by Isabel Horne
Isabel Horne is a third year student at Emory University pursuing a double major in Religious Studies and English Creative Writing. She has several projects dedicated to the research of
religion, with a focus on the experiences, identities, and spirituality of religious minorities. When not working on research, Isabel is usually found working on her school’s fashion magazine, of which she is Editor-In-Chief, or reading mystery novels in a local park.
In 2012, the British film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was shown in Qatar at the Doha Film Institute Showcase. Originally in English, the film was screened with Arabic subtitles. While the film had a positive reception at the showcase, many worldwide viewers pointed out that the subtitles translated the word “gay” as the Arabic word shaadh, widely used to mean deviant of a sexual nature, similar to the English term pervert., 1 2 While upsetting to a queer or English-speaking audience, this translatory decision is not unique. Just a few years prior, in 2009, the book Gay Travels in the Muslim World was translated into Arabic by, Lebanon-based publishing house, Arab Diffusion with the same substitution of “gay” for shaadh, titling the book Pervert Travels in the Muslim World. 3
These translatory choices should not be interpreted to reflect intentional distortions of the intended meanings by the translators. Instead it reflects a contemporary linguistic dilemma for Arabic speakers–a lack of effective terminology to describe what the West regards as queerness.,, 4 5 6 This lack of terminology is so profound that in the same year Gay Travels in the Muslim World was released, the advocacy organization Meem published Bareed Mista3Jil: True Stories, a collection of lesbian Arab and Lebanese stories, entirely in English. 7 This was not because their writers or intended audience were primarily English speakers, but rather because they did not know how to express their lesbianism in Arabic; “the words did not exist to express exactly” what they “wanted them to,” and when writing in Arabic, the authors “struggled with euphemisms and scientific words to describe sexuality terms versus crude slang that differs in different regions of Lebanon.” 8
The issues with terminology related to lesbianism and homosexuality in Bareed Mista3Jil, Pervert Travels in the Muslim World, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel give us insight into the struggles of self-expression that Arabic-speaking sexual minorities face when articulating their identity in their native tongue. While language does exist to label their experience, it is not necessarily accurate and is frequently crude or pejorative. 9 The lack of language within Arabic to authentically name sexual minority identity and experience is not merely a rhetorical or translatory inconvenience, but reflects the heterosexist linguistic landscape of the Arabic-speaking world and the popular attitude that “the naming of desires” is a greater cause of social unease than non-normative desire itself. 10
Moreover, this lack of accurate Arabic language names for sexual non-normativity shapes the way Arabic-speaking sexual minorities are perceived. Naming is “singular to identity formation” and without accurate Arabic language to describe sexual minorities, marginalized sexual identity is easily perceived as distinctly non-Arab. 11
When sexual identity and experience can only accurately be named in a foreign language, it runs the risk of being viewed as an essentially foreign thing itself. This discrepancy between the desired language and the language that exists naturally generates word formation, as speakers “coin new words to refer to new concepts and practices.” 12 For Arabic speakers, the creation of these words is not simply about creating Arabic versions of English vocabulary. It is “not simply a matter of translation; it’s about developing a ‘mother tongue’ with positive, un-derogatory and affirmative expressions.” Efforts to develop lexicons which accurately describe their identities and experiences as sexual minorities are, in essence, “creating a language that no one spoke before.” 13
The purpose of this paper is to explore the creation of this new language and investigate the evolution of understanding of what it means to be a sexual minority in Arabic. Through an exploration of historical, modern standard, and colloquial Arabic language to describe non-normative sexual behavior and identity, I argue that the development of Arabic terminology for same-sex desire has been shaped since the colonial period by tensions between Islamic and a Western sexual epistemologies.
Pre-Colonial Language to Describe Sexual Minorities:
To examine contemporary language for non-normative sexuality in the Arab world, it must be noted first that while same-sex desire in the Arab world has a long and prolific history, homosexuality is a modern concept.
In Arab-Islamic history, “there are no ‘homosexuals,’ as the concept of homosexuality was “completely unfamiliar.” 14 While same-gendered desire and love were prominent themes in Arabic literature in the precolonial era, expressions of this love and desire were considered distinct from the act of homosexual sex. Though the pre-colonial Islamic legal tradition stigmatized same-sex behavior, love and affection were not subjected to the same blanket condemnation. 15 As eighteenth century scholar and poet Abdallah al-Shabrawi of Azhar College in Cairo wrote in regards to his refrains for a young male beloved, “I have chastity by natural disposition not affection…my conscience desists from sin.” 16 Though entranced by a fellow male, his work reflects the “central distinction between, on the one hand, falling ardently in love with a boy and expressing this love in verse and, on the other hand, committing sodomy with a boy.” 17 It is this Islamic epistemological distinction between sexual desire and the practice or pursuit of sex, that not only allows for classical Arabic literature to be both highly religious and virtually unrivaled in its homoeroticism, but that defines the language used for non-normative sexuality.
Precolonial terminology for sexual minorities such as Mukhannath, Liwat, and Sihaq, stem from the Islamic legal tradition, and as such deal with sexual behavior rather than a conception of sexual identity defined by desire., 18 19 Though there have been contemporary attempts to label the following terms as analogous to those found in the contemporary English language, to do so would be anachronistic.
The term Mukhannath dates back to the hadith of the prophet Muhammad and was initially defined as a “male person who displays feminine traits, either ‘naturally’ or ‘voluntarily’ and typically has an “assumed lack of sexual interest in women.” 20 Despite the cultural belief that Mukhannath were not attracted to women, their presumed “indifference to women sexually is not matched by any explicit indication of sexual interest in men or boys.” 21 Despite the term’s origin dealing more with gender expression, and sexual non-normativity via a lack of heterosexuality rather than a presence of same sex attraction, the definition Mukhannath quickly expanded beyond its hadith context and took on same-sex nuances as part of the Arabic Medical Tradition.
After the Abbasid Revolution in 750, the term changed to reference an individual who desired a receptive role in homosexual intercourse. 22 Following this shift in definition and building upon tradition of the Greek, who “tended to regard the male who desires to be anally penetrated as being afflicted with a disease” the Mukhannath became viewed as a “pathological case.” 23 Notably however, the affliction of Mukhannath is not simply an attraction of affection for fellow males but rather the explicit desire to be anally penetrated by one.
Unlike Mukhannath, which has served both as an essential identifier of one’s desires, Liwat and Sihaq, describe exclusively sexual behavior. Liwat, stemming from the story of the prophet Lut in the Quran, refers specifically to anal sex and is equivalent to what individuals in the English-speaking world would call “sodomy,” while Sihaq, coming from the root S – H – Q, associated with “rubbing,” means tribadism or sex between two females., 24 25 Though associated terminology, these words are not afforded equal weight. Though the word Sihaq does exist in the Islamic legal canon, it is of minimal importance in the legal system; while it was “morally condemned by traditional jurists…it was barely discussed.” 26 Liwat, on the other hand, plays a much larger role in Islamic legal scholarship and is often defined as “an unnatural act of sex to satisfy one’s passion,” with the act of sex being anal penetration. 27 It is from these terms that some of the earliest identifying terms to describe sexual minorities arise– Luti and Sahiqa.
Luti is not uncommonly translated as homosexual in Arabic to English as the word refers to a man who engages in Liwat. It is worth noting however, that Luti is descriptive of the type of sex an individual engages in, rather than the desires and affections an individual holds. Simply having attraction to fellow males does not make one a Luti in Arabic, whereas it would make you a homosexual in English. Moreover, Luti normally refers specifically to “adult males who make sexual advances to beardless youths” and is much more accurately translated as pederast. 28 Given this, interpreting it to mean homosexual generally robs Arabic discourses of the nuances of Islamic sexual epistemologies which distinguish between action and attraction and age related dynamics of sexual power. It also applies a modern framework to a premodern concept. Further, even if Luti did mean homosexual, the affiliation with pederasty and the crime of Liwat would likely make the term pejorative and unusable as a descriptive label in contemporary discourse.
Sihaqa, like Luti, continues to reflect the Islamic epistemological distinction between desire and action, and identifies one who participates in specific sexual behavior. Stemming from Sihaq, Sihaqa (and its related terms sahhaqa and musahiqa) were used in the medieval era to describe one who participates in tribadism. 29 Interestingly however, the Sihaqa’s desire to participate in tribadism was understood as an “innate and lifelong” medical condition which required relief through the sex act. 30 Though the Sihaqa denotes a participant in a behavior, “both etymologically and medically, culturally speaking and in the context of medieval Arabic literary writings, sahiqat (lesbians) were associated rather with love and devotion.” 31 In the tenth century’s Jawami’ Al-Ladhdha (Encyclopedia of Pleasure) the story of two Sihaqat is told as one of “enduring love” in which when one woman died, the other “cropped her hair, wore black clothes, rejected worldly pleasures, vowed to God that she would lead an ascetic life” and named a monastery after her “beloved.” 32 This notion of the desire to participate in tribadism as being inherent as well as associated with loving devotion makes the Sihaq and Sihaqat similar in some respects to how we understand lesbianism or sapphism in the Western world.
This ability to blend love and romance into a term that at its core is about sexual behavior, can be interpreted as a reflection of the differing ways Sihaq and Liwat function within Islamic legal jurisprudence. Being “barely discussed” in scholarship and not central to discussions of sinfulness, crime and punishment, for illicit sexual activity (zina), same-sex female behavior does not require the same level of cultural differentiation between the person who engages in love versus the person who engages in an act of sex. Being of lesser concern within Islamic legal thought, same-sex lesbian activity is not entirely bound by Islamic modes of thinking.
Ideological and Identity Conflicts in Modern Standard Arabic Words for Homosexual:
Though Islamic sexual epistemologies and distinctions between desires and behaviors shape pre-colonial language to describe non-normative sexuality, the Arab rediscovery of Europe in the 19th century and imperial dominance of Europe over the Arabic-speaking world in the following century proposed new ways of thinking about sexuality, and therefore new language. As the essentialist model of gay and lesbian sexual identity developed in the West it was then applied to Arab contexts. While the Arab world historically termed non-normative sexuality in reference to sexual behavior, Western cultural influence has shifted perspectives on “the practitioners of same-sex contact” in the Arab world and morphed them “into subjects who identify as ‘homosexual’ and ‘gay.’” 33 The impact of this shift was and continues to be rhetorically significant both in advocacy for sexual minorities and their condemnation.
Western Epistemologies and A Heterosexist Revival:
In the pre-colonial era, same-sex desire was a well-documented part of life in the Arabic-speaking world. Arabic poetry is arguably the largest known corpus of homoerotic work. The discussions of same-sex love and desire were so ordinary (though actual sexual intercourse would be viewed as an anomaly) that in 1845, when Moroccan scholar Muhammad Al-Affar visited Paris, he specifically noted that “flirtation, romance, and courtship for them [Europeans] take place only with women.” 34 As European cultural and literal imperialism blossomed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the understanding of homoeroticism in the Arabic-speaking world shifted towards that of Europe. Liwat was criminalized in places it had not previously been, and even the mere desire for the same sex became a form of “deviant sexuality.” 35 The literary and historical canon underwent scholarly reinterpretation in order to “cleanse it” of sexual expression now “incompatible” with the “civilizational project” of the Nahda period, which sought to intellectually revitalize the Arabic-speaking world in response to European dominance. 36 As Europe colonized the Arabic world, Islamic sexual epistemologies fell out of favor while Western modes of thinking, which painted same-sex desire and same-sex intercourse with a brush of synonymity and condemnation, became prominent. Reflecting this new epistemology, which blurred the lines between affection and action, historic Arabic language, with its near exclusive focus on sexual behavior, became inadequate, forcing new language creation.
One of such contemporary terms is Shaadh, as reflected in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Pervert Travels in the Muslim World. Reflecting a culture of embarrassment around the Arab world’s history of pederast and homophilic literature following European colonialism, the term shudhudh jinsi, or sexual deviance, arose to relabel the attractions described in these works in alignment with “the contemporary European concept of ‘sexual inversion’ or ‘perversion.’” 37 Though the Western world shifted from referring to homosexuals as perverts in polite society, shudhudh jinsi persists in academic Arabic, eventually lending itself to the widespread development of the word Shaadh. 38 The widespread use of Shaadh as a common term for homosexuals in the MENA region cemented the “view that all forms of passionate attraction” to the same sex were “equally signs of ‘sickness’ and ‘depravity,’” embodying the adoption of western sexual epistemologies and synonymizing desire and behavior as a singular entity identifying an individual. The attitude Shaadh reflects is simple: loving or pursuing the same sex does not mean one has “perverted” desires, or engages in “perverted” actions, but rather is a “pervert–” a Shaadh.
The Influence of European Language in the Case for Acceptance:
Interestingly, though the Arabic-speaking world adopted the Westen epistemological ideas that sexuality is an identity encompassing both action and affection, to expand heterosexism and diminish the cultural presence of homoeroticism, Western epistemologies also shaped the arguments for the normalization of sexual minorities. In the twentieth century, European frameworks of sexuality turned the idea of sexual non-normativity from a notion of perversion to an essential facet of who one is. The argument that same-sex desire is essential to a person and intrinsic to their identity dominates Islamic defenses of same sex behavior and is therefore central to discourses on what terms should be used for sexual minorities in Modern Standard Arabic. 39
Shaadh’s most popular competitor for dominance in Arabic labels for homosexuals is another English language translation. Al-mithliyya Al-Jinsiyya, literally translating to “sexual sameness,” is meant to serve as the Arabic equivalent to the English word “homosexuality” and reflects the label’s essentialist notions. 40 Despite the term’s relative neutrality, its popularity remains isolated to the academic field and is perceived by many sexual minorities as being too medicalized. This is a byproduct of the term’s origin as an Arabic translation of Sigmund Freud’s work in the 1950s arguing that homosexuality was a “mental illness and a pathology of deviance.” 41 As a result, many activists for sexual minorities in the MENA region have advocated for a “more neutral and apposite mithli,” which retains the essentialist implications while distancing itself from the medical field. 42
The “more neutral” term is still criticized, however, as “the literal translation of Western concepts related to homosexuality into Arabic ends up asserting a primarily monolithic, Western sexual identity.” 43 In turn, portraying one’s sexual identity through Western lenses and adopting Western sexual epistemologies in defense of said identity “ultimately undermines Arab identity” and leads to “further isolation of Arab gays and lesbians from their own sociohistorical and literary traditions.” 44
While it would be easy to claim this opposition to Western-influenced terms is simply a byproduct of the everlasting search for a mythologized authenticity in the post-colonial, Arab world, there are tangible consequences for sexual minorities in the Arab world because of association with the West. By “simplistically associating homosexuality with the West,” sexual minorities become viewed as threats to Arab society by the larger heterosexual culture, as “an integral part of the Western cultural onslaught against ‘authentic’ Middle Eastern cultures,” which in turn fuels hate and violence against them. 45
Thus, arguments are made for the development of terminology rooted in the Arab tradition, specifically regarding sexual minority women. Zarifat and baba’ib have both been proposed as alternatives to the European term “lesbian,” which stems from the name of the Island, where the Greek poet, Sappho, wrote several love poems about other women. Zarifat and baba’ib referred, in the medieval period, to “elegant courtly lady lovers” and “beloveds,” respectively. 46 Ironically, despite these terms being proposed as more “authentic” and less Western-influenced than mithliyya jinsiyya, the attempt to find a term to describe homosexual women within the Arabic literary tradition intentionally parallels the development of the English term lesbian as it also looks to same-gendered female depictions of love in the literature of the distant past. Even without this parallel, however, the task of creating official language to articulate sexual minority identity in Arabic is, like much of social dynamics in the post-colonial world, impossible to fully separate from colonial influence and modes of thinking.
Colloquial Terms to Describe Queerness and Associated Cultural Dynamics:
Given the lack of standardized language to refer to or describe non-normative sexual identity in Arabic, both mainstream Arab and Arabic-speaking sexual minorities developed new language. Unlike the official process of language creation in modern standard Arabic, which is shaped by rhetorical efforts to associate or dissociate with the West whilst still being beholden to the sexual epistemology they imported, colloquial language is created through cultural and community experience and therefore incorporates both Islamic and Western epistemologies. 47
Unsurprisingly, much of the common colloquial language to refer to sexual minorities in Arabic reflects the predominant cultural attitudes which finds the person who expresses same sex desire “reprehensible.” 48 Some come from historical terminology, such as Luti. In the modern day, Luti is a common word to describe homosexual men nearly universally across the MENA region.
Having shed its pederast roots, the term is largely considered now to be an extremely
derogatory term for men who are, or appear to be, homosexual, with no relation to whether the participants are both adults or not. Still others come from popular culture, such as the Lebanese phrase Masjdi wa Wajdi, which refers to gay men via a reference to two caricaturist “gay” characters from the Lebanese television show Ma fi Metlo. 49 Other pejoratives are loanwords from colonial languages such as fagga in Qatar, coming from the English word “faggot” and pede in Algeria stemming from the French term for “faggot.” 50 Reflecting Western epistemologies, these derogatory terms incorporate sexual desire or behavior into an identity which encompasses the practitioner, which due to cultural prejudices effectively damns them.
Colloquial terminology is not exclusively negative, however. Less widely known than negative slang terms to describe sexual minorities is the neutral and positive slang used within minority communities. This slang is notoriously difficult to study and has historically been “concealed, unexplored and unindexed,” as it is predominantly found in private spaces due to “the vital need to protect their [queer Arabic speakers’] anonymity.” 51 Within indexed colloquial Arabic, a large portion of terminology is either sexual in nature or references the dynamics of sex. For example, Rara in Darija refers to masculine man associated with heterosexuality and homophobia who pursues sexual relationships with conventionally non-sexually normative men; in Saudi Arabia the term Mazghub refers to down feathers on young birds and the one who is penetrated in anal sex, and in Libya, Timsah refers to older men who pursue much younger men. 52 A key feature of these terms is they are almost exclusively euphemisms. This reflects the “underground” nature of queer lexicons as literal language to describe sexuality would be too conspicuous. 53 By creating highly euphemistic vocabularies the conversations about queerness become “rather opaque” and “unintelligible to outsiders,” providing a layer of protection for community members. 54
Further, in addition to terms which describe sexual dynamics, indexed language largely centers subcultural experiences of queer community members such as gender expression, honor, and kinship. Mara Khalsa, or “pure woman,” mostly used among gay men in Lebanon refers to highly effeminate males, referencing their womanly gender expression. 55 Also within Lebanon, Shayka is used amongst lesbians as an honorific for older lesbians, while in Tunisia the word Nana, coming from French for grandmother, is used for older gay men. 56 Another factor of queer life which has developed its own internal language is HIV, with terms such as Darija’s sayyidati, literally “my mistress” being used to refer to HIV. 57
Notably, the terms found in queer Arabic lexicons focus heavily on the two categories described above– sexual dynamics and queer life. While derogatory terms engage with sexuality through Western epistemology, colloquial language reflects the Islamic modes of thinking of the pre-colonial past and developing language as a means of communicating behavior or social roles. The vocabulary differs from that of queer communities in the West, which often focus on developing language to describe sexual orientations. While incorporating identity loan words such as homo and lesbit in Palestine, queer Arabic speakers focus their language creation instead on describing experiences. This likely has to do with the essential “foreignness” of coming out to Muslims, which make up most of the Arab world. While the Western world creates language for sexual minorities to tell the world who they are, the high potential for social and state violence for sexual minorities in the Arabic-speaking world prevents the vast majority from ever “coming out.” This forces colloquial language creation to align more with Islamic epistemologies, describing sexual identity in terms of material reality.
Though sexual minorities in the MENA region may desire to identify themselves within broader society, religious, legal, and cultural barriers exist which prevent the Western phenomenon of “coming out,” which makes coming up with effective, communicative language to describe their sexual orientation to a member of the sexual majority largely unnecessary.
Across the landscape of language to describe sexual minorities in Arabic, is the differing ways Islamic and Western epistemologies shape what language demands creation. To mock an individual who appears to engage in same sex activity, one could utilize language which synthesizes their internal experience and external expression into an identity which subsumes and condemns them, such as fagga. However, if a sexual minority looking to express themselves to other sexual minorities can utilize language which articulates their behavior and how they may relate to others in their community.
Conclusion:
Arabic language representations of sexual minorities are distinct in how they situate sexual minorities and are embroiled in tensions between western and Islamic epistemologies. Historical language, while providing key context for how non-normative sexual behavior was understood in the Arab-Islamic world’s past, is incapable of describing sexual identities and experiences as they are understood in the modern day. Further, language to describe sexual minorities in Modern Standard Arabic is caught within conflict about whether homosexuality as an essential part of a person or a perverted disease and attempts to adapt the language to create non-pejorative terminology are complicated by discourses of Western versus authentic Arab identity. Finally, the colloquial language developed to identify and describe sexual minorities is heavily influenced by the unique postcolonial Arab context. While pejorative language often borrows from European slurs, more neutral and positive Arabic language focuses on dynamics of queer life, side stepping debates about the defensibility of authenticity and rather simply describing and responding to the lived experiences of queer Arabic speakers.
It is these nuances of the queer Arabic life that create new terminology terms that begs for future research. Full scale quantitative analysis of the queer Arabic corpuses created by Goroun, Amer, and Kaabour, could perhaps shed light on the ways colonial languages influence terminology. Further, analysis of the Lubwa lexicon in Morocco and other colloquial terminology between Morocco and Algeria for influences of Tamazight, in addition to French and Spanish, could shine light on which socio-economic classes are most engaged in queer Maghrebi subcultures. The landscape of language to describe queerness in Arabic is a research frontier and further development of scholarship is critical to understanding how queer individuals in Arabic-speaking communities develop, understand, and express their experiences within their unique cultural, political, and religious landscape.
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