Homosexuality, Transidentity, and Islam 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
Introduction
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 presents the author's empiricalresearch and political activism, in order tointroduce clearly the methodology of thesubsequent chapters, which draw on a variety ofethnographic, scriptural, historical and secondaryacademic sources.
Keywords: participativeanthropology, methodology, political activism,empirical sources
Listen to this famous storyabout a man being lashed in punishment. During thefirst ninety-nine lashes, he never let loose evenone moan of pain, but when he was lashed with thefinal hundredth stroke, he moaned in deep agony.The people who had gathered around asked him aboutthis strange behaviour. The man replied, “Duringthe first ninety-nine lashes, the beloved one forwhose sake I have been lashed was present near mein the circle of on-lookers; only when he turnedaway from me [at the moment of the final stroke]did I suddenly feel pain!
– Ibn ʻAṭāʼ Allāh (2005, p. 65)I am a gay and feminist French Muslim. Born in Algeriain the late 1970s, I grew up during the Civil War inthe 1990s. Ten years ago, I decided to challengepublically the widely held notion that same-sexdesire and Islam were an impossible pair, that thesedifferent aspects of our identities wereincompatible. Indeed, expressions of same-sex desirehave always been part of Arab-Muslim culturesthroughout history, as academics like KhaledEl-Rouayheb (2005a) have demonstrated. Despite thishistorical fact, today, in France, gay teenagers arealmost fifteen times more likely to commit suicidethan their straight counterparts (Cover, 2012).Deeply troubled by this statistic, and conscious ofthe added difficulties faced by queer Muslims, Idecided to create an association in support of queerFrench Muslims, which was launched in 2010, calledHM2F (Homosexuels musulmans de France).
Eventually, this also led me to start an inclusivemosque in Paris – the first of its kind in Europe.This was a project born out of a long, personaljourney. As a teenager adhering to a conservativeinterpretation of Islam, I memorized half theQur’an. The beauty of its texts, which I foundsteeped in universalism, enthralled me. Then, at theage of seventeen, I began to come to terms with thefact that I was gay.
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- Homosexuality, Transidentity, and IslamA Study of Scripture Confronting the Politics of Gender and Sexuality, pp. 11 - 18Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019