." A quick search of a Classical Arabic lexicon will give you this translation of the Fus-ha word Al Fahisha: became excessive/ immoderate/ enormous/ exorbitant/ overmuch/ beyond measure, foul /bad /evil /unseemly /indecency /abominable /gross /obscene, committing excess which is forbidden, transgress the bounds/limits, avaricious. Like many words in Classical Arabic, its the grammar and context that determines the exact meaning of a word. The people of Lot weren't guilty of being homosexuals per say, they were guilty of raping people of the same sex and the opposite sex according to the Qur'anic account of the event. Furthermore, they were guilty of killing foreigners, being openly racist towards any foreigners, and destroying indiscriminately. This is all on top of the fact that they were engaging in homosexual and heterosexual rape. However, I will admit this topic is very debatable, and is why you see tolerance for homosexuality amongst Muslims in the past but don't see the same today. But you cannot outright say that the Islamic scripture calls on Muslims to execute homosexuals, this is something that is not true. I highly suggest you do more reading on this topic because it is a topic rich in resources.
Posted by Arayus | March 27, 2009, 1:51 amShes a retard that takes the political grievances of Muslims around the world and dismisses them completely or significantly downplays them. Then she tries to blame all the problems of the Muslim world solely on the Muslims themselves. "Muslims being bombed?" Its their fault according to Manji. Her analysis is as shallow as that of Osama Bin Ladin who see's all the problems of the Muslim world as solely a "western conspiracy."
Posted by Arayus | March 27, 2009, 2:03 amI am opposed to propaganda. A just cause will not be harmed by the truth. You have tunnel vision, you are so focused on Israel that you exclude and ignore other facts having bearing on the situation.
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 27, 2009, 10:30 pmThe execution of homosexuals in the Arab world today is based on the inherited french rule. So the fundamental Islamists hatred of homosexuals is France's fault? Even you must see how silly that is. Before that, the whole arab world enjoyed much sexual freedom, way better than what we have today. There has indeed been more radicalization among Islamists in recent history. You are absolutely right, there is more intolerance today – it is the 800 lb gorilla in the room that so many want to ignore.
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 27, 2009, 10:32 pmTry what again?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 27, 2009, 10:33 pmAre you going to completely deny that the death penalty exists for homosexuality according to some Islamists?
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 27, 2009, 10:35 pmHomosexuality did not become the taboo it is today in the Muslim world… The biggest reason for increased intolerance is the radicalization of Islam.
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 27, 2009, 10:36 pmNo, I never denied that did I? There exist many people that want to kill Gays aside from "some Islamists." Try again Eagle.
Posted by Arayus | March 27, 2009, 10:42 pmHow is that even related to anything we are talking about.
Posted by Arayus | March 27, 2009, 10:43 pmand is why you see tolerance for homosexuality amongst Muslims in the past but don't see the same today. increased intolerance is due to the increase in radicalization.
Posted by eagle007blogger | March 30, 2009, 11:54 pmnwPwia comment6 ,
Posted by Pqwgbvfx | June 22, 2009, 10:04 am