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On a theoretical level, the article investigates sexually orientated discourses as a means to censure and demonise other religious communities than one’s own whilst staging one’s own religious community as the most “natural” and “liberal” example. With reference to the works of Michel Foucault and Edward Said it is thus argued that seemingly liberal and lenient attitudes towards sexuality can be exploited in an intolerant and hegemonic fashion. On an empirical level, this paradoxical dynamic is investigated in relation to Islam, Judaism and the so-called Western world. In terms of historical periods, late antiquity and (late) modernity are adduced. It is demonstrated that early and classical Islam styled itself as sexually liberal and easy-going over and against an alleged puritanical and rigid Judaism. In late modernity, in a Muslim European diaspora setting, it is demonstrated that Islam has fallen prey to the very same sexual “liberal” tactics as was perpetrated in late antiquity; that is, being castigated for being puritanical and rigid. However, contemporary Muslims are caught in a double bind since the charges against their alleged puritanism and bigotry runs parallel with charges against an alleged excessive and transgressive patriarchal sexuality.
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1
Humphrey Prideux, The True Nature of Imposture Fully Displayed in the Life of Mahomet. (London: William Rogers, 1697), 137.
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3
See e.g. Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005); Bernard Lewis, Cultures in Conflict: Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Age of Discovery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
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4
G.-H. Bousquet, L’éthique sexuelle de l’Islam. (Paris: G.-P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1966).
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8
See, e.g., Thomas Bauer, Die Kultur der Ambiguität: Eine andere Geschichte des Islams (Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen/Insel Verlag, 2011), 268–311.
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10
See, e.g., Kate Zebiri, “Polemic and Polemical Language,” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan. Volume 4 (ed. Jane D. McAuliffe; Leiden: Brill, 2004),114–124.
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12
For an overview see Devin J. Stewart, “Sex and Sexuality,” in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan. Volume 4 (ed. Jane D. McAuliffe; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 580–585.
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15
Quoted from Zeʾev Maghen, After Hardship Cometh Ease: The Jews as Backdrop for Muslim Moderation (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006), 161–162. Maghen’s Qurʾan-quotation is taken from Arthur J. Arberry’s The Koran Interpreted (London: Oxford University Press, 1964). This also applies to my own Qurʾan-quotations.
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19
Joseph Massad, “Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World,” Public Culture 14 (2002): 375.
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22
Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University, 1992), 152.
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23
Irshad Manji, The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in her Faith (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003).
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25
Wafa Sultan, A God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks out against the Evils of Islam (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2009).
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28
For an overview see Jytte Klausen, The Cartoons that Shook the World (Yale: Yale University Press, 2009).
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Search for other papers by Thomas Hoffmann in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
On a theoretical level, the article investigates sexually orientated discourses as a means to censure and demonise other religious communities than one’s own whilst staging one’s own religious community as the most “natural” and “liberal” example. With reference to the works of Michel Foucault and Edward Said it is thus argued that seemingly liberal and lenient attitudes towards sexuality can be exploited in an intolerant and hegemonic fashion. On an empirical level, this paradoxical dynamic is investigated in relation to Islam, Judaism and the so-called Western world. In terms of historical periods, late antiquity and (late) modernity are adduced. It is demonstrated that early and classical Islam styled itself as sexually liberal and easy-going over and against an alleged puritanical and rigid Judaism. In late modernity, in a Muslim European diaspora setting, it is demonstrated that Islam has fallen prey to the very same sexual “liberal” tactics as was perpetrated in late antiquity; that is, being castigated for being puritanical and rigid. However, contemporary Muslims are caught in a double bind since the charges against their alleged puritanism and bigotry runs parallel with charges against an alleged excessive and transgressive patriarchal sexuality.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 317 | 46 | 7 |
| Full Text Views | 217 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 38 | 2 | 0 |
