Islam and homosexuality Vol. 1 [...]

285 Pages·2010·1.651 MB·English

by  Samar Habib

ISLAM AND
HOMOSEXUALITY

ISLAM AND
HOMO(cid:2)SEXUALITY
Volume 1
SAMAR HABIB,
Editor
Foreword by Parvez Sharma

P
RAEGER
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC
Copyright 2010 by Samar Habib
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in
a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Islam and homosexuality / Samar Habib, editor ; foreword by Parvez Sharma.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-313-37900-0 (set : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-313-37901-7 (set ebook)
ISBN 978-0-313-37902-4 (v. 1 : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-313-37903-1 (v. 1 ebook)
ISBN 978-0-313-37904-8 (v. 2 : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-313-37905-5 (v. 2 ebook)
1. Homosexuality—Religious aspects—Islam. I. Habib, Samar.
BP188.15.H65I75 2010
297.5'66—dc22 2009022272

14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5
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CONTENTS
VOLUME 1
Foreword by Parvez Sharma ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction: Islam and Homosexuality xvii
Samar Habib
1 Islam and the Politics of Homophobia: The Persecution
of Homosexuals in Islamic Malaysia Compared
to Secular China 1
Walter L. Williams
2 Longing, Not Belonging, and Living in Fear 23

Badruddin Khan
3 Public Displays of Affection: Male Homoerotic Desire
and Sociability in Medieval Arabic Literature 37
Jocelyn Sharlet
4 Islam and the Acceptance of Homosexuality:
The Shortage of Socioeconomic Well-Being
and Responsive Democracy 57
Tilo Beckers
vi CONTENTS
5 Gays under Occupation: Interviews with Gay Iraqis 99
Michael T. Luongo
6 Reading and Writing the Queer Hajj 111
Omer Shah
7 Sexual Orientation: The Ideological Underpinnings
of the Gay Advance in Muslim-Majority Societies
as Witnessed in Online Chat Rooms 133
Max Kramer
8 “Because Allah Says So”: Faithful Bodies, Female
Masculinities, and the Malay Muslim Community
of Singapore 163
Nur ‘ Adlina Maulod and Nurhaizatul Jamila Jamil
9 Mithliyyun or Lutiyyun? Neo-Orthodoxy and the
Debate on the Unlawfulness of Same-Sex
Relations in Islam 193
Barbara Zollner
VOLUME 2
10 The Social Construction of Religious Realities
by Queer Muslims 223
Christopher Grant Kelly
11 Is There a “Gay-Friendly” Islam? Synthesizing
Tradition and Modernity in the Question
of Homosexuality in Islam 247
Christopher Grant Kelly
12 Neither Homophobic nor (Hetero) Sexually Pure:
Contextualizing Islam’s Objections to Same-Sex Sexuality 269

Aleardo Zanghellini
13 Implied Cases for Muslim Same-Sex Unions 297
Junaid Bin Jahangir
14 Queer Visions of Islam 327
Rusmir Music´
15 Queer, American, and Muslim: Cultivating Identities
and Communities of Affirmation 347
Mahruq Fatima Khan
CONTENTS vii
16 “You’re What?”: Engaging Narratives from Diasporic
Muslim Women on Identity and Gay Liberation 373
Ayisha A. Al-Sayyad
17 “Everywhere You Turn You Have to Jump into
Another Closet”: Hegemony, Hybridity,
and Queer Australian Muslims 395
Ibrahim Abraham
18 Marketing Diversity: Homonormativity and the
Queer Turkish Organizations in Berlin 419
Ilgin Yorukoglu
19 T ouch of Pink: Diasporic Queer Experiences
within Islamic Communities 445
Ahmet Atay
20 Sexualities and the Social Order in Arab
and Muslim Communities 463
Rabab Abdulhadi
About the Editor and Contributors 489
Index 495

FOREWORD
It is an honor to write the foreword for this excellent and thoughtful an-
thology that dares to visit some of the darkest corners of the taboo that
permeates the consciousness of that unlikely creature: the gay or the les-
bian Muslim, and certainly every other category that falls in the spectrum
of sexuality as we understand it in much of the West.
I write with fierce urgency because I realize now more than ever that
some of our most bitter battles in this new century will be fought on the
frontlines of religion. The generations that follow us will deal with the con-
sequences of rising extremisms in every faith. A very quick look into the
fabric of America, the profoundly religious and moralistic society I live in,
makes one realize that the gay marriage debate in this nation is fundamen-
tally about the Church.
In making my d ocumentary film, A Jihad for Love, I traveled to the
very heart of Islam and reached a conclusion that perhaps is not imme-
diately appealing to the readers of this book. In my lifetime I do not see
Islam drafting a uniform edict saying that homosexuality is permissible,
but then again, a ruling of that nature cannot be imagined as coming from
the Vatican either. The case of Islam becomes further problematized be-
cause there is no one kind of Muslim. More than a billion Muslim people
inhabit this planet, and, as A Jihad for Love proves, they inhabit geographi-
cal, linguistic, and cultural spaces that are enormously different. In fact,