Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Introduction
- I The Qur’anic Ethics of “Nature”: Gender, Sexuality, and Diversity
- II Distressing Qur’anic Verses?
- III The Prophet: A Living Incarnation of Qur’anic Ethics
- IV Islamic Apocrypha Advocating the Stoning of “Sodomites”
- V Postcolonial Orientalisms
- VI “Abnormals”: From Cultural Diversity to Dogmatic Uniformity
- VII Towards a Structural Reevaluation of Cultural Values
- VIII Pan-Arabist Literary and Identity Censorship
- IX Orientalist Shi’ism and Literary Homoeroticism
- X Homonationalism and Performative Sexual Categorization
- XI A “Crisis” of Categories, Geopolitics or Civilization
- Conclusion
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
VI - “Abnormals”: From Cultural Diversity to DogmaticUniformity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Introduction
- I The Qur’anic Ethics of “Nature”: Gender, Sexuality, and Diversity
- II Distressing Qur’anic Verses?
- III The Prophet: A Living Incarnation of Qur’anic Ethics
- IV Islamic Apocrypha Advocating the Stoning of “Sodomites”
- V Postcolonial Orientalisms
- VI “Abnormals”: From Cultural Diversity to Dogmatic Uniformity
- VII Towards a Structural Reevaluation of Cultural Values
- VIII Pan-Arabist Literary and Identity Censorship
- IX Orientalist Shi’ism and Literary Homoeroticism
- X Homonationalism and Performative Sexual Categorization
- XI A “Crisis” of Categories, Geopolitics or Civilization
- Conclusion
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This chapter addresses how the nineteenthcentury, and its waves of colonization around theworld, saw the medicalization of therepresentation that individuals within Europeansocieties, France, the UK, and Arab-Muslimsocieties developed of their national identities,until then considered to be “cultural,” or evencivilizational, identities, in particular, throughthe “normalization” of sexual orientations andgender identities.
Keywords: European colonization, theArab world, sexuality's emergence
The nineteenth century brought with it themedicalization of the representation thatindividuals within European societies, France, UK,and then Arab-Muslim societies, developed of theirnational identities, until then considered as“cultural,” or even civilizational, identities, inparticular through the “normalization” of sexualorientations and gender identities. For indeed, isthere a more efficient, more devious, way to controlindividuals than by inducing fear and guilt, and, ifnecessary, by employing verbal and physical violenceon their most instinctive sexual behaviours? Thishistoric movement towards greater control overEuropean identities, which would lead totwentieth-century fascism in Europe, was accompaniedand marked, during the same period, by increasinglyradical colonial policies and equally strict,xenophobic control over those who were considered“natives” of territories now belonging, in theory,to the imperial metropoles.
For example, at the time, the narratives of Europeanssuch as William Lemprière, a traveller and doctorwho exceptionally gained access to Ottoman orMoroccan harems, contrast sharply with those fromtwo centuries earlier about female doctors, ormidwives, who practised various types of medicinewithin these same harems, without the need forEuropean doctors. Things began to change during thisperiod, as Lemprière's narrative suggests:
[My Jewish guest in Morocco] told me the story ofa European surgeon who had been summoned to theMoorish prince, and who had been shot in the headby the ingratitude of his illustrious patient, whodid not follow the surgeon's prescriptions, butthen made him responsible for his ailments, which,instead of diminishing, increased. This unjustprince had forced the surgeon to kill himself inhis presence. (Lemprière, 1990, p. 59)
Jean Potocki, an eighteenth-century Polish aristocratwho travelled extensively and wrote about Russia,the Ottoman Empire, and Morocco (in 1791), wasreportedly sent on a mission of diplomacy andespionage. Potocki maintained a more empathetic, andmore nuanced, relationship with Moroccan societythan Lemprière.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Homosexuality, Transidentity, and IslamA Study of Scripture Confronting the Politics of Gender and Sexuality, pp. 61 - 64Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019