Love and Sexuality Flashcards
(38 cards)
Qabbani
was a Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher. His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, feminism, religion, and Arab nationalism. Qabbani is one of the most revered contemporary poets in the Arab world.[1][2]
qabbani influence
When Qabbani was 15, his sister, who was 25 at the time, committed suicide because she refused to marry a man she did not love.[5] During her funeral he decided to fight the social conditions he saw as causing her death. When asked whether he was a revolutionary, the poet answered: “Love in the Arab world is like a prisoner, and I want to set (it) free. I want to free the Arab soul, sense and body with my poetry. The relationships between men and women in our society are not healthy.” He is known as one of the most feminist and progressive intellectuals of his time
Qabbani influence arab world
The 1967 Arab defeat also influenced his poetry and his lament for the Arab cause.[5][6] The defeat marked a qualitative shift in Qabbani’s work – from erotic love poems to poems with overt political themes of rejectionism and resistance.[5]
Quote Qabbani on forced marriage
· He fought the social conditions that caused this loss of life.
‘Love in the Arab world is like a prisoner, and I want to set (it) free. I want to free the Arab soul, sense and body with my poetry. The relationships between men and women in our society are not healthy.
CHANGE OVER SPACE
never view any society as fixed in time
Regional difference
Urban v rural
change over time
Gender divisions
Islamic turn
Creation of homosexuality
Patriarchal society
not unique to the middle east.
Idea of patriarchy is women being separated in society
Is this religion or culture?
SEGREGATION OF WOMEN
Look at idea of hijab
First addressed in verse 33 of qur’an. Muhammad married zainab.
Sense of privacy arose as people in and out of houses?
Muhammed erecting a curtain between public areas meeting for political gatherings and the family.
Itijihad re-interpretation. A lot of disagreement.
HOMOSEXUALITY
Qur’an
Strongly condemned in the Qur’an.
Qur’an condemned the immorality of lut for homosexual acts
This is drawing from Judaism Christian scripture.
Christian has much more explicitly anti homosexual. Does that mean all are?
Lut
He was bestowed as a prophet to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.[4] His story is used to demonstrate Islam’s disapproval of rape and homosexuality.[5] He was commanded by God to go to the land of Sodom and Gomorrah to preach to his people on monotheism and to stop them from their lustful and violent acts.[3] According to both the Quran and the Hebrew Bible, Lot’s messages were ignored by the inhabitants and Sodom and Gomorrah were subsequently destroyed. They cannot be exactly located, but it may be supposed that they were somewhere in the plain east of the Dead Sea.
Lot’s people are the people to whom he is sent on a mission. He was not one of their own brethren, as was Salih or Shu’aib. But he looked upon his people as his “brethren”.[6] The Quran says that Lot is a prophet, and holds that all prophets were examples of moral and spiritual rectitude, so the report of Lot’s drunkenness and incest is considered to be false.[3] It was his nation indulged in homosexuality and was destroyed later after several severe warnings by Lot.
Cairo in 1920 - veil
women being veiled is a sign of your urban sophistication and your modernity. Contrast with rural areas muslim communities women wouldn’t be generally veiled – practicality, working outside etc. So by 1920’s sign of wealth and modernity if as a man you are keeping wife indoors and if you let her out it is covered up.
Regional difference - veil and homsexuality
Lebanon more free of veil – seems to be liberal when thinking of Lebanon – homesexuality illegal etc.. think of caramel with the difference in liberalism (thriving semi underground gay scene beirut) around half of all Lebanese population is Christian.
Saudi Arabia forced – (Saudi arabia it is easy for gay men to hang out together in public but because sexes are segregated so much – nothing unusual about men hanging out together. Men are able to hold hands as a cultural thing across middle east)
When do you see the change of gender relations beginning to take place?
Marriage no longer perceived as a purely pragmatic transactions but also about being in love.
Saudi Arabia
I think it is possible to argue as never colonised and little social influence from the west, the gender relations have remained far more strict and segregated. Saudi is base d on Wahhabism (Wahhabism is named after an eighteenth-century preacher and scholar, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792).[16] He started a revivalist movement in the remote, sparsely populated region of Najd,[17] advocating a purging of practices such as the popular “cult of saints”, and shrine and tomb visitation, widespread among Muslims, but which he considered idolatry (shirk), impurities and innovations in Islam (Bid’ah).
Womens movements
Emergence of womens movement in the 1920s
Name of main women
Huda Sha’arawi - At the age of thirteen, she was married to her cousin Ali Pasha Shaarawi.[2] According to Margaret Badran, a "subsequent separation from her husband gave her time for an extended formal education, as well as an unexpected taste of independence."[3] She was taught to read the Qur'an and received tutoring in Arabic, and Turkish, and Islamic subjects by female Muslim teachers in Cairo. Shaarawi wrote poetry in both Arabic and French. Shaarawi later recounted her early life in her memoir Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist, 1879-1924
Feminism and Sha’arawi
After World War I, many women took part in political actions against the British rule. In 1919, Sha`arawi helped organize the largest women’s anti-British demonstration. In defiance of British orders to disperse, the women remained still for three hours in the hot sun.
Sha`arawi made a decision to stop wearing her veil in public after her husband’s death in 1922. Her decision to unveil was part of a greater movement of women.
In 1923, Sha`arawi founded and became the first president of the Egyptian Feminist Union, after returning from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance Congress in Rome she removed her face veil in public for the first time, a signal event in the history of Egyptian feminism.
he helped lead the first women’s street demonstration during the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, and was elected president of the Wafdist Women’s Central Committee.
public unveilings
Public unveilings huda sharawi at train station and copycat incidences taking place - Beirut 1926
women and the colonial movement
Women coming in the sphere as a context of anti-colonial movement
Desire for women to take part in the national struggle.
Women coming into the sphere of public life doing it in terms of nationalism rather than intrinsic value of womens lives
Leila Khaled
is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and an airline hijacker who was later released in a prisoner exchange for civilian hostages kidnapped by her fellow PFLP members.[1][2] The PFLP is described as a terrorist organization by the United States,[3] Canada,[4] and the European Union.[5]
Khaled came to public attention for her role in a 1969 hijacking and one of four simultaneous hijackings the following year as part of Black September
Tarab Abdul Hadi
Tarab Abdul Hadi (also transliterated Tarab ‘Abd al-Hadi) (1910 Jenin[1] –1976 Cairo) was a Palestinian Muslim activist and feminist.[2][3] In the late 1920s, she co-founded the Palestine Arab Women’s Congress (PAWC), the first women’s organization in British Mandate Palestine, and was an active organizer in its sister group, the Arab Women’s Association (AWA)
Qabbani and sexuality
When he started as a poet in the 1950’s arab world on brink of new era of gender equality, Women in general playing more of a role in public sphere
Raised themes of sexuality and eroticism
Advocated social freedoms for women but above all a releasing of peoples natural healthy ways expressing themselves naturally
Education and saddam
education. Iraq regime was very secular. Hussein baddie of western media but did further womens rights. Raised numbers of girls in education.
Women and job opportunities
However when women come out, it is very restricted as career prospects very low right across arab world. Palestine 60 per cent of graduates are female but the vast proportion become housewives
Women becoming increasingly educated but unable to step into arab society on an equal footing.
