71 I use the adjective “heterosexual” in such contexts merely to avoid more cumbersome locutions, and not because the couples involved can appropriately be described as “heterosexual.”
72 Ibn al-Wakīl al-Mallawī, Bughyat al-musāmir, fol. 140b.
73 On dark-skinned Ethiopians versus the fair-skinned, see Antākī, Tazyīnal-aswā, 2 : 137—38; Ghazzī, al-Kawākib al-sā irah, 3 : 106—7; Ibn Maʿṣūm, Sulāfat al-ʿasr , 80.
75 For similar remarks on “disputations” in classical antiquity, see Halperin, “Historicizing the Subject of Desires” (revised and reprinted as ch. 3 of How to Do the History of Sexuality), and Williams, Roman Honwsexuality, 171—72.
78 Usamah ibn Munqidh composed a much-cited couplet endorsing the creed of the Mosulites. See al-ʿUmarī, Muhammad Amīn, Manhal al-awliyā , 1 : 228; al-ʿUmarī, ʿUthman, al-Rawd al-naḍir , 1 : 456.
83 Murādī, Silk al-durar, 3 : 234—45. Anouti mentions this tract in passing, describing its subject matter as “strange”; see al-Harakah al-adabiyyah, 93.
89 T. Bauer has convincingly argued that already by the ninth and tenth centuries, love poetry of boys was at least as common as love poetry of women in Arabic literature ( Liebe und Liebesdichtung, 150—63).
90 This seems to be true of elite poetry produced in the major cities of the Arabic-speaking parts of the Ottoman Empire, as evinced by the literary anthologies and the poetic excerpts in the biographical dictionaries of the period. It may not be true of folk poetry or the poetry of, say, Oman.
91 This is close to the position ofT. Bauer in “Raffinement und Frömmigkeit.” Bauer, however, seems not to take seriously the dimension of chastity in such poetry, and thus makes the contrast between the secular-hedonist ideal expressed in amatory belles-lettres more at odds with the religious condemnation of fornication and sodomy than I think it was.
92 Bray, Homosexuality in Renaissance England, 60—61. For a critical discussion of similar claims about Judeo-Arabic poetry in medieval Spain, see Schirmann, “The Ephebe in Medieval Hebrew Poetry,” 67.
96 Ibn Hajar, Kaff al-ra ʿāʿ, 274. The same point is made by Ghazālī in his Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn; see Zabīdī, Itḥāf al-sādah al-muttaqīn, I : 249 (margin), 6:496 (margin).
98 Barbir, al-Sharḥ al-jalī, 219. It is generally agreed that pederastic themes first appear in Arabic literature in the second half of the eighth century.
108 Bürgel, “Love, Lust, and Longing,” 83, and Bürgel, “Literatur und Wirklichkeit,” 248.
109 This is clearly the underlying motivation behind Bürgel’s attempt to stress the possible fictionality of love poetry; see “Literatur und Wirklichkeit,” 254, and “Die beste Dichtung ist die lügenreichste,” 35. Modern scholars who regard medieval courtly love in the West as a literary topos with no social basis have supported their position by pointing to the severity with which adultery was regarded at the time (see Benton, “Clio and Venus,” and the critical discussion of Benton’s position in Boas, The Origin and Meaning of Courtly Love, 111-14). For recent attempts to vindicate the social reality of medieval courtly love, see Keen, “Chivalry and Courtly Love,” and Jaeger, Ennobling Love.
113 Muhibbī, Nafhat al-rayhānah, 1: 411-13. The poet is making a pun based on the similarity of the name of the youth to the term for “dividends” or “profits” (arbāh , plural of ribh). The friendship between Muhibbi and Safadī is also apparent from the entry on the latter in Muhibbi, Khulāsat al-athar, 1: 356-59.
114 Nābulusī, Khamrat bābil, 223. The term Ḉelebī in this context probably denotes a “gentlemanly” status in general, not any specific rank. Nābulusī cites another poem composed by Safadī which features the name Rabah in the final line in Khamrat bāsil, 142.
115 Ghulāmī, Shammāmat al-‘anbar , 381—82. Suwaydī confirmed that Muhammad al-Ghulāmī was a close friend of his, in al-Nafhah al-miskiyyah (see fol. 3a-b).
116 al-Suwaydī, ‘Abdallah, al-Nafhah al-miskiyyah, MS fol. 142b-147b.
117 Murādī, Silk al-durar , 2:275. Murādī quotes the second passage from an anthology of poets by Muhammad Sa‘īd ibn al-Samman (d. 1759); see Ibn al-Samman, [ Tārīkh ], fol. 217a.
118 Muhibbi, Khulāsat al-athar, 2:175. The dates of death may suggest otherwise, but Zakariyya al-Būsnawī was eighteen years younger than Manjak.
121 Kanjī, Bulūgh al-munā , 73, 90. The editor of this work assumes that it was written in the nineteenth century. Internal evidence (in particular the formulaic expressions after mentioning a person which reveal whether he was dead or alive at the time of writing) shows that the work was written between 1107/1695-96 and 1117/1705-6. The author is almost certainly the Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Kanjī who is mentioned by Muhibbī (d. 1699) in Dhayl Nafhat al-rayhānah , 55-74. The same person is mentioned in the entry on his father Ahmad (d. 1695/6) in Murādī, Silk al-durar, 1:196-99. His date of death is given in Ibn Kannān al-Sālihī, al-Hawādith al-yawmiyyah, 518.