6 - Male-Male Love in Classical Arabic Poetry

Summary

This chapter deals with the early history of male-male love poetry in Arabic, followed by a section on the social norms underpinning it. It describes the stunning career of erotic epigrams from the Ayyubid period onward. After a "mystical intermezzo", the chapter questions why 'Abdallat-if's epigram was one of the last of its kind. The poet who enabled the breakthrough of homoerotic love poetry was Abu Nuwas. Abu Nuwas soon became one of the most famous Arabic poets of all time. Arabic poetry began as a purely profane literature in pre-Islamic times and remained one of the most important secular discourses in the Islamic era until the present day. Contemporary Western experience shows that despite public campaigns and tremendous progress in gay rights, homophobia is by no means about to vanish. Around the middle of the nineteenth century, homoerotic poetry vanished almost completely and people started to look at their own literary heritage with mixed feelings.