Contents:
HOW THE MIDDLE EAST MOVED FROM TOLERANT OF HOMOSEXUALY TO A BATTLEFIELD OF ANTI-GAY VLENCE
At the height of the Islamic Goln Age – a perd om the mid-8th century to the mid-13th century when Islamic civilisatn is believed to have reached s tellectual and cultural zenh – homosexualy was openly spoken and wrten about. Abu Nuwas (756-814), one of the great Arab classil poets durg the time of the Abbasid Caliphate, wrote publicly about his homosexual sir and relatns.
His homoerotic poetry was openly circulated right up until the 20th century. It was only as late as 2001 that Arabs started to blh at Nuwas’ homoerotism. And a gay urt poet.
If Nuwas and his homoerotic poetry uld reprent the height of Baghdadi culture, is natural that other Mlim societi would also be que open to homosexualy. Is historian Saleem Kidwai puts the fabulo book Same-Sex Love India, “Homoerotilly cled men are ntuoly visible Mlim medieval histori and are generally scribed whout pejorative ment. In the 18th century, Dargah Quli Khan, a nobleman om the Decn travellg to Delhi, wrote a fascatg acunt of the cy lled the Muraqqa-e-Dehli (The Delhi Album), which scribed jt how mundane homosexualy was Indo-Islamic society.