Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature |
Buy Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature here, one of 508 Islamic History books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 64272 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!
|
You Are Here: Home > History Books > Islamic History > Item 19
 |
Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature
|
by Will Roscoe and Stephen Murray
Sales Rank: 51470
|
List Price: $22.00
$19.80
At Amazon
on 4-16-2008.
|
|
|
|
Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 392 pages
Published by: NYU Press February 1, 1997
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0814774687
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0814774687
Book Dimensions:
8.9 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
Weighs: 1 pounds
Book Description
"A fascinating and eye-opening book about a topic much hinted at but little considered systematically. The authors not only have the benefit of knowing homosexuality in many other societies but are well grounded in matters Islamic."
Middle East Quarterly
"Islamic Homosexualities clearly suceedsa valuable addition to any library or interested reader's bookshelf."
Journal of Homosexuality
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 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 Worldincludes 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.
About The Author
Will Roscoe is the award-winning author of The Zuni Man/Womanand Queer Spirits: A Gay Men's Myth Book and the editor of Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology and Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the Words of its Founder by Harry Hay.
Stephen O. Murray is a comparative sociologist who lives in San Francisco. He is the author of American Gay, Latin American Male Homosexualities, Oceanic Homosexualities, and a half dozen other books.
Reader Reviews
Put aside the homophilism and the jargon, both of which are a bit strong, and whats left is a fascinating and eye-opening book about a topic much hinted at but little considered systematically. The authors not only have the benefit of knowing homosexuality in many other societies but are well grounded in matters Islamic. Despite the title, they deal predominantly with men; lesbians are little known about. As with so much else in the sexual realm, Islamic norms differ profoundly from Western ones. The authors establish several points: (1) Islam treats homosexuality far less harshly than does Judaism or Christianity. (2) Sex between men results in part from the segregation of women and in part from the poetic and folk heritage holding that the penetration of a pretty boy is the ultimate in sexual delight. (3) Sex between men is frowned upon, but accepted so long as the participants also marry and have children; and also if they keep quiet about this activity. (4) The key distinction is not hetero- vs. homosexual but active vs. passive; men are expected to seek penetration (with wives, prostitutes, males, animals); the only real shame is attached to serving in the female role. (5) Youths usually serve in the female role and can leave behind this shame by graduating to the male role. (6) The great Muslim emphasis on family life renders homosexuality far less threatening to Muslim societies than to Western ones (Muslim men seeking formally to marry each other remains unimaginable). In the most startling parts of Islamic Homosexualities, Murray and Roscoe re-interpret important historical developments through the prism of male sex among Muslims. For example, they make a plausible case that sexual attraction was a significant impetus for the development of military slavery throughout the Muslim world. Less persuasively, they speculate that the relaxed Muslim attitude on this subject incited medieval European hostility to homosexuality as a way for those otherwise backward peoples to feel superior to Muslims. Middle East Quarterly, June 1997
Comment | Permalink |
(Report this)
Back To Top
|
Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature
Available from Amazon
Price: $19.80
Updated on 4-16-2008.
|
NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
| We offer Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature and other related Islamic History Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about Islamic History please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.
|
|
Search for books at
