Book contents
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures in Volume III
- Tables in Volume III
- Contributors to Volume III
- Editors’ Preface to the Series
- 1 Sex in Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries bce
- 2 Sex in Rome in the First Century bce and the First Century ce
- 3 Sex in Constantinople in the Sixth Century ce
- 4 Sex in Chang’an in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries ce
- 5 Sexuality in Baghdad in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries ce
- 6 Sex in Heian-kyō (Kyoto) in the Tenth through Twelfth Centuries ce
- 7 Sex in Iceland in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries ce
- 8 Sex in Florence in the Fifteenth Century
- 9 Sexuality in Tenochtitlan in the Early Sixteenth Century
- 10 Sex in Sixteenth-Century Istanbul
- 11 Sex in Geneva in the Sixteenth Century
- 12 Sex in Eighteenth-Century Edo (Tokyo)
- 13 Sex in Eighteenth-Century Paris
- 14 Sex and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia
- 15 Sex in Nineteenth-Century Cairo
- 16 Sexual Pleasures and Perils in Nineteenth-Century London
- 17 Sex in Manila in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
- 18 Sex in Lagos from the Mid-Nineteenth to the Mid-Twentieth Century
- 19 Sex in Bombay in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
- 20 Sexuality in a Distant Metropolis: Buenos Aires from the Late Nineteenth to the Mid-Twentieth Century
- 21 Sex in Early Twentieth-Century Berlin
- 22 Sex in Sydney in the Twentieth Century
- 23 Toronto the Good, Toronto the Gay: Sex and Morality in the Twentieth Century
- 24 Sex in Shanghai in the Twentieth Century: Intimate Negotiations
- 25 Sex in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro
- Index
- CONTENTS TO VOLUMES I, II, AND IV
- References
5 - Sexuality in Baghdad in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries ce
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2024
Book contents
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures in Volume III
- Tables in Volume III
- Contributors to Volume III
- Editors’ Preface to the Series
- 1 Sex in Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries bce
- 2 Sex in Rome in the First Century bce and the First Century ce
- 3 Sex in Constantinople in the Sixth Century ce
- 4 Sex in Chang’an in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries ce
- 5 Sexuality in Baghdad in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries ce
- 6 Sex in Heian-kyō (Kyoto) in the Tenth through Twelfth Centuries ce
- 7 Sex in Iceland in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries ce
- 8 Sex in Florence in the Fifteenth Century
- 9 Sexuality in Tenochtitlan in the Early Sixteenth Century
- 10 Sex in Sixteenth-Century Istanbul
- 11 Sex in Geneva in the Sixteenth Century
- 12 Sex in Eighteenth-Century Edo (Tokyo)
- 13 Sex in Eighteenth-Century Paris
- 14 Sex and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia
- 15 Sex in Nineteenth-Century Cairo
- 16 Sexual Pleasures and Perils in Nineteenth-Century London
- 17 Sex in Manila in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
- 18 Sex in Lagos from the Mid-Nineteenth to the Mid-Twentieth Century
- 19 Sex in Bombay in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
- 20 Sexuality in a Distant Metropolis: Buenos Aires from the Late Nineteenth to the Mid-Twentieth Century
- 21 Sex in Early Twentieth-Century Berlin
- 22 Sex in Sydney in the Twentieth Century
- 23 Toronto the Good, Toronto the Gay: Sex and Morality in the Twentieth Century
- 24 Sex in Shanghai in the Twentieth Century: Intimate Negotiations
- 25 Sex in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro
- Index
- CONTENTS TO VOLUMES I, II, AND IV
- References
Summary
Relying on a spectrum of sources tackling sexual practices ranging from the normative and historical to the didactic and entertaining, this chapter approaches sexuality in ninth- and tenth-century Baghdad as an organizing principle in Abbasid society. It focuses on prescriptive sexuality and sexual ethics as they were regulated and delineated in early Islamic religious texts. Sexual practices, depicted mainly in literary texts, are discussed within the context of the institution of the harem. Finally, nonconformist sexuality is addressed through the lens of an eclectic collection of genres ranging from literature and poetry to medical manuals. A comparative appraisal of the sources shows that while in the caliphal harem concubinage eventually replaced marriage, in elite and common urban households marriage appears to remain the dominant institution. Nonconformist heterosexual and homosexual behaviour was generally depicted as part and parcel of the lifestyles of the urban and ruling elite. A main conclusion is that the influx of enslaved women granted the institution of female slavery a prominent historical and discursive role in shaping the contours of normative and nonconformist sexual relations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities , pp. 87 - 107Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024
References
Further Reading
Adang, Camilla. ‘Ibn Ḥazm on Homosexuality: A Case-Study of Ẓāhirī Legal Methodology’. Al-Qantara 24, no. 1 (2003): 5–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ali, Kecia. ‘Concubinage and Consent’. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 4, no. 1 (2017): 148–52.Google Scholar
Ali, Kecia Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Al-Munajjid, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn. Al Ḥayāt al-jinsiyya ʻind al-ʻarab min al-jāhiliyya ila awākhir al-qarn al-rābiʻ al-hijrī (The Sexual Life of the Arabs). Beirut: Dār al-kitāb al-jadīd, 1975.Google Scholar
Amer, Sahar. Crossing Borders: Love between Women in Medieval French and Arabic Literatures. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Azam, Hina. Sexual Violation in Islamic Law: Substance, Evidence and Procedure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Babayan, Kathryn, and Najmabadi, Afsaneh, eds. Islamicate Sexualities Studies: Translations across Temporal and Geographical Zones of Desire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Bellamy, James A. ‘Sex and Society in Islamic Popular Literature’. In Society and the Sexes in Medieval Islam, ed. al-Sayyid-Marsot, Afaf Lutfi, 24–42. Malibu, CA: Undena, 1979.Google Scholar
Benkheira, Mohammed Hocin. ‘Un libre peut-il épouser une esclave? Esquisse d’histoire d’un débat, des origines à al-Shafi‘i (m. 204/820)’. Der Islam 84 (2007): 246–355.Google Scholar
Blanc, François-Paul, and Albert, Lourde. ‘Les conditions juridiques de l’accès au statut de concubine-mère en droit musulman malékite’. Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée 36 (1983): 163–75.Google Scholar
Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. La sexualité en Islam. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986.Google Scholar
Cheikh-Moussa, Abdallah. ‘La négation d’Éros ou le ishq d’après deux epîtres d’al-Jahiz’. Studia Islamica 72 (1990): 71–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El-Cheikh, Nadia Maria. ‘Revisiting the Abbasid Harems’. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 1 (2005): 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El-Rouayheb, Khaled. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500–1800. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Julia, and Straub, Kristina, eds. Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity. New York: Routledge, 1991.Google Scholar
Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, Afaf, ed. Society and the Sexes in Medieval Islam. Malibu, CA: Undena, 1979.Google Scholar
Malti-Douglass, Fedwa. Woman’s Body, Woman’s Word: Gender and Discourse in Arabo-Islamic Writing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Marion, Katz. ‘Concubinage, in Islamic Law’. In Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd ed., ed. Kate Fleet et al., online 2014, https://doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_25564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moukheiber, Karen. ‘Slavery and Sexual Ethics: Divergence and Change in Hanafi Legal Discourse’. In Geneses: A Comparative Study of the Historiographies of the Rise of Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism, and Islam, ed. Tolan, John, 189–97. New York: Routledge, 2019.Google Scholar
Musallam, Basim. Sex and Society in Islam: Birth Control before the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Myrne, Pernilla. Female Sexuality in the Early Medieval Islamic World: Gender and Sex in Arabic Literature. London: I. B. Tauris, 2020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Omar, Sara. ‘From Semantics to Normative Law: Perceptions of Liwāṭ (Sodomy) and Sihāq (Tribadism) in Islamic Jurisprudence (8th–15th Century CE)’. Islamic Law and Society 19 (2012): 222–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenthal, Franz. ‘Ar-Rāzī on the Hidden Illness’. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 52, no. 1 (1978): 45–60.Google ScholarPubMed
Schacht, Joseph, et al. ‘Nikāḥ’. In Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., ed. P. Bearman et al., online 2022, https://doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0863.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott Meisami, Julie. ‘Arabic Mujun Poetry: The Literary Dimension’. In Verse and the Fair Sex: Studies in Poetry and in the Representation of Women in Arabic Literature: A Collection of Papers Presented at the 15th Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, ed. de Jong, Frederick, 8–30. Utrecht: M. Th. Houtsma Stichting, 1993.Google Scholar
Selove, Emily, and Rosalind Batten, . ‘Making Men and Women: Arabic Commentaries on the Gynaecological Hippocratic Aphorisms in Context’. Annales Islamologiques 48, no. 1 (2014): 239–62.Google Scholar
Wright, J. Jr, and Rowson, Everett, eds. Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.Google Scholar