interesting resources
all these papers are already circulating cyber-space... Imaan library has many more available which can't be put up here cos of copyright laws... but if you're interested in reading more for personal use, email dervla@imaan.org.uk
also if there's other things you wanna see online here, email :)
PS. neither IMAAN LIBRARY nor IMAAN itself takes any responsibility for the views expressed here
"Yes, But Suppose Everyone Turned Gay?”
research paper by Marc Hooghe, Yves Dejaeghere, Ellen Claes, Ellen Quintelier (2010).
"Yes, But Suppose Everyone Turned Gay?”
The Structure of Attitudes Toward LGBT Rights among
Islamic Youth in Belgium.
Journal of LGBT Youth, 7(1), 49-71.
Abstract
Various quantitative studies have suggested the occurrence of hostile feelings toward
LGBT rights among Islamic communities in Western societies. We know less, however,
about the structure and determinants of these attitudes among this group. Based on focus
groups and in-depth interviews, we try to disentangle these elements. The interviews
suggest that feelings toward LGBT rights among this group are not based on a discourse
of individual rights but are considered within the background of dense family relations,
strongly linked to notions of family honor and the duty of the individual to contribute to...
Adi Kuntsman, ''The Soldier and the Terrorist: Sexy Nationalism, Queer Violence.''
ABSTRACT: An Israeli soldier, praised for killing terrorists in their homes, and adored as a gay prince charming; a Palestinian gay man called either a lying terrorist or a cute Arab boy with an almond ass; an Abu-Ghraib prisoner, whose naked body, pornographically mediated and distributed by the media generates a homosexual rape fantasy of all Arabs in-the-name-of-Israeli-security. These images were collected during my ethnography of a Russian-Israeli GLBT community, in the community's website. My analysis of the website's publications and discussions focuses on the ways violence, sexuality and nationhood intertwine in immigrants' sense of belonging to the country that is officially defined by the state policy — and indeed perceived by many immigrants themselves — as their home. I examine how masculinities become synecdoches of nation, and how homosexual fantasies work to create attachment to one's national home and hatred towards those defined as its enemies.
Adi Kuntsman. ''Queerness as Europeanness: Immigration, Orientialist Visions and Racialized Encounters in Israel/Palestine.''
Over the last 15 years more than a million people have immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union,
welcomed by the Israeli ‘Law of Return’ that grants immediate citizenship and financial support to all Jews
and their family members. My last research1 focused on the queers among them, looking at the ways
sexuality and nationhood intertwine in queer immigrants’ sense of belonging to the country that is officially
defined by state policy – and indeed perceived by many immigrants themselves – as their home.
The migration and settlement of Russian-speaking immigrants – queer and straight alike – to Israel is
inseparable from the Eurocentric and colonial visions of the Zionist project....
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED BY DARKMATTER, ONLINE JOURNAL WITH OPEN ACCESS, SO EVERYOEN CAN READ IT... CHECK OUT http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/category/journal/issues/3-post-colonial-sexuality/
Andrew Yip, ''Queering Religious Texts: An Exploration of British Non-heterosexual Christians’ and Muslims’ Strategy of Constructing Sexuality-affirming Hermeneutics.''
Religious authority figures often use religious texts as the primary basis for censuring homosexuality. In recent years, however, non-heterosexual Christians and Muslims have begun to contest the discursively produced boundary of sexual morality. Drawing upon two research projects on non-heterosexual Christians and Muslims, this article explores the three approaches embedded in this strategy...
Andrew Yip. ''Uniquely Positioned?: Lived Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Asian Muslims in Britain.''
This paper highlights some of my reflections on the data drawn from an empirical research
project entitled A Minority within a Minority: British Non-heterosexual Muslims, conducted
in 2001 and 2002.
Anjali Arondekar, ''BORDER/LINE SEX: Queer Postcolonialities, or How Race Matters Outside the United States.''
This article foregrounds the current critical emphasis on the language of intersectionality and analogy between race and sexuality, especially with respect to the discourse of rights and discrimination. Such language uses ‘racism’ and
‘race’ as stable registers of oppression, whereby a range of discriminatory
practices based on sexual orientation gather representational and judicial validity
through their linkage and similarity to such registers. Buried in such ‘linkages’ is
the very mathematical paradox of parallelism that forecloses any true intersection,
even as it invites lines of common origin and travel. Hence, we are often left
with a language of analogy and repetition where race as sex and sex as race
become parallel political formations only through a constant reminder of their
irreconcilable separation. Instead, I theorize the productive possibility of a
Spivakian ‘transactional reading’ whereby the linking of sex and race becomes a
dynamic dilation of difference, even as it speaks the language of similarity and
kinship. Some of the questions I raise are: Are such analogical invocations of
sexuality also about new forms of racisms and imperialisms? Given the rise of
queer transnational work, how do we translate the analytical paradigm of ‘race’
outside of its formations in the United States? In order to answer these questions
and more, I turn to contemporary mobilizations of the race/sex nexus, especially post the events of 9/11. I focus, in particular, on the successful emergence of
queer ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ groups such as Al-Fatiha post 9/11, and situate their
success within a critique of American mobilizations of religion, race and
sexuality.
Anouka van Eerdewijk, ''Silence, pleasure and agency: sexuality of unmarried girls in Dakar, Senegal.''
The article investigates the way unmarried Muslim girls in contemporary
Dakar construct their sexuality. It explores in what way and to what extent female
sexuality is being silenced, and if any, in what way pleasure and sexual agency are
present in the narratives of those girls about their intimate lives. Such an analysis is
called for in relation to understanding young people’s safe sex practices and
concerns about reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. Women’s own experiences and
understandings are often downplayed in studies that focus on and reproduce the
dominant discourse of patriarchal control. This article shows the silencing in a malecentered
construction of pre-marital sexuality in Dakar, but also reveals female
pleasure and sexual agency. This multi-dimensional understanding of female
sexuality of Muslim girls in Senegal provides...
Asifa Siraj, ''The construction of the homosexual ‘other’ by British Muslim heterosexuals.''
Islam’s explicit condemnation of homosexuality has created a theologically
based homophobia which engenders the intolerance of homosexuals by
Muslims. In this article I explore Muslim attitudes towards homosexuality and
homosexuals as this area has elicited very little research. Based on structured
interviews with 68 Muslim male and female heterosexuals I examine the connection
between participants’ attitudes towards homosexuality and their understanding of
gender and gender roles. I also analyse whether participants’ views are shaped by
their religious beliefs and values. ,,,
BOOK CHAPTER: Queer Resistance to (Neo-)Colonialism in Algeria
Hayes, J., ‘Queer Resistance to (Neo-)Colonialism in Algeria,' in Hawley, J., C. 2001. Postcolonial, queer: theoretical intersections. London: SUNY press, pp79-99.
E-BOOK by Dr Dialmy
En francais,
JEUNESSE, SIDA ET ISLAM (Youth, AIDS and Islam)
E-BOOK by Dr. Dialmy, en Francais
E-BOOK by distinguished Moroccan professor, Dr Abdessamad Dialmy, entited:
ESPACE, SEXE et INTEGRISME
(space, sexuality and dwelling places)
ELHAM MANSOUR. 'i am you/ ana hiya anti,' an excerpt translated from Arabic by Samar Habib
Extract from Ana Hiya Anti, first lesbian-centred arabic novel, by Elham Mansour
''The thunderstorm of cannons and machine guns subsided after the declaration of ceasefire, and the night transformed into darkness inhabited by caution. The civilians left their hiding-places. Layal withdrew from amongst her neighbours, who were congregated around the stairs, and returned to her apartment. It was a relatively early hour, so she took to reading a little before going to sleep, hoping to ascertain whether or not the ceasefire was going to prevail. She sat at her desk, took a book and continued her work, reading and not understanding very well what she read and re-read in vain. In her mind, she continued to suffer the strain of terror experienced for many hours that afternoon, but in insisting on reading was the hope that she would escape reality, the hope that the words would remove her from the atmosphere and miseries of war....''
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYIcO8MzqAOTZGdid2M0aF81ZGgyNjU3ZDg&hl=en_GB
Elmah Yildiz, ''Islam Observed, Islamicate Misrecognized: Queer Iranian Crossings Across the Secular-Liberalism/Islam divide.''...'
In this paper I offer an ethnographic account of Iranian queer refugees held in Turkey as the UN
asssess their asylum appications. I focus in particular their mobilities' entanglements with
secular-liberal politics...
Gaudio, ''Allah Made Us: Sexual Outlaws in an Islamic African City.''
SAMPLE CHAPTER FROM GAUDIO'S NEW BOOK:
reviewer said... 'Very early in the text, Gaudio challenges the reader to rethink ideas “about gender and sexuality, language and culture” (p. 13), indicating that he is presenting much more than an effort to work through rhetorical problems as is suggested in the acknowledgments. Not only are we given an opportunity to rethink these seemingly nonnegotiable areas of interaction in
a highly structured and male-dominated society, but we are also told to consider these in differing domains for the sake of understanding and analysis. There is a gallant effort to enable us to appreciate language as both a medium of social participation and an object of criticism and control, as well as a reflective mirror of power, aesthetics, emotions, and beliefs. Finally, the all-important purpose of the book is, according
to Gaudio, an examination of how yan daudu use language, their bodies, and other media to
“play” (p. 7) as they put it, with the boundaries of what it means to be male and female...
Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the ‘War on Terror’ Jin Haritaworn, with Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem
How do we explain the new omnipresence of (some) queers of colour?1
Muslim gays and lesbians have received their debut in TV programmes,
newspaper articles, research projects and political events. At first sight,
this development is new and welcome. It breaks with the imposed silence
of those who have traditionally fallen out of the simple representational
frames of a single-issue identity politics. Other queers of colour, however,
continue to lack a public voice. Moreover, as Leslie Feinberg (2006) observes,
the interest in Muslim gays and lesbians has emerged from a global
context of violent Islamophobia. This raises the question of which stories
are being circulated and how they contest or reinforce racism. It is also
questionable what interest other actors have in this new politics of queer of
colour representation, notably white gays, lesbians, feminists and queers.
Gert Hekma. ''Imams and Homosexuality:A Post-gay Debate in The Netherlands.''
this article focuses on
a topical issue. It describes a growing conflict between Muslims
and gays in the Netherlands, which is currently being mirrored in
many places throughout the world. Highlighting the denunciations
of gays by the Rotterdam-based imam Khalil El Moumni in
May 2001, the article examines how the issue appeared and the
key elements of the debate it generated. Just how this debate fits
into the wider contexts of modernity and postmodernity is also
examined.
Hussain, ''Muslims in Canada: Opportunities and challenges.''
This article outlines the major opportunities and challenges that shape the identities of Muslims in Canada and argues that Canadian Muslims are closer to each other and are also less alienated from, or closer to, the majority (non-Muslim) population than are Muslims in the United States. The opportunities discussed are multiculturalism, Muslim minorities and interfaith dialogue. As Muslims in Canada build institutions, communities and lives, Canadian contexts present them with challenges as well as opportunities. Five key challenges are discussed in this article: mosques, community life and Muslim worship, marking boundaries, gender and sexual orientation.
Ibrahim Abraham, '' Out to get us: queer Muslims and the clash of sexual civilisations in Australia.''
This article explores fictional representations of queer Muslims in the Western world. Analysing two films (My Beautiful Laundrette and Touch of Pink) and two novels (The Taqwacores and Bilal’s Bread), the article argues that despite queer Muslims facing multiple forms of alienation and othering, new hybrid identities and relationships are developing, rejecting the rhetoric of a “clash of civilizations” between Muslims and the West. The article explores the political, cultural, sexual and economic situation of Western Muslims as they seek meaning, belonging and faith in late capitalism.
Ibrahim Abraham. ''Out to get us': queer Muslims and the clash of sexual civilisations in Australia...''
Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with twelve queer Muslims in Australia, this
article analyses the ongoing struggle for queer Muslim recognition within the context of the
so-called 'Clash of Civilisations'. Analysing the rhetoric of national security and 'Western' ...
Ilan Kapoor, ''Islam and Cultural Politics.''
... It is manifest in the “queer Muslim punk” groups described by Ibrahim Abraham; they demonstrate
the possibility of same-sex intimacy without conforming to either the mainstream bourgeois
hetero-homo binary or the hidden homosexual practices within Muslim communities...
Jasbir Puar, ''Queer Times, Queer Assemblages.''
This article informs that the war on terror is an assemblage hooked into an array of enduring modernist paradigms and postmodernist eruptions. Queer times require even queerer modalities of thought, analysis, creativity, and expression in order to elaborate on nationalist, patriotic, and terrorist formations and their intertwined forms of racialized perverse sexualities and gender dysphorias. Queerness colludes with U.S. exceptionalisms embedded in nationalist foreign policy via the articulation and production of whiteness as a queer norm and the tacit acceptance of U.S. imperialist expansion.
Jin Haritaworn, ''Loyal Repetitions of the Nation: Gay Assimilation and the ‘War on Terror.’'
Out of these multi-issue struggles, earlier documentations and theorizations have emerged of the ways in
which rhetorics of women’s and gay liberation have been deployed in the war. Some of these (especially
Jasbir Puar’s) antici pate several of Butler’s arguments. These writings are characteri zed by complex
engagement s, not just wi th the state but multi ple publics and counter-publi cs, i ncluding, importantl y, the
gay leaderships in places such as Germany, Britain, the US, and Israel.8 There, dominant gays have
actively participated in the ‘war on terror’ . For this, they are rewarded, on the one hand with a limi ted
increase in sexual rights, and on the other, with a symbolic inclusion into nations which belies an ongoing
homophobia. This secures not only a loyal citi zenry willing to legitimate racism and war as human-right s
projects, but also pacifies sexual liberation struggles and dislocates them from the national to the
international (or at least, the interracial) level.
Joseph Massad. ''Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World.''
One of the more compelling issues to emerge out of the gay movement in the last two decades
is the universalization of “gay rights.” This project has appropriated the prevailing US discourse
on human rights in order to launch itself on an international scale. Following in the ...
Kecia Ali, ''Special Focus: Islam. Same-Sex Sexual Activity and Lesbian and Bisexual Women.''
Same-sex sexual activity is a taboo subject for many Muslims. Some go so far as to deny that gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals exist in Muslim societies today or even that sexual activity between men or between women has existed in Islamic history. Rather, they claim that such issues are “western” or “modern.” Those who do acknowledge the topic generally agree that the Qur’an explicitly forbids all same-sex sexual activity and that Islamic law prescribes dire punishments for it. Thus, in dealing with same-sex sexual behavior among Muslims, there are two key issues: First, what is practiced? Answering this question involves determining what the historical role of lesbian women and female same-sex sexual behavior, for example, has been. Second, and more importantly for contemporary Muslims grappling with the issues raised by same-sex attractions, what is permissible? Just because some Muslims in the past have behaved in a certain way does not mean it is religiously legitimate to do so. This essay will briefly address the first question of past practice, then turn to a discussion of permissibility...
http://www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/Pages/femalehomosexuality.html
Khan et. al. ''Men who have sex with men's sexual relations with women in Bangladesh.''
ABSTRACT: Studies of men who have sex with men in South Asian countries including Bangladesh have tended to focus mainly on measuring male-to-male sexual risk behaviours, with less attention being given to understanding the nature and meaning of their sexual relations with women. This can result in missed opportunities for HIV/AIDS-related intervention. This paper, based on a small scale qualitative study, attempts to develop a cultural model to understand men who have sex with men's sexual relations with women within a gender and masculinity framework. Findings reveal that in Bangladesh men who have sex with men frequently surrender to societal pressures to marry, become husbands and shoulder fatherhood. This forces some women to become the silent sufferers of some of the negative consequences of hetero-normative patriarchal practice. Importantly, however, men who have sex with men consider sex with women a form of real sex within a framework of masculine sexual potency irrespective of preference, desire or eroticism. Thus, challenges exist to undertaking sexual health promotion and HIV/AIDS prevention in culturally sensitive ways.
Louis Crompton, ''Male Love and Islamic Law in Arab Spain.''
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4IcO8MzqAOTZTc2Y2M0ZDQtMjI5Yy00ZDFhLWFmZTgtZmM2NTZjZGU0NGM0
Matthew Waites. ''Analysing sexualities in the shadow of war: Islam in Iran, the West and the work of reimagining human rights.''
The discourses of the US and UK governments have come to focus
on gender as a central, rather than marginal issue, in tandem with the ascendance of ‘human rights’ in foreign policy discourse. The rights of
women have been significant in the discourses of Bush and Blair justifying
military interventions, particularly in Afghanistan, and more generally
central in challenging Islamic politics. Tony Blair for example has
commented that the position on women of Islamic extremists and terrorists
is ‘reactionary and regressive’ – alongside acknowledgement of the
Koran as ‘way ahead of its time in attitudes to marriage, women and
governance’ (Blair, 2006) and contemporary progress on women’s political
rights and education in many Muslim majority states (Blair, 2007).
Feminist analysts have noted this centrality of gender (Ware, 2006), interpreting
such discourses in the light of ‘postcolonial’ feminist theorizations
of the ways in which representations of ‘third world women’ as requiring
assistance and defence are mobilized in western political discourses
(Mohanty, 1988; Spivak, 1988). But increasingly it is not only ‘women’,
but sexuality and ‘sexual orientation’ that are at issue.
Minwalla, Omar; Rosser, et al.''Identity experience among progressive gay Muslims in North America: A qualitative study within Al-Fatiha.''
Abstract
This qualitative study aims to document the identity experience of progressive gay Muslim men in a
North American context. Six in-depth interviews, supplemented with participant observation, were
conducted of gay Muslim men who attended an international conference for lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgendered, and questioning (LGBTQ) Muslims. For progressive gay Muslims such as these, a
Muslim identity appears three-dimensional (religious, ethno-cultural, and color) when integrated
with a gay identity. As a religious identity, gay Muslim’s relationship to Allah (God) and a
reinterpretation of the Qur’an and traditional condemnation of homosexuality appears necessary. As a
cultural identity, East–West ethno-cultural differences that impact on homo-sociality and gay identity
construction, marriage and the impact of coming out on the Eastern family and siblings emerged as
critical issues. As a color identity, internalized racism, dating relationships and social dynamics within
gay subculture as Muslims of color in a white dominant context appear key challenges.
Miranda Larocque, ''Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Muslims.''
... The overarching theme I have discovered through my research of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
and Transgender Muslims is that there is a wide range of opinion in Muslim populations
about the morality and acceptability of LGBT individuals. ...
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYIcO8MzqAOTZGdid2M0aF8wNzduOW5wZzc&hl=en_GB
Momin Rahman, ''In Search of My Mother’s Garden: Reflections on Migration, Sexuality and Muslim Identity.''
I offer a few reflections on issues of migration, gender, sexuality and identity. The impetus for this paper was a public lecture delivered in 2005 on women’s history, in which I used my autobiographical narrative to think about questions of gender and sexuality in the context of Muslim identity. Since then, I have thought more directly about my location as a gay man in provoking the initial choice and formation of topic. In re-visiting this history with a keener sense of my queerness, I therefore weave a different narrative from the initial talk, but a central thread remains the topic of women in my family and the wider community of Bengalis and Muslims that I am connected to.
Nahas, ''Yoesuf: An Islamic Idea with Dutch Quality.''
Nahas, O., 2004. ‘Yoesuf: An Islamic idea with Dutch Quality,’ in Wehbi, S., Community organizing against homophobia and heterosexism: the world through rainbow-colored glasses,' London: Routledge, pp53-65.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=J4ctKbatlw4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Queer Jihad (1) A View from South Africa
chapter by scott kugle in book 'Urgency required: gay and lesbian rights are human rights.'
Rouhani, ''Religion, Identity and Activism: Queer Muslim diasporic identities.''
Rouhani, F., 'Religion, Identity and Activism: Queer Muslim diasporic identities,' in Lim, J, Brown, G and Browne, K., 2007. Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, Practices and Politics. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 169-180
Rusmir Music, ''Queer Visions of Islam.''
“Queer Muslims? Really?,” people raise their eyebrows when I explain to them my academic
work. “Is there such a thing? I thought Islam strictly condemns it.” Some ask: “Why bother?
Wouldn't it be easier to simply turn your back on the religion and...
Samar Habib, ''An Appendix of Texts from the Arabian Middle Ages Concerned with Female Homosexuality.''
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYIcO8MzqAOTZGdid2M0aF8yY3MzNHdkZnQ&hl=en_GB
Samar Habib, ''Lecture de la familiarité du passé : introduction à la littérature arabe médiévale sur l’homosexualité des femmes.''
Le but du présent article est de présenter les documents qui ont informé notre recherche sur la question de l’homosexualité des femmes dans l’empire arabe médiéval. Nous avançons que ces documents sont également utiles aux théories contemporaines sur la sexualité dans les sciences humaines. Non seulement ils nous donnent énormément d’informations sur la sexualité des femmes arabes de cette période, ils sont également pertinents aux débats théoriques actuels sur les identités sexuelles qui, dans le cadre théorique de l’homosexualité, sont considérées comme transitoires, comme le résultat de “structures discursives [plutôt] que de caractéristiques d’individus.” ...
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYIcO8MzqAOTZGdid2M0aF82ZHY0ejY1ZHQ&hl=en_GB
Samar Habib, ''Queer-Friendly Islamic Hermenuitics.''
Throughout the world, Muslims explore ways
to be gay and still be part of the Muslim
community. Although prohibitive Islamic
attitudes towards homosexuality may seem
to make this difficult, these are not shared by
all Muslims. There is also a counter-culture
of Muslim queerness that demonstrates that
not all religious scholars were necessarily
against homosexuality. This article discusses
understandings of Islam that accommodate
homosexual relationships.
Samar Habib, ''Queering the Middle East and the New Anti-Semitism.''
The Israeli Palestinian conflict presents a highly charged and ironic space for queer discourse. This paper explores how despite their anti-homosexual and anti-feminist
cultural ideologies, the Palestinians have gained support from significant Israeli queer
and feminist organisations. The overlap between sexual and national identity is explored
in a bid to better understand this strange alliance, which calls for a liberating, allencompassing
way to end the Middle East conflict. The paper also examines how pro-
Palestinian queer Jews realise their Jewish identity and its point of intersection with their
queer or feminist selves, while also exploring the sexual anxieties of contamination that
lurk in the pro-nationalist Israeli/Zionist mentality...
Originally published online by EnterText, http://arts.brunel.ac.uk/gate/entertext/issues.htm
Samar Habib, ''Reading the Familiarity of the Past: an Introduction to Medieval Arabic Literature on Female Homosexuality,'' ARABIC
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYIcO8MzqAOTZGdid2M0aF8zcWhrdnNtZGI&hl=en_GB
Samar Habib, ''Reading the Familiarity of the Past: an Introduction to Medieval Arabic Literature on Female Homosexuality.''
This paper introduces a selection of mainly medieval material (written between the ninth and eighteenth centuries AD in Arabia), not previously available in English and dealing with female homosexuality. The critical and theoretical importance of this material casts a new light on approaches to sexuality studies, particularly in the framework of queer theory which, in recent years, has abandoned an essentialist analytical approach in favour of the view of sexuality-as-a-concept. The introductory paper challenges the assumption that sexualities are the sheer products of discursive structures and hence not the properties of individuals themselves. The paper also addresses a number of orientalist stereotypes that have dominated the (mis)understanding of female homosexual relations and behaviours in the Arab world, indicating that female homosexuality in this region has a long recognised history among the Arabs which has only in the most recent centuries been ignored...
essay also available in french and arabic below
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYIcO8MzqAOTZGdid2M0aF80ZnJzMzluaGc&hl=en_GB
Samar Habib, ''Reading the familiarity of the past: an introduction to medieval Arabic literature on female homosexuality.''
This paper introduces a selection of mainly medieval material (written between the ninth and eighteenth centuries AD in Arabia), not previously available in English and dealing with female homosexuality. The critical and theoretical importance of this material casts a new light on approaches to sexuality studies, particularly in the framework of queer theory which, in recent years, has abandoned an essentialist analytical approach in favour of the view of sexuality-as-a-concept. The introductory paper challenges the assumption that sexualities are the sheer products of discursive structures and hence not the properties of individuals themselves. The paper also addresses a number of orientalist stereotypes that have dominated the (mis)understanding of female homosexual relations and behaviours in the Arab world, indicating that female homosexuality in this region has a long recognised history among the Arabs which has only in the most recent centuries been ignored.
Samar Habib, ''The Historical Context and Reception of the First Arabic Lesbian Novel, I Am You, by Elham Mansour.''
Female homosexuality is a misrecognised concept on the culturally discursive level in the Middle East. This paper sketches the present popular epistemology of female homosexuality in the Arabic Middle East by examining the first lesbian-centred Arabic novel I Am You and its reception by reviewers. While the novel demonstrates a rather surprising and ethnic brand of homophilia which renders the narrative exceptional as well as unusual and promising, many reviewers in the Middle East were unable to recognize or engage with this “new” form of discourse in which homosexuality is not an aberration or an act of immorality. The cultural significance of I Am You is then examined within a larger socio-historical contextualisation of the novel and the period within which it is set...
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYIcO8MzqAOTZGdid2M0aF83aHI5ZGN4Z3A&hl=en_GB
Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle, ''Sexual diversity in Islam.''
In this chapter Scott Siraj alHaqq continues his groundbreaking research on queer muslims and Islam... for further info see...
Serena Nanda, ''Neither man nor woman: The hijras of India.''
Siraf, '‘On Being Homosexual and Muslim: Conflicts and Challenges.''
Siraf, A., ‘On Being Homosexual and Muslim: Conflicts and Challenges,' in Ouzgane, L., (ed.) Islamic Masculinities, Zed Books: New York, pp202-217.
Threats and Survival:The Religious Right and LGBT Strategies in Muslim Contexts
'Threats and Survival:The Religious Right and LGBT
Strategies in Muslim Contexts,' Anissa Hélie.
Women in Action, 1: 2006--QUEERING: Social Movements and Feminist Theories
Abstract; At the turn of the
nineteenth century,
Europeans referred to
same-sex relationships as
the “Persian disease,” the
“Turkish disease,” or the
“Egyptian vice.” In an
interesting reversal, many
conservative voices in
Muslim contexts nowadays
attribute homosexuality to
“Western depravation”—
and call for sanctions.
This shift in homophobic
discourse demonstrates
that the construction of “sexual difference” may vary significantly, shaped as
it is by historical and political considerations. It used to echo advocates of
colonialism, who sought justification for imperialist expansion in “native”
perversions.
Now, it serves the interests of
the Muslim Religious Right,
which (selectively) denounces
globalisation as a source of
social evils to better silence
alternative opposition.
Sustained pressure by feminist
and lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and intersex
(LGBTI) activists has
succeeded in bringing the
issue of “sexual diversity” to
the forefront. Yet the recent past is marked by both landmark achievements
and worrying trends. This paper explores the last decade—from the early
1990s onwards—and recalls some of the gains made at the global level. It
also examines how these gains are currently threatened by the
strengthening of the Religious Right. While the focus is specifically on
Muslim contexts, Muslim fundamentalists’ efforts need to be located
alongside those of their not-so-strange bedfellows, such as the Vatican and
the Christian Right.
Ziauddin Sardar...blogging the Qur'an 2008
BLOGGING THE QUR'AN by Ziauddin Sardar...
The Islamic position on homosexuality is not as clear cut as some of the bloggers have suggested. The Qur'an's position on the issue, as Solo points out, is "anything other than unequivocal". Human sexuality is a complex, emotional knot; and it does not surprise me that emotions have been stirred in our discussion of the subject.
What I am trying to say, Rosalinda, is that the Qur'an neither condemns nor condones homosexuality. Interpreting the verses relating to the subject is not easy; as DavidB2 and others have pointed out that even getting hold of the gender in question in 4:16 is problematic. Moreover, as far as the Qur'an is concerned, there is absolutely no question of any punishment, let alone capital punishment, for homosexuality - God will make his own judgment...
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/quran/2008/09/answers_to_questions_10.html