Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800

Attitudes toward homosexuality in the pre-modern Arab-Islamic world are commonly depicted as schizophrenic--visible and tolerated on one hand, prohibited by Islam on the other. Khaled El-Rouayheb argues that this apparent paradox is based on the anachronistic assumption that homosexuality is a timeless, self-evident fact to which a particular culture reacts with some degree of tolerance or intolerance. Drawing on poetry, biographical literature, medicine, dream interpretation, and Islamic t...