According to Youssef, the patriarchal nature of Islamic society over the ages has encouraged readings of the Qur’an that condemn sodomy, which, by putting men in a position of giving pleasure to other men, reduces passive partners to the status of women, “against the rules of nature and contradicting God’s wisdom,” as such interpreters would have it.31 This also explains the enduring popularity of hadiths in which the Prophet is said to condemn sodomy and its practitioners, hadiths that have been known for centuries to be of dubious authenticity.
Since the Qur’an does not specify a punishment for liwat, Sunni jurisprudence has relied on a variety of ways and means, among them analogy to zina (sex outside marriage) to derive a penalty for male sodomy. The upshot is death by stoning, or lashing, according to three of its four main schools. This hadd punishment, as it is known in Islam, translates into laws on the books in a handful of Arab countries—among them Sudan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia—that directly apply shari’a. However, there is a debate among legal experts as to whether such punishments are, indeed, based on reliable evidence and sound reasoning, doubts that Youssef also raises.
Homosexuality isn’t the only hot topic she tackles—child marriage, masturbation, polygamy (for men and women), heterosexual anal intercourse, mut’a unions, and less sexy subjects like mahr and inheritance are also on Youssef’s list. But it’s her arguments on homosexuality that have provoked the most vitriolic response. “The papers said that I said homosexuality is licit, that homosexual marriage is not forbidden.… I didn’t say that, though I do think it,” Youssef explained. For her, homosexuality and sexuality in general are entry points to a deeper understanding of Islam’s holy book and a fertile ground for ijtihad, which she aptly describes as “a perpetual adventure in search of the real meaning of the Qur’an, which is known only to God.”32 Unfortunately, much of the public response to her book, particularly on Islamist websites, has focused more on the sex and less on that deeper purpose. “I understand [why], because sex is sacred and religion is sacred.” Youssef laughed. “Together it’s a Molotov cocktail, and especially when it’s a woman [involved] as well.”
She was quick to point out that her arguments draw on more than a millennium of Qur’anic interpretation—although the earlier thinkers she cites were unlikely to have been branded sluts for their intellectual pains, as Youssef has been. “Why is the new ‘ulama’ [community of Islamic scholars] so much more closed and rigid toward sexuality than the ancient ones?” she asked rhetorically. “It is extraordinary. The old ones talked in detail about homosexuality, no problem.” Then, ever the teacher, she offered an answer. “There are [several] reasons why we went from an open to closed interpretation. The first is that Muslims were colonized by a Christian point of view. In Christianity, sex is not just taboo, it is locked up,” she opined. “Another reason is the Wahhabism. [The Wahhabis] are people who show Islam in a completely different way to its real essence. To have power, you need to subjugate people. What is the thing that is freest and most shared by human beings? It’s sexuality. So it’s the best way to block all desire to be individual, to be different. We are all the same; therefore there is control.” The final straw, in Youssef’s opinion, is the general decline in religious education. “The other reason is ignorance,” she said, her eyes alight with frustration. “People don’t read anymore—they watch television; they listen to al-Qaradawi, Amr Khaled [television preachers]; they don’t read what al-Tabari, al-Razi [two early Islamic scholars] said. They don’t even read the life of Muhammad.” Her indignation suddenly turned to a smile at the name of the Prophet. “I like that man. He never had a problem with the sexual.”
This winding down of individual religious thinking—a sort of spiritual and intellectual malaise—may seem at odds with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and religiosity over the past few decades. But, as Youssef and others argue, religious form has come to replace spiritual substance for many. “In Islamic countries, if you stop someone in the street and ask them, ‘What is haram?’ they will say fornication and alcohol, things on the surface. But everything else, we don’t talk about it: love your neighbor, honor—forget it. We throw rubbish in the road, no problem; we say bad things about our neighbor, no problem. Religion, it’s [now about] sex. But this is the institution of religion, not religion [itself].” Questioning Islamic interpretations on homosexuality and other issues is Youssef’s way of trying to kick-start that thinking, even if the process begins with an angry riposte. “I would like to make people think there are other ways of reflecting. It’s too boastful to say a book will change things directly. But already, it has touched people, it has set off something. And that’s a good thing, because it’s time to speak. We cannot change on the sexual level without speaking. Talk doesn’t change things directly, but it’s with talk that things will change.”
But it’s going to take a lot of talk to get even the most open-minded religious leaders in the region on board. “No, no, no, [with] God Almighty [as my witness].” Shaykh Ahmad, imam of one of the largest mosques in Damascus, shook his head and laughed when I discussed these alternative interpretations with him. “The Lot people, why did they want to rape the angels? Because the angels came like boys, and they wanted to make sex with the boys. This is settled. To my mind, there is no debate.”
If anyone might consider taking a second look, it’s Shaykh Ahmad. He’s been a leading light in a network of religious leaders and faith-based organizations established by the United Nations Development Program. The initiative was started by Khadija Moalla, a human rights lawyer from Tunisia, who spent almost a decade trying to improve the status of people living with HIV in the Arab region—against terrific odds. Too often, religion was used as an excuse for inaction, especially by politicians, because the groups at highest risk of infection—men who have sex with men, female sex workers, injecting drug users—were also the ones roundly condemned by prevailing religious discourse. So in 2004, Moalla set out to engage Muslim and Christian religious leaders, male and female, to break through the fear, ignorance, and stigma that characterized their attitude toward HIV and those living with the infection.
Under these auspices, religious leaders have had a chance to sit down with men who have sex with men at workshops across the Arab region, including a series of annual meetings in Cairo. If it were not for HIV, Shaykh Ahmad and his peers could not have come to the table in the first place, but the focus on public health and protection gives them a socially respectable cover. For Shaykh Ahmed and some of his more open-minded peers it has been a real eye-opener. “The word ‘homosexual’ is connected in our minds with lots of dirty things. Like molesting children and raping girls. That they are dirty people, they are hypersexed, they are living a wrong life,” he freely admits. Years of working together, however, have changed his outlook. “They are like the religious leaders: some of them are nice and not nice. There is a singer with a good voice and a singer with a bad voice. In them, there are all sorts of people.”
Shaykh Ahmad is a deeply religious man, and his conviction compels him to do whatever he can to reach all corners of his community. “The function of the religious leader is not to say this guy is going to hell or going to heaven. No. That’s not my mission. My mission is to try and say to these people, ‘Come, come, my friends, let’s try to solve your problems.’ ” I asked him if that “solution” and those “problems” included trying to turn homosexual men straight, given the current fashion, among some religious leaders, of talking about treatment where they once spoke of punishment. Not at all, he said, with feeling. “If he wants to repent, God willing, I am going to help. If he does not want to repent, at least he shouldn’t harm other people.” By that, Shaykh Ahmad means unsafe sex and the spread of HIV; although he himself does not openly endorse condoms, he discreetly recommends those in need to seek medical advice, knowing full well that condoms will be part of the package.
In talking to Shaykh Ahmad over the years, I have the impression of a man who is walki
ng a thin line. On the one hand, he is genuinely interested in helping men whose sexuality crosses the heterosexual norm to find inner peace. This dialogue cuts both ways, as he is also acutely aware of the dangers of falling out of touch with his community. “We need new, innovative ways of thinking. Otherwise, we will be like the Christians: ‘Bye-bye,’ and they put religion to their back,” he remarked. “For Islam to stay alive, it has to live with the problems of society. It’s not essential that I agree with your way of life, but I have got to deal with you. There is a difference in dealing with you when I am frustrated and angry with you, since I should be dealing with you when I am happy. It’s possible that I find open doors between me and him, and [as a result] I’ll be more responsive to him.”
Yet, in light of his own religious beliefs, Shaykh Ahmad can go only so far in making those who come to him feel at ease. “I tell them, ‘I love you. You are my brother, and you are welcome at the mosque.’ But I cannot tell him it is not haram.” And so Shaykh Ahmad falls back on a long-standing distinction in Islam: acknowledging the inclination to love men while condemning the sexual act itself—a “hate the sin, love the sinner” approach. It’s the best he can do under the circumstances. And it’s compromise that he has tried to communicate to his students and the broader community. “We started telling the people that sexual orientation is one thing and doing [it] is something else. And that raping the children is not homosexuality. The person who rapes is not a homosexual, so we are now limiting the definition of the homosexual. Maybe he could be influenced by his environment, his surroundings. This might not be his own free will a hundred percent. And that the people who move in that world did not leave God’s path after all; they are still our brothers and we can still live and coexist with them.”
Many men and women I know across the region whose lives depart from the heterosexual norm are deeply suspicious of religious leaders. Duplicity is high on their list of indictments: imams and priests who are happy to talk tolerance and compassion when there’s an all-expenses-paid trip to a workshop or international funding in the offing but who quickly take a hard line at Friday or Sunday prayers or when talking to the media. And in some cases, the hypocrisy goes beyond words. Munir described one visit to an imam. “I wanted to have an answer if gay is bad or not; ultimately, I wanted to know am I going to hell or not,” he said. The result was a four-hour lecture on the evils of liwat and zina. “He talked to me, and then he tried to do it. He was telling me it was haram, and then he had sex with me.” Munir laughed.
By his own admission, Munir is “not a religious man,” but he does believe in God, and this belief has helped him find a peace that eludes many of his peers. “I have a brother. He is straight; he is married and has children. We are coming from the same womb. So why are the feelings inside me and everything different to him? What are the reasons?” he asked. “Maybe it’s something from God, it is the order of God: You gave me this, and You know my areas of weakness, and You know the places inside me, the dark areas I cannot enter. Maybe it is a test. He wants to see if I will tolerate this load, because I am helpless, I didn’t choose these feelings. So if they are wrong, and it’s made by You, God, how can You judge me?”
Such views are echoed by Nasim, who sees a central role for religious figures in the search for sexual tolerance in Egypt, and the wider Arab world, should they take such lessons to heart. “They have not well studied their religion. God is love, and all religions say that. From this base, since God is love, he loves us as we are. Like a father, who can pardon his son even when he makes mistakes, he will never take a knife and kill his son,” he observed. Nasim’s advice comes from his own struggle to reconcile his faith with his sexual life. “If they transmit the image of a God who makes laws and punishes on the basis of them, we are very far from the heart of religion. The heart of all religion is the love of God for man. I consider myself religious. I felt, at the beginning, guilt, but when I understood this, [that feeling was] finished.”
Like Nasim, Munir dismisses suggestions that religion, and religious leaders, must take a backseat in order for homosexual men and women to find acceptance in Egyptian society. “The shaykhs can change everything; they can do everything. Because what’s focusing the whole world, what’s affecting the whole world, are religious leaders, shaykhs and priests.” Munir wants a spirit of tolerance. He is not looking for approval, nor is he asking for more slack than he himself is willing to cut religious leaders. For all his close encounters with men of God, Munir appreciates that they are in a tight spot: “Shaykhs are afraid to say they are supporting the gays. He is afraid of the people; they will kill him or they will think that he himself is gay.”
The long-term solution, in Munir’s view, lies in the sorts of interactions that these workshops have fostered, opportunities for dialogue that have changed Munir’s view of religion and the possibility of accommodation. “When I spoke with [the imam of one of Cairo’s largest mosques], he didn’t know what I was suffering, what are my feelings. When I spoke to him and told him all the stories, he was about to weep. He said, ‘I can’t imagine that these groups of you are suffering this much. I thought you were just doing pleasure and sleeping together, but you are being tortured. Yes, I do have reservations about this, and I don’t approve of what you are doing, and it is haram. But I feel that you are subject to many injustices.’ ” Munir clearly sees a role for himself and his peers in shifting attitudes. “Even the scientists or the shaykhs need us to point out the picture for them because they see in the movies this ugly picture, so they take this idea. I feel the problem, so I am the one who can speak about it. So [when] I tell you what I feel, this will touch you inside.”
PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION
“This ugly picture,” as Munir puts it, is the stereotype of homosexual men and women in Egyptian cinema and television: camp, comic, conflicted, or corrupted—take your pick. One study of Egyptian movies made between 1979 and 2009 that touch, however briefly, on homosexuality found that less than a tenth presented homosexual characters in anything close to a sympathetic light.33 Few mainstream filmmakers are willing to risk alienating audiences, or financial backers, by cracking old chestnuts, like homosexual men and women driven to their appetites by childhood sexual abuse or homosexual men as indiscriminate sexual predators.34 Even such superficial and unflattering portrayals raise the ire of conservatives, who accuse filmmakers—under the influence of America or Israel—of tempting young people into perdition merely by depicting such behavior. And there’s rarely a happy ending for homosexual characters on-screen. The film adaptation of ‘Imarat Ya‘qubian (Yacoubian Building) by Alaa Al Aswany, Egypt’s best-known living novelist, is a good example. A central character in the movie is a homosexual newspaper editor who (warning: spoiler) is murdered by one of his lovers, much to the delight of audiences. “I went to see Yacoubian Building four times. Every time, people cheered [at the murder scene]; I felt like they were stabbing me,” Nasim recalled. “Once, I was watching it, when the gay character was being killed, someone said, ‘Ahsan, ahsan [Great, great].’ I turned around and saw it was a woman, a distant relative whose husband had once made advances to me and I fooled around with him.” He laughed.
Just the idea of presenting homosexuality in a less glaring light is enough to set off a firestorm. Tul Omri (All My Life), directed by Maher Sabry, an Egyptian filmmaker based in San Francisco, is a low-budget, DIY production and one of the few films in recent years to offer a more rounded portrayal of homosexual life in Egypt—with stories and characters echoing the experiences of Nasim and Munir. It is unlikely to show at a Cairo multiplex anytime soon, but that hasn’t stopped the fatwas from flying, sight unseen. “Burn it immediately,” was the verdict of one former Grand Mufti of Egypt. “These films are the gateway to debauchery, to committing that forbidden by Allah and propagate deviant social behaviors.”35 And it’s not just religious authorities in a twist; one high-ranking U.N. official in Egypt suggested that the movie might even e
ncourage the spread of HIV by promoting illicit behavior.
Egyptian cinema has yet to have its Brokeback Mountain breakthrough on homosexuality; what with the rise of Islamic conservatives, this looks to be some time in coming. That being said, the growth of independent filmmaking and the new possibilities of alternative distribution (including private screenings and Internet streaming), as well as the longer-term possibility of lighter censorship once Egypt has shaken off its post-Mubarak spasms, make this a less fantastic prospect than it was under the heavy hand of dictatorship. Already, there are a number of other art-house movies and documentaries on homosexual life in the Arab world that give a more nuanced view, though these have not had mainstream distribution in the region.36
It’s a similar situation with Arabic literature. Long gone are the days of al-Tifashi and his playful treatment of same-sex relations. The past half century has seen the publication of some truly bleak portrayals of homosexuality, which have come to symbolize a sense of emasculation of Arab society at the hands of colonial occupiers, Israel, their own governments, and a global consumer culture—the “fucked-over” school of writing, in which sodomy represents just one of the many ways people of the region have been oppressed in recent decades.37 There are, of course, exceptions—books, and in particular novels, that do justice to the complexity of homosexual life in the region without having it carry all the woes of the Arab world. One to emerge from Egypt in recent years is The World of Boys, written by Mostafa Fathi, an Egyptian journalist, and put out by a small indie publisher. It’s the tale of Essam, one of Fathi’s friends, a rare coming-of-age story in which the lives of middle-class homosexual men are fleshed out in some detail. It is also a plea for tolerance of diversity—sexual, ethnic, and religious. At the end of the book, Essam makes peace with himself by taking the plunge and baring his soul on the bridge over the Nile leading into Tahrir Square, wearing a sign reading I AM GAY. I AM A HUMAN BEING.38
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