Male homosexuality in Islamic normative and in the mujun literature of al-Andalus and the Maghreb between the 10th and 13th centuries / Miguel António De Freitas Boronha

M.A. De Freitas Boronha

Abstract: The understanding of human sexuality is fundamental to the understanding of the society and culture that shapes individuals. It is a result of those external factors, but also can be traced to their genesis. Islam's stance on homosexuality is well defined in its jurisprudence, not the least in the Qur'an. Sodomy is forbidden, and its punishment varies according to the hadiths acknowledged by each different school of jurisprudence. However, despite this prohibition, we see a flourishing of homoerotic poetry in al-Andalus and the Maghreb between the 10th and 13th centuries, particularly in the genre known as mujun, or obscene. This thesis studies this paradoxical ambivalence in Medieval Islam, where a highly prohibitive religion in regards to same-sex relations, but sexually permissive, sees the coexistence of constraining normative and obscene representation. Relying on fundamental works of mujun literature as our sources - Ibn Sara as-Santarini, Ahmad al-Tifashi and Ibn Hazm - we highlight the sexual permissiveness expressed through Arabic and in both treaties and poetry, to better understand how the third Abrahamic religion permitted such phenomenon at the very height of what many consider it to be its Golden Age.