Research Notes for the paper on Gay Bahais, Lost Identities, LGBTQI People and the Baha'i Religion
Research Notes:
Tanzimat Ottoman reforms ended the prohibition on homosexuality in the Ottoman territories in 1858, where Baha'u'llah lived and was a subject of such laws. The Caliph Abdul-Majid was a member of the Naqshbandi order that Baha'u'llah befriended in Kurdistan. Have no record of Baha'u'llah's opinion on the end of the prohibition against homosexuality by Abdul-Majid. Baha'is believe in following the state laws, would Baha'u'llah contradict this tolerant state law?
"Husayn `Ali's role as manager of the affairs of the Babi community is freely acknowledged by the authors of the Hasht Bihisht, who go on to say that he associated with all types and classes of people, including lutes [gays], dervishes, government officials, and poets. It was, indeed his custom to spend part of every day in the coffee-house of a certain Sayyid Habib in the old city, where he would meet other sect members as well as notables, `ulama', and others.
External evidence for Baha' Allah's role exists in a report from the British Consul in Baghdad, Capt. Arnold Burrowes Kemball, who in 1859 described him (under the name "Meerza Hassan Ali") as "the Chief of the Babees" and said that "though the ostensible agent [he] is not the real representative of Bab." Burrrowes goes on to say that the secret of Azals' whereabouts was "mysteriously preserved" but that Baha' Allah enjoyed "a consideration which partakes of absolute devotion and reverence on the part of his followers" and was recognized as "the Director and GUide" of the Babis of Iran."
pg. 117, MacEoin, Divisions and Authority Claims in Babism, in Studia Iranica, Vol 18, issue 1 (1989) Paris
Notes from Arno Schmitt and Jehoeda Sofer (eds.), Sexuality and Eroticism Among Males in Moslem Societies Harrington Park Press 1992
1. notes again the theme that in the Islamic world homosexuality was pederasty not the modern ideal of equitable partnership but was mostly an expression of dominance from an older man to a younger male.
2. notes that there is no word in Arabic that equates to western notions of equitable partnership between same gendered people, the term Liwat means again pederasty not western ideals of 'homosexuality', that is equitable volitional partnerships of people of the same gender.
"In spite of all this activity I say there are no "homosexuals" [in the Middle East] and there is no (indigenous) word for "homosexuality" [in the western sense of the word]." pg. 8
"In classical Arabic there was no word meaning homosexuality; the translations given in modern dictionaries are either recently coined literal translations of 'homosexuality' or simply wrong.
In the first category I want to mention al-ginsiya al-mitliya (same sexuality), al mail al-gins al-mumatil (inclination toward the same sex), and istiha al-mumatil (carnal passion for the same). All the terms are new and, although 'passively' understood by most educated Arabs, are hardly part of the 'active' vocabulary even of physicians or sociologists [in the Arab world].
The Most prominent word in the 'wrong category' is 'liwat'. Many dictionaries translate it as 'homosexuality.' Since many people--including Arabs--rely on the dictionaries, so that the word might indeed one day acquire the meaning of homosexuality, let me go back to the old Arabic-Arabic dictionaries. They explain the word lit as 'amal qaum lut, i.e., 'the doings of Loth's people,' which reveals at once that an activity is meant, not an inclination, nor a character trait or a genetic 'default.' To find out what lit precisely means we can consult the Qur'an to see what it tells about ' the doings of Loth's people…. " pg. 8
3. an example of the popular understanding in the Middle East of the connection of pederasty as the only previous understanding of homosexuality prior to western cultural infiltration of the Middle East.
"In Cairene slang bitul iyal 'someone having to do with children' is used for any luti/buggerer, irrespective whether he [has intercourse with] boys or men." pg. 11
4. The Meaning of Liwat:
"The root of liwat l w T (w being a week consonant can both 'disapper' and 'become' the vowel u). The verbs "doing liwat (on)" are lata (bi). Someone doing it, the fa'il, is called luti, la'it, ulawit or mutalauwit.
By the way: one should not speak of 'sodomy with' a boy. In Arabic it is lata bi, not lata ma'--ma' meaning 'together with, jointly' and bi meaning 'by means of, by, with the help of, through like in ba-bas 'by bus,' be-id 'with hands.' So the preposition shows that one does liwat not with a partner, but rather one uses him asn an insturment (for enjoyment), one does liwat on a boy [gulam], by means of a boy [gulam]."
5. notes different occurrences in Muslim Juridical (fiqh) texts the usage of the term liwat and its connection to anal penetration irregardless of gender, it should be noted that in Islamic culture the touching the anus is considered unclean, hence only using the right hand to eat, etc.:
"This 'one sided,' 'transitive' view explains an opinion held by the eminent jurist Abu Hanifa, in the words of his disciple al-Kasani (d. 587/1191): 'As to liwat initiative is on one side only, it is not necessary at all on the side of the object.' Another Hanafite jurist, the Tansoxanian al-Marginani (d. 592/1197), makes the same point in his Hidaya.
A phrase by the S[h]afi'ite an-Nawawi (d. 676/1277), wa dubr dakar wa unta, i.e., and the male and female anus,' shows that jurists consider sodomy upon a male person in the same context as sodomy upon a female person. The first sentence in the relevant chapter of al-Marginani's Hidaya reads: "If a man enters a woman from the odioius opening or commits 'amal qaum lut, it is no case of hadd [mandatory punishment]--according to Abu Hanifa.
In the same vein--even more clearly--al-Haskafi (d. 1088/1677) writes in his ad-Durr al-Muhtar: '...the [having sex with] in the anus: both (Abu Yusuf and Muhammad as-Shaibani) said: Doing it with aliens [i.e., men not one's slaves and women not one's slaves nor one's wifes] is a case of hadd. Doing it with one's own slave or one's own woman slave or one's wife is, according to the consensus, a case of hadd....
Another obvious quote is from the Hanbalites Ibn Qudama (d. 620/1227). Ibn Qudama: "Whoever commits the abomination in vaginam vel anum of a women not his property, or upon a boy (gulam)...." al-Maqdisi comments: "The forbidden [having intercourse] in anum is the abomination, wherefore GOd said to Lut's people: 'Do you commit the abomination?' i.e, buggering in the arse of a man'.
A hadit[h] transmitted by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Abu Da'ud at-Tayalisi shows that liwat cannot only by committed upon men:
al-lutiya as-sugra ya'ni ar-ragul ya'ti imra'tahu fi dubriha (the small sodomy that is a man [having sex with] his wife in her anus) " pg. 14-15
Schmitt then show similiar examples from Arabic poetry using the term liwat, pgs. 16-17. He concludes from these observations from intertextual methods that:
a. Only men engage in liwat, both men and women can be 'homosexuals'
b. liwat refers to a specific act, if homosexuality equated to the particular act we would have arabic terms indigenous to Arab peoples for homosexuals, we would understand what it means in Arabic to homosexualize someone.
c. liwat refers to an act irrespective of the sex of the object; homosexuality refers to the object of desire (partner) irrespective of the sexual role and the technique.
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Notes from Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800, Khaled El-Rouayheb (2005)
1. notes that according to Shi'a fiqh that liwat was understood as having sex with young male children:
"A tradition related by the Shi'i scholar Muhammad al-Hurr al-`Amili (d. 1693) also confirms that liwat was normally understood to be equivalent to sodomizing boys: a heretic (zindiq) asked `Ali ibn Abi Talib (the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law) for the reason behind the religious prohibition of liwat. `Ali supposedly answered: "If carnal penetration of a boy (ityan al-ghulam) were permitted, men would dispense with women, and this would lead to the disruption of procreation." pg. 16
2. notes that according to Islamic tradition the sin of the people of Lot was that of pederasts and rapers: "The image of 'the people of Lot' in the Islamic tradition was, to be sure, not entirely uniform. In commenting on the just-quoted verse of `Abd al-Baqi al-`Umari, the Iraqi scholar Muhammad Amin al-`Umari (d. 1788) reminded readers that the people of Lot not only sodomized boys but also adult male strangers. This was the standard dual image of the 'people of Lot' in teh Qur'anic commentaries of the time: on the one hand they were portrayed as pederasts and, on the other, as an aggressive people who anally raped trespassers." pg. 17
3. He concludes that liwat = homosexuality is very shaky: "....It should be clear now that the modern term "homosexual" hopelessly muddles certain native distinctions, and that insisting on using it in translation or paraphrase leads to serous misunderstanding." [emphasis added] pg. 18
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one example of this hermeneutic mistake of inherent homophobia can be seen here, http://bahai-library.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2016 (accessed 1/31/11), where common Baha'i exegetes from both the Baha'i Faith and Orthodox Baha'is tend to project homosexuality to contexts that do not actually include "homosexuality" as part of the literal text. Utilizing the Arabic term "sihaqa" for Lesbian, to connote the overall passage as being against ALL homosexuality even though the term "sihaqa" does not appear in the original text, the term for lechery used is "Khiaanat" (الخيانة, treachery, treason). This is further seen in the following anti-gay Baha'i World Faith site, http://www.bnasaa.org/sexuality.html#homosexuality]
the passage in question from Ishraq-Khavari Hudud wa Ahkam, pg. 338 (source: http://oceanlibrary.com/persian/library/ganjinih-hudud-va-ahkam):
mentioned in this letter from the Baha'i World Faith's Universal House of Justice: http://bahai-library.com/compilation_homosexuality_bwc.html#1
This has become a famous condemnation of all homosexuality by Baha'is, although liwat is mentioned along with zina (adultery) and along with khiyanat (back biting, treason), it is clearly understood in light of the socio-linguistic analysis of the term liwat that it refers equivocally with pederasty and anal intercourse by a man of either a man or a woman. Liwat cannot be equivocated with the modern term we know as 'homosexuality' (volitional same gender love). Taking a closer look at what Baha'u'llah says in the Kitab-i Aqdas we could argue that the sole prohibition is on "the treatment of boys", since we understand that liwat is culturally understood as 'pederasty'.
A further example of this hermeneutic mistake is in the oft cited Kamran Hakim letter "Homosexuality in the Kitab-i-Aqdas" (1996), http://bahai-library.com/hakim_notes_aqdas_homosexuality Wherein the author ignores the apparent cultural context to the meaning of liwat to project from his own reading an "archetype" of prohibitions, which is in keeping with the authors understanding of obedience to the Guardianship which is locked within the values on this subject of the 1950s scientific consensus that homosexuality was a mental disorder which contemporary research now debunks and dismisses as bad science. Trying to juxtapose two different things a good understanding of technical terminology but trying to reconcile technical terminology with a cultural belief en-culturated into the author by Baha'i authority figures which is fixed in place because the authority given the sole Guardian in the Baha'i World Faith sect has locked it's collective values in the 1950s when their Guardian Shoghi Effendi passed on. The necessary authority to update previous decisions, an integral part to progressive revelation, is missing there is no means to make improvements on past decisions since no new person with the Authority given the Baha'i World Faith's only Guardian can continue the process of renewed cultural imprinting with new knowledge, it is missing the necessary authority to guide it's legislative process, the Baha'i World Faith in a certain sense can only follow the Sunnah of Shoghi Effendi, eventhough following a tradition is not counseled by the Baha'i founding figures. This is where Dr. Jensens followers have provided an integral bridge to change and progress in a community through arguing that the successor to the authority of Shoghi Effendi as Guardian is a combination of an Aghsan Guardianship [one passed on non-lineally in the sense of genetic bloodline but through spiritual adoption] and the legislative branch, the Universal House of Justice, that through this successor to the authority of the Guardian changes could be made to reflect current social realities and needs, a primary argument for the creation of the Universal Houses of Justice in the first place by Baha'u'llah.
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