Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (33 page)
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Authors: Khaled El-Rouayheb
BOOK: Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800
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, those who sang poetry were in this respect similar to those who composed it. There is hardly an entry in the work without the subject being described as having an amorous and aesthetic disposition.
The poets
(shuʿara
ʾ)
and belletrists
(udaba
ʾ)
were as a class distinct from the scholars
(ʿulama
ʾ).
In fact, “scholars’ poetry”
(shiʿr al-ʿulama
ʾ)
was notoriously of a poor and amateurish quality.
131
Yet the boundary between the two groups was not always clear. Most members of the class of scholars specialized in specific disciplines, and in this respect one may distinguish between jurists, scholars of
h
adi
th,
theologians, and even specialists in secular sciences such as mathematics, logic, or astronomy. Several scholars gained a reputation for themselves in the sciences of language: grammar, rhetoric, and prosody. They frequently taught would-be poets the theoretical rudiments necessary for their art, and some of them gained an independent reputation as accomplished belletrists. Describing the Rector of the Azhar college in Cairo at the time of his residency in the city, Edward Lane wrote: “In theology and jurisprudence, he is not so deeply versed as some of his contemporaries ... but he is eminently accomplished in polite literature.”
132
The scholar in question was Hasan al-ʿAt
t
a
r (d. 1834), a close friend of the historian Jabarti
and the poet Isma
ʿi
l al-Khashsha
b. Several other scholars belonging to this category have already been mentioned in the present study: Ahmad ibn al-Mulla
(shuʿara
ʾ)and belletrists
(udaba
ʾ)were as a class distinct from the scholars
(ʿulama
ʾ).In fact, “scholars’ poetry”
(shiʿr al-ʿulama
ʾ)was notoriously of a poor and amateurish quality.
131
Yet the boundary between the two groups was not always clear. Most members of the class of scholars specialized in specific disciplines, and in this respect one may distinguish between jurists, scholars of
h
adith,theologians, and even specialists in secular sciences such as mathematics, logic, or astronomy. Several scholars gained a reputation for themselves in the sciences of language: grammar, rhetoric, and prosody. They frequently taught would-be poets the theoretical rudiments necessary for their art, and some of them gained an independent reputation as accomplished belletrists. Describing the Rector of the Azhar college in Cairo at the time of his residency in the city, Edward Lane wrote: “In theology and jurisprudence, he is not so deeply versed as some of his contemporaries ... but he is eminently accomplished in polite literature.”
132
The scholar in question was Hasan al-ʿAt
tar (d. 1834), a close friend of the historian Jabartiand the poet Ismaʿil al-Khashshab. Several other scholars belonging to this category have already been mentioned in the present study: Ahmad ibn al-MullaOther books
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