Same-Sex Power and Sexuality in a Medieval Arabic Source

Holding of an 18th century manuscript
at the Royal Library in Copenhagen

The following is an excerpt from a chapter on same-sex sexual behavior and desire among women. The book the chapter comes from, Nuzhat al-Albab Fima La Yujad Fi Kitab, was written by a Tunisian scholar named Ahmad Ibn Yusuf al-Tifashi who died in 1253 A.D. A translation of this chapter, along with  translations from other sources, appears in Arabo-Islamic Texts on Female Homosexuality, 850-1780 (New York: Teneo Press, 2009). 93-96.

Tifashi was from the Tunisian town of Tifash (hence his name) and he seemed to be someone who appreciated a good laugh. The book contains some truly brazen anecdotes that are sexually explicit even by today’s standards – they may make you blush, they may titillate you, or they may be deemed grossly offensive. Tifashi, however, should be appreciated for the seasoned scholar that he was. He travelled widely across the Arabic-speaking world, including Morocco, Egypt and Syria. His first book was about classifying gem stones, and there is another manuscript that is sometimes attributed to him that contains recipes and prescriptions for treating sexual ailments, but some scholars dispute that he is the author of Rujoo3 al-Shaykh ila Sibah. It is said that he studied the works of the famous philosopher, al-Kindi, but all biographical information on him is rather sketchy. He does tell us in the introduction to this book that it contains a collection of stories and tales that he had heard from fellow travellers. Some stories were told to him by those to whom it happened, while some stories were told to him second-hand (as is the case in the excerpt below). In 1992 a Beirut-based publisher, that was operating out of London during the Lebanese civil war, Riad El-Rayyess, published a modern edition of this book (edited by Jamal Juma). There was a French translation by René Khawam of the chapters involving male same-sex relations and eroticism, titled Les Délices Des Coeurs in 1971. The English translation of the French translation (yes, a translation of a translation) was published by Gay Sunshine Press under the title A Promenade of Hearts in 1988. I hope you enjoy this story for the cultural treasures it reveals, but most importantly for the triumph of its female protagonists in spite of the uninvited spectatorship of the narrators and ours! For further analysis of this text, see chapters 3 and 4 of Female Homosexuality in the Middle East.

One of the scholars in Damascus engaged me in conversation and
said that one of the highest-ranking Egyptian judges told him:
‘I went out one night to the cemetery, and this cemetery was for
the use of the Egyptian householders where they met their female
friends. It is a place where women gather every week, so they
are not forbidden to meet there and spend the night or use it as
a dwelling. Within the cemetery they have built residences, on
which a considerable sum of money has been spent,’” he said. “So
I decided that I would leave my home with the intention of staying
there with my family, supplying myself with whatever I needed
for sleep as well as food and hay for the mule and so on. I closed
the door to my house and darkness progressed with its lamp and
I traversed on my own, riding the mule, until the hour became
late and I arrived at the cemetery after sunset and at the onset of
darkness. And as I was walking amongst the graves, in a remote
place in one of the corners of the cemetery, I heard, in one of the
graves, a moaning and groaning and a kind of panting that strips
the mind and steals the heart. I had never heard anything like it and
I didn’t think anyone did it as such: with measured movements
and natural rhythms and sayings of internal rhyme that cause one
to forget the melody of strings and render the mistresses of the
flute invisible.

‘And so I steered my mule to the wall of the tomb and then I
climbed up and looked in, to find two women. The one on the
bottom was a Turkish concubine who was more beautiful than the
full moon and more balanced than the branch. She was white, soft
and busty, and on top of her there was a short woman, robust, nice
looking, clean clothes, except she didn’t look like the one below
her, as she grinded her and treated her to this talk. Meanwhile,
the woman below replied a little inadequately as though she was
learning from her.

‘And so when I saw this I could not hold myself together and I
yelled out at them and said: “Rise, God damn you!” And I rode
towards the tomb with the intention of locking them in, and then
calling on passers-by to discipline them. By the time I was at the
door, the one who was on top had got up, and the bottom one had
begun to get up, and so she said to her: “Stay where you are.” And
so she remained lying on her back and then uncovered her belly and
navel and her chest, by removing a blue robe that was on her, and
there appeared a chest like marble, and breasts like pomegranates,
and a belly like a mound of snow, in which the naval appeared as
a fat vial that has crystallized into a hot white curd, tinged with
redness. I had never seen anything with its greatness or pureness.
‘And then she said to me:

‘“Damn you, you beast, you oppressor, have you ever seen
anything like this?”

‘So I said to her: “By God no.” She said to me:

‘“Here is before you a rare feast that God has prepared for you, so
go on your way.”

‘When I saw and heard this I was stripped of reason and
morality and I could not control myself, so I said to her: “Damn
you, I have this mule.”

‘She said: “So I’ll hold it for you.”’

‘I alighted, and as God as my witness, I was going against
my nature in doing this, and then I gave her the reins and the whip
and I entered the tomb. I undid the flag’s knot and placed it on
my leg and then I loosened my pants and threw the end of my
pallium over my shoulder, and I inserted my hand and removed
my tail. I drew near the concubine and I bent over her and when
I brought the head of my penis to the lips and found their softness
and warmth, I did not feel anything other than the hooves of my
mule departing and the woman yelling: “I’ve let go of the mule.”
‘So I got up, devoid of reason and sensibility, and I went outside,
and there was the mule departing among the graves in the gathering
darkness. Since I lost sight of him, I did not know where he went,
but I ran after him in that condition: member erect, pants undone,
the flags on the top of my feet, my pallium tangled up—getting up
one minute and falling again at another.

‘And the mule continued in his early departure and I continued to
run after him, and moreover the damned woman, when she had let
him go, struck him on his waist with the whip, so the mule began
to move towards anyone who approached him and to kick at them
with his heels. I ran after him in a condition which if it had only
been a sketch on paper would have caused the melancholic much
laughter and stopped those in a hurry, so how much funnier would
it have been to see in reality!

‘And it so happened that the mule had passed his feeding time,
and he was better at finding his way to the city than the sand
grouse, and he continued to run and I to run after him, unable to
catch him, and so he would disappear in the darkness or someone
would find him and ride him and then I could see nothing more.’

* Originally published on September 4, 2015 at http://samarhabib.com/same-sex-power-and-sexuality-in-a-medieval-arabic-source/ now discontinued.

A Micro History of Human Warfare

The terrible but not unexpected news came. "Your majesty, there has been another massacre by chemical weapon at the Rafah mine. It's the third one in as many days. We should hold off our mining operations until we know..."

"Nonsense!" The queen interrupted him, pushing off three smaller servants  who were in the act of attending to her. "Regather your troops, the work must go on. A few fallen soldiers is a small price to pay for what we have to gain in return. How many more days do you need to mine the great white mountain?" He fumbled hesitantly. A general was supposed to be cold and calculating but he could only think of his finest, lying twisted by the roadside. He was sending them to certain death and contrary to what the murderers believed, he had room for conscience and consciousness. He often wondered who they were and where they came from. He knew they were not forces of nature like water falling from the sky. These were technologies of warfare that they sported. Efficient killing things applied deliberately. They did not have the appearance or randomness of the natural disaster. He felt powerless against an enemy so mighty; how he wished he were back in the thick of battle of limb to limb combat. He had seen many of these and led the kingdom to great victories. 

                                                                          *** 

When news of the third massacre at the mine came, Arletta was at her station as usual, packing away the produce in the cellular granary of the hive. Distressed, she asked if anyone had seen her love but those who were returning from the site could not help her. Their heads were bowed and a certain look of defeat crossed their worn faces. It always comes without warning, it's faster than the speed of light, how quickly that cloud mass bursts over our heads. Without giving thought to what would happen if she left the production line, Arletta started running toward the mine. 

She ran and ran and ran and finally made it to the high road above ground. The linear battlefield was strewn with bodies of the dead, some were still writhing in agony. She looked into their faces and felt each of their pain and for a moment she was struck by her own selfishness. How could she be only

really interested in the survival of one in particular above the others? Ever since she was a little one, obedience of the queen and service of the collective had been impressed upon her. Individual ties and personal romances were heavily discouraged and now she could see why, because there were no guarantees, the one could be taken away at any moment, never to be seen again.

                                                                         *** 

Angelo sat at the kitchen table in quiet disgust and self-loathing. "Ants are people too," he said peering over his typewriter and looking the teenager and her mother in the eye.

"No they're not," protested the child with alacrity. "Their brains are so small, they don't even know they're dying."

"You have no way of substantiating that claim, but how comforting it must be for you to think that," he said quietly.

"You know," he continued after a long silence during which the landlady was thumbing through a photographic history of the Guatemalan civil war, "if you give them enough time they complete the work they are doing and then go back to the colony. They're breaking down the big chunks of food you left out last night into small enough pieces that they can then transport. When the 

mission is complete or in the absence of a food source, they have no interest in your table top or your kitchen. All they needed was a bit more time." He looked back at the typewriter and stared for hours at an otherwise blank page with the title: A Macro History of Human Warfare.