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Muslim-Jewish Sexual Liaisons Remembered and Imagined in 20th-Century Yemen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2021

Mark S. Wagner Open the ORCID record for Mark S. Wagner [Opens in a new window]
Mark S. Wagner*
Affiliation:
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA
*
Corresponding author. mwagner@lsu.edu
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Abstract

Despite mutual taboos against exogamy, memoirs and similar materials written by Jews from Yemen contain a number of anecdotes describing love affairs and sexual encounters between Muslims and Jews prior to the mass migration of the vast majority of Yemen's Jews to Israel in 1949–50. These stories associate these liaisons with vulnerability, poverty, and marginalization. In them, sex and conversion to Islam are intrinsically connected, yet this interreligious intimacy leads not to resolution but to ongoing identity crises that persist beyond the community's realignment with a majority-Jewish society. The staging of the anecdotes in rural areas where shariʿa norms held only nominal sway, in watering places and hostels where strangers might interact, and at dusk, when identity is difficult to discern, heightened their ambiguity.

Keywords

YemencourtshipfolkloreMuslim-Jew relationsreligious conversion
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 39 - 55
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Malinowski, Bronislaw, The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (New York: Readers’ League of America/Eugenics Publishing Company, 1929), 76Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., 78.

3 Ibid., 77.

4 Lipset, David, “Modernity without Romance? Masculinity and Desire in Courtship Stories Told by Young Papua New Guinian Men,” American Ethnologist 31, no. 2 (2004): 206CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Lawrence Stone, “Passionate Attachments in the West in Historical Perspective,” in Passionate Attachments: Thinking about Love, ed. Willard Gaylin and Ethel Person (New York: Free Press, 1988), 16.

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7 In France, see Michel LeClerc's 2010 film Le Nom de gens, the love story of a French Ashkenazi Jew and a French-Algerian Muslim; and the index (“romantic relationships”) of Ethan B. Katz, Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015). In Morocco: Laila Marrakchi's 2005 film, Marock, about an affair between a Jewish man and a Muslim woman in Casablanca; and André Levy, Return to Casablanca: Jews, Muslims, and an Israeli Anthropologist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 107–8. In Iraq: Mordechai Zaken, Jewish Subjects and Their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan: A Study in Survival (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2007), 252–57, 261. In Israel and Palestine: Sami Mikhail's 1988 novel Hasut (Refuge); Saddik Gohar, “Mapping the Image of the Jew in Postmodern Arabic Fiction,” The Postcolonialist 2, no. 1 (2014): 2–14; Aravim Rokdim (Dancing Arabs, also released as A Borrowed Identity), a 2014 film directed by Eran Riklis based on the Hebrew novel by Sayed Kashua of the same name; the 2017 controversy over the inclusion of Dorit Rabinyan's Gader Haya (All the Rivers) in the national secondary school curriculum; Zmira Ron David, “Sippurei Ahava be-Ezorei Sikhsukh: Sippurim Ishiyim Beʿal Peh u-Miktavim” (PhD diss., Ben Gurion University, 2017); “A Rising Tide? Mixed Families in Israel,” Journal of Israeli History 36, no. 2 (2017). It is also the central theme of Dror Zahavi's 2008 film, Bishvil Aba Sheli (For My Father), Keren Yedaya's 2009 Kalat ha-yam (Jaffa), and Muayad Alayan's 2019 al-Taqarir hawl sarah wa-salim (The Reports on Sarah and Saleem). Sameh Zoabi and Dan Kleinman's 2018 film Tel Aviv ʿal ha-esh (Tel Aviv on Fire) brilliantly satirizes the entire genre of Arab-Jewish love stories in fiction and film.

8 See the references in Christian Sahner, Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), 60n132.

9 Ibid., 61.

10 Ahmad ibn Qasim al-ʿAnsi, al-Taj al-Mudhhab li-Ahkam al-Madhhab (Sanaa: Dar al-Hikma al-Yamaniyya, 1993), 2:210; ʿAbd Allah ibn Miftah, Sharh al-Azhar (Beirut: Maktabat al-Turath al-Islami, 2014), 4:482–484.

11 See, for example, Alex B. Leeman, “Reexamining Interfaith Marriage in Islam: An Examination of the Legal Theory behind the Traditional and Reformist Positions,” Indiana Law Journal 84 (2009): 755; and Frederick Denny, An Introduction to Islam, 4th ed. (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016), 348.

12 Jamal J. Nasir, “The Doctrine of Kafaa According to the Early Islamic Authorities and Modern Practice, with a Critical Edition of the Zaidi MS ‘al-Mirʾat al-Mubayyina li-l-Nazir ma Huwa al-Haqq fi Masʾalat al-Kafaʾa’ by al-Sayyid al-Hasan b. Ishaq b. al-Mahdi” (PhD diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, 1955), 172.

13 Ettore Rossi, L'Arabo Parlato a ṣanʿâʾ (Grammatica-Testi-Lessico) (Rome: Istituto Per L'Oriente, 1939), 97–102.

14 Bernard Haykel, Revival and Reform in Islam: The Legacy of Muhammad al-Shawkani (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 204, 214.

15 Nasir, “Doctrine,” 64n18.

16 Ibid., 11–12.

17 Ibn Miftah, Sharh al-Azhar, 4:484.

18 Sahner, Christian Martyrs, 61.

19 Murat Iyigun, “Lessons From the Ottoman Harem on Ethnicity, Religion, and War,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 61, no. 4 (2013): 712.

20 Yehudah Ratzhaby, “Yehudim u-Muslimim bi-Sifrut ha-Meshalim,” in Be-Meʿaglot Teman: Mivhar Mehqarim be-Tarbut Yehude Teman (Tel Aviv: Author, 1987), 231; Isaac Hollander, “Ibra in Highland Yemen: Two Jewish Divorce Settlements,” Islamic Law and Society 2, no. 1 (1995): 1; Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman, “Muslim Society as an Alternative: Jews Converting to Islam,” Jewish Social Studies 14 (2007): 108.

21 Eraqi Klorman, “Muslim Society,” 101–2, 108; index (“kashrut”) of Mark S. Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law in Early 20th-Century Yemen (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015).

22 In 1679 the reigning Imam ordered Yemen's Jews to be assembled at Mawzaʿ, a port on the Red Sea coast, until their removal to India could be arranged. Reuben Ahroni, Yemenite Jewry: Origins, Culture, and Literature (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986), 121; Dan Ben-Amos, ed., Folktales of the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2011), 3:224. On this historical episode see Yosef Tobi, “Mawzaʿ, Expulsion of,” in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, ed. Norman A. Stillman (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2010).

23 Ben-Amos, Folktales, 3:222–225.

24 Menashe Anzi, “Yehudei Tsanʿa be-ʿIdan Shel Temurot, Diyun Histori ba-Merhav ha-Tsibori: Mi-ha-Kibush ha-ʿOthmani veʿad ʿAliyatam le-Yisraʾel, 1872-1950” PhD Diss, The Hebrew University, 2011; Bat Zion Eraqi Klorman, Traditional Society in Transition: The Yemeni Jewish Experience (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2015); Bat Zion Eraqi Klorman, “The Forced Conversion of Jewish Orphans in Yemen,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 13, no. 1 (2001): 23–47; Eraqi Klorman, “Muslim Society”; Mark S. Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law; Wagner, “Jewish Mysticism on Trial in a Muslim Court: A Fatwa on the Zohar; Yemen 1914,” Die Welt des Islams 47, no. 2 (2007): 207–31; Wagner, “Halakhah through the Lens of Shariʿah: The Case of the Kuhlani Synagogue in Sanʿaʾ, 1933–1944,” in The Convergence of Judaism and Islam: The Religious, Scientific and Cultural Dimensions, ed. Michael Laskier and Yaacov Lev (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2011), 126–46; Wagner, “When Jews Attack: Towards a Social Psychology of Inter-Communal Violence in Yemen,” in Arabic Humanities, Islamic Thought: A Festschrift in Honor of Everett K. Rowson, ed. Joseph E. Lowry and Shawkat M. Toorawa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2017), 416–24; Wagner, “Rekhush Yehudi be-Teman ve-ha-Beʿayah Shel Hoqe Matsranut be-Mishpat ha-Islamit,” in The Jews of Yemen: Identity and Heritage, ed. Yosef Tobi and Aharon Gaimani (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute and Bar Ilan University Press, 2019), 101–18.

25 Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 12–15.

26 Taqiya bint al-Imam Yahya Hamid al-Din, Yatimat al-Ahzan fi Hawadith al-Zaman: Dhikrayat Taqiya bint al-Imam Yahya Hamid al-Din Rahamahu Allah (Beirut: n. p., 2008); Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 16, 72.

27 Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 8.

28 Shalom (Salim) Mansura, ʿAliyat Mirbad ha-Qsamim: Tiyʾur ha-ʿAliyah ha-Gedola Shel Yehude Teman, ed. Moshe Gavra (Bene Beraq, Israel: Ha-Makhon le-Heqer Hakhme Teman, 2003), 293.

29 Ratzhaby, “Yehudim u-Muslimim,” 234; Nasir Yahya, “Suwar al-Yahudi ‘al-Murabi wa al-Mutadayyin' bi Amthal al-Yaman,” al-Jazeera, Nov. 5, 2016, https://www.aljazeera.net/news/cultureandart/2016/5/11/%D8%B5%D9%88%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%87%D9%88%D8%AF%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%AA%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A8%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%AB%D8%A7%D9%84.

30 See Matthew P. Van Zile, “The Sons of Noah and the Sons of Abraham: The Origins of Noahide Law,” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period 48, no. 3 (2017): 386–417.

31 Ratson Halevi, Derakhim me-ʿOlam le-ʿOlam (Tel Aviv: Afiqim, 2006), 42–43.

32 On a conspiracy theory concerning the Jewish origins of the Qurʾan, see Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 66.

33 Danny Bar Maʿoz, “The Jewish Remnant in Yemen (1962–2017)” in Ascending the Palm Tree: An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage, ed. Rachel Yedid and Danny Bar Maʿoz (Rehovot, Israel: Eʿele Be-Tamar, 2018), 359.

34 Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 24.

35 Shalom Lahav, Qehilat Yehude Bayhan (Netanya, Israel: Ha-Aguda la-Tipuah Hevra ve-Tarbut, 1996), 132–37.

36 Yonah Levi-Wahb, Kadya (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1989), 10; Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 66–67.

37 Levi-Wahb, Kadya, 10–11.

38 Ibid., 52; Taqiya bint al-Imam Yahya, Yatimat al-Ahzan, 13–15.

39 Levi-Wahb, Kadya, 23.

40 The Orphan's Decree arose out of a dispute within Zaydi Islam in the 18th century in which a group of Muslim scholars argued that Jewish minors whose fathers had died should be seized by the state and raised as Muslims. Although it seems to have fallen into desuetude, Imam Yahya renewed it when he took power from the Ottoman Empire following the 1911 Treaty of Daʿʿan. See Eraqi Klorman, “Forced Conversion”; Aharon Gaimani, “The ‘Orphans’ Decree’ in Yemen: Two New Episodes,” Middle Eastern Studies 40, no. 4 (2004): 171–84; Ari Ariel, “Orphans’ Decree” (Gezerat ha-Yetomim) in Encyclopedia, ed. Stillman; Ari Ariel, Jewish-Muslim Relations and Migration From Yemen to Palestine in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2014); and Kerstin Hünefeld, “Dhimma-Raum: Imam Yahya Hamid al-Din, die Juden Sanaas, und die (Aus-)Handlung islamischen Rechts im zaiditischen Jemen” (PhD diss., Freie Universität Berlin, 2019), 278–363.

41 Levi-Wahb, Kadya, 51, 53.

42 Ibid., 75, 122

43 Ibid., 82.

44 Ibid., 45, 77, 87.

45 Ibid., 132.

46 Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 90.

47 Levi-Wahb, Kadya, 159.

48 Ibid., 166.

49 See Silvia Montiglio, “The Call of Blood: Greek Origins of a Motif, from Euripides to Heliodorus,” Syllecta Classica 22 (2011): 113–29.

50 Levi-Wahb, Kadya, 125.

51 Ibid., 191.

52 Ibid., 198.

53 Ibid., 143.

54 Nissim Gamlieli, Teman u-Mahanat Geʾula (Tel Aviv: Author, 1966), 106. Eraqi-Klorman discusses this case in “Muslim Society,” 99, 104.

55 Shalom Bene Moshe, Sefer Bamsila Naʿale (Rehovot, Israel: Author, 1988), 100–1.

56 Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 97.

57 S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Depicted in the Documents of the Cairo Genizah (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967), vol. 1,350.

58 Mark S. Wagner, “A Murder Ballad between Yemen, Israel, and the Internet: The Mystery of the Dawdahi Girl,” in Jews and Muslims in the Modern Age: Place, Language, and Memory, ed. Nancy Berg and Dina Danon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming).

59 Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 4–5.

60 Yehiel Hibshush, Mishpahat Hibshush (Shlomo Davidovitch, 1985), 2:489–90.

61 Avraham ʿOvadia, Netivot Teman ve-Tsiyon: Zikhronot, ed. Yosef Tobi. (Tel Aviv: Afiqim, 1985), 38–39.

62 Taqiya bint al-Imam Yahya, Yatimat al-Ahzan, 11, 16.

63 This also was the case with Jewish peddlers in Libya. Harvey E. Goldberg, Jewish Life in Muslim Libya: Rivals and Relatives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 75; Eraqi Klorman, Traditional Society, 9–10.

64 Nissim Tayri, Bi-Tela'ot ha-Galut ve-ha-Geʾula: Harpatqaʾot ve-Nisim Bein Radaʿ le-ʿAden (Ramat Gan, Israel: Author, 1998), 36.

65 Nissim Gamlieli, Hevyon Teman: Zikhronot, Sippurim, Aggadot Hayyim mi-ʿOlam Aher (Ramlah, Israel: Author, 1983), 74.

66 ʿAbd Allah b. ʿAbd al-Wahhab al-Shamahi, al-Yaman: al-Insan wa-l-Hadara (Beirut: Manshurat al-Madīna, 1985), 245.

67 Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 103–4.

68 I am currently translating this and other stories from Ratson Halevi's three volumes of memoirs into English.

69 Ratson Halevi, ʿAlilot me-ʿOlam le-ʿOlam (Tel Aviv: Afiqim, 2005), 190.

70 Ibid., 198.

71 Ibid., 204.

72 Ibid., 210.

73 Nissim Gamlieli, Teman be-Teʿudot: Yehude Damt ve-ha-Mahoz (Jerusalem: Makhon Shalom le-Shivte Yeshurun, 1997), 87–90.

74 Nissim Gamlieli, Tahat Kanfeha Shel Ima: Roman Otobiyografi mi-Hayyav Shel Yeled Yehudi be-Teman (Tel Aviv: Afiqim, 2002), 233.

75 Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 23.

76 Nissim Gamlieli, Ahavat Teman: Ha-Shira ha-ʿAmamit ha-Temanit, Shirat Nashim (Tel Aviv: Afiqim, 1996), 207.

77 Moshe Piamenta, Dictionary of Post-Classical Yemeni Arabic (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), 143.

78 Gamlieli, Ahavat Teman, 218–19.

79 Wagner, “Murder Ballad.”

80 Gamlieli, Ahavat Teman, 228. Gamlieli says that the man was named Ibn Zayid because he had a sixth toe on each foot. The figure of ʿAli b. Zayid is a standard mouthpiece for Yemeni folk wisdom. See Jean Lambert, “La geste d'Ibn Zâʾid ou la sagesse de l'honneur,” Cahiers de littérature orale 17 (1985): 163–94.

81 On clothing and jewelry see Carmela Abdar, ed., Maʿase Roqem: Ha-Levush ve-ha-Takhshit bi-Masoret Yehudei Teman (Tel Aviv: Eʿele Be-Tamar, 2008).

82 Gamlieli, Ahavat Teman, 228–29.

83 Eraqi Klorman, “Muslim Society,” 96–97.

84 Gamlieli, Ahavat Teman, 226.

85 On this practice see Serjeant, R. B. and Lewcock, Ronald, Sanʿaʾ: An Arabian Islamic City (London: World of Islam Festival Trust, 1983), 150Google Scholar.

86 Gamlieli, Ahavat Teman, 226.

87 Ibid., 226–27.

88 Wagner, Mark, Like Joseph in Beauty: Yemeni Vernacular Poetry and Arab-Jewish Symbiosis (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2008), 96–101Google Scholar.

89 Wagner, Jews and Islamic Law, 77.

90 Serjeant and Lewcock, Sanʿaʾ, 425; al-Akwaʿ, Ismaʿil, al-Amthal al-Yamaniyya, 2nd ed. (Sanaa: Maktabat al-Jil al-Jadid, Muʾassasat al-Risala, 1984)Google Scholar, 1:411.

91 Yagur, “Religiously Mixed Families,” 36–38.