Gender and sexual minorities in the Ottoman Empire

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This article is about the history of gender and sexual minorities in the Ottoman Empire. For the history of LGBT people in modern-day Turkey, see LGBT history in Turkey.

Nev'îzâde Atâyî [tr]'s manuscript Hamse [tr], which contains several accounts of moral tales with the final chapter detailing a tale of same-sex male lovers.

The Ottoman Empire, which existed from the 14th century until the early 20th century, had a complex and varied approach to issues related to sexuality and gender, including those of gender and sexual minorities.

Concepts such as

gender expressions (particularly for younger males), and attitudes toward same-sex relationships were diverse, often categorized by age and expected roles. Literature and art flourished as significant mediums for discussing gender and sexuality, with Ottoman poets openly exploring same-sex love in the arts
until the 19th century, when Westernization led to the stigmatization of homosexuality, potentially influencing the censorship of certain literary scenes.

The 19th-century ushered in transformative changes marked by Westernization; these changes largely stigmatized homosexuality. The 1858 Ottoman Penal Code is a pivotal moment, often cited as signaling private decriminalization. However, previous laws against homosexuality were rarely invoked by the Ottomans, and this liberalization came amid heightening heteronormativity and anxieties about open same-sex expression among men, leading many scholars to question the validity of the "decriminalization" paradigm used for the Ottoman Empire.

Beyond its borders, the perception of homosexuality in the Ottoman Empire became entwined with

sexual perversion in Western discourse. This representation reflected attempts to assert the moral superiority of Christendom over the Muslim world
.

History and legal status

The late Ottoman Empire was governed by the authority of the Qanun (sultanic law), based on Hanafi law of the sharīʿah.[1][2] While legal perspectives on homosexuality were negative, actual legal persecution was rare.[3][4][5] Public perceptions of homosexual acts and gender norms were varied and often ambivalent; some acts were seen as more normative than others, and some could be celebrated in literature.[3][4] These norms changed drastically in the 19th century, during the Westernization and collapse of the empire.[4]

gay sexual practices.[9]

Pre-modern period

For men, the terms gulampare was used to mean "male-lover" (men loving men), and zenpare to mean "woman-lover" (men loving women).

medieval period (the Islamic Golden Age).[12]

Generally, adolescent men were socially permitted to desire older men or women. After puberty, they were expected to desire young boys or women. Being in both roles could have led to social censure.[3] There is evidence, however, that egalitarian same-sex relations also occurred.[13]

sexual exploitation resulted in suppression of the practice under Sultan Abdulmejid I.[20] As gender and sexual roles were conflated at this time, the feminine köçek identity was associated with being the receptive partner in homosexual intercourse, which was seen as feminine or feminizing.[21]

In his work Sexuality in Islam, Abdelwahab Bouhdiba cites the hamam (public bathhouses) as a place where homosexual encounters in general can take place.[22][23] He notes that some historians found evidence of hamam as spaces for sexual expression among women, which they believed was a result of the universality of nudity in these spaces. Hamam have also been associated with male homosexuality over the centuries and up to the present day.[22][24][25]

Westernization

The 19th-century brought complex changes, marked by heightened heteronormativity, despite de jure changes that could be seen as liberalizing.[4][26] In 1858, Ottoman society constructed a reform to their penal code that was fairly similar to the 1810 French Penal Code. The 1858 Ottoman Penal Code stated the following:

Art. 202—The person who dares to commit the abominable act publicly contrary to modesty and sense of shame is to be imprisoned for from three months to one year and a fine of from one Mejidieh gold piece to ten Mejidieh gold pieces is to be levied.

— Penal Code of the Ottoman Empire, 1858.[27]

This law, which nullified earlier rulings, is often cited as private decriminalization. However, as the previous laws were very rarely invoked and this reform was implemented during a time of heightening heteronormativity, some have claimed the 'criminalization-decriminalization' paradigm as inappropriate for the Ottoman Empire.[26]

According to

People of Lot have been swallowed by the earth. The love and affinity that were, in Istanbul, notoriously and customarily directed towards young men have now been redirected towards girls, in accordance with the state of nature."[29]

Research shows that the decline is in close relationship to increasing criminalization of homosexuality in the Western world at the time, which was followed by repression of gender and sexual minorities.[30]

Literature and art

An Ottoman miniature from the book Sawaqub al-Manaquib depicting sex between two men

Ottoman literary culture, particularly poetry, openly discussed gender and sexuality (including same-sex love and desire) until the 19th century. Various poets debated the most beautiful form of love, whether female or male. Some poets focused only on the love between men and women, some on the love between women, and some only on love between men.[31]

The most preferred form of writing and poetry in classical culture was within traditional Sufi literature as well as the classical gazel. The love of God was sometimes likened by male poets to the love of other males;[32][33] Yahya bey Dukagjini states in his poems that he does not like mas̲navī, which use love of the opposite sex instead of love of the same sex as the basis of love stories. According to him, homoerotic love is superior and purer than cross-gender love.[34] Homoerotic metaphors in poetry were often preferred due to the segregation of males and females,[35] but these did not necessarily express homosexual desires.[33]

One of the most famous writers of homoerotic literature in the Ottoman Empire was

pentalogies, which featured erotic miniature paintings of sexual scenes.[40]

Homosexuality in the Ottoman Empire was not only between men. Although less visible than between men, sexuality between women has also been the subject of poetry. In the poems of female poets it is usually not clear whether the lover is a woman or a man. Mihri Hatun, a highly educated unmarried female poet, wrote a poem where she pretends to be a man in love with a woman. Some interpret this as expressing her own love for women.[41][42]

Western perceptions

In the West, homoerotic depictions of the Orient (including the Ottoman Empire) have been considered an aspect of literary Orientalism, which has made Western discussion on Islamic gender and sexual identity difficult.[43]

The English historian Edward Shepherd Creasy wrote in 1835 that "it became Turkish practice to procure by treaty, by purchase, by force or by fraud bands of the fairest children of the conquered Christians who were placed in the palaces of the Sultan, his viziers, and his pachas, under the title of pages, but too often really to serve as the helpless materials of abomination".[44] In 1913, Albert Howe Lybyer claimed that "the vice which takes its name from Sodom was very prevalent among the Ottomans, especially among those in high positions".[45]

While Western observers such as

situational homosexuality.[48]

The Ottoman official

deviant form of sexual expression.[31] It is also possible that some literary scenes of a homosexual nature were removed by censors at a later date, when heterosexuality became more normative in Ottoman society.[49]

In the West,

gender pronouns in Persian.[33]

Homosexuality was discussed in the bāhnāmes ("part-medical, part-erotic treatises"), with a specific focus on male homosexuality, including those adopted by the scholar

sotadic" work (referencing a geographic zone in which pederasty is allegedly prevalent and celebrated among the indigenous inhabitants).[52]

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ Katz 2009.
  2. ^ de Groot 2010.
  3. ^ a b c d Elif 2020.
  4. ^ a b c d Lapidus & Lena 2014.
  5. ^ Semerdjian 2008.
  6. ^ Rowson 1991.
  7. ^ Alipour 2017.
  8. ^ Rowson 1991, pp. 675–676.
  9. ^ Murray & Roscoe 1997, pp. 305–310.
  10. ^ a b Arvas 2014, p. 8.
  11. ^ Kayaal 2020, p. 34.
  12. ^ Murray & Roscoe 1997, p. 7.
  13. ^ Murray & Roscoe 1997, p. 23-25.
  14. ^ de Vaudoncourt 1816, p. 278.
  15. ^ Murray 2002, p. 62.
  16. ^ Neill 2009, p. 314.
  17. ^ Beşiroğlu 2019, p. 6.
  18. ^ Beşiroğlu 2019.
  19. ^ Karayanni 2006, pp. 78, 82–83.
  20. ^ Beşiroğlu 2019, p. 9.
  21. ^ Murray & Roscoe 1997, p. 32.
  22. ^ a b Bouhdiba 2008, p. 167.
  23. ^ Hayes 2000, p. 206.
  24. ^ Pasin 2016, p. 14.
  25. ^ Germen 2015.
  26. ^ a b Ozsoy 2021.
  27. ^ Strachey Bucknill & Apisoghom S. Utidjian 1913.
  28. ^ a b c Zeevi, Dror. "Hiding Sexuality - Disappearance of Sexual Discourse in the Late Ottoman Middle East". Social Analysis.
  29. ^ Kreil, Sorbera & Tolino 2022, p. 91.
  30. ^ Schick 2018.
  31. ^ a b Arvas 2014, p. 145.
  32. ^ Murray & Roscoe 1997, p. 132–133.
  33. ^ a b c Mohr 2017.
  34. ^ Arvas 2014, pp. 149–154.
  35. ^ Schick 2004, pp. 89–90.
  36. ^ Starkey 2021, p. 264.
  37. ^ Murray & Roscoe 1997, pp. 22–23, 33–34.
  38. ^ Artan & Schick 2013, p. 167.
  39. ^ Erdman 2019.
  40. ^ Artan & Schick 2013, p. 157.
  41. ^ Arvas 2014, p. 153.
  42. ^ Havlioğlu 2010.
  43. ^ Boone 2014, pp. 113–114.
  44. ^ Dunne 1990, p. 72.
  45. ^ Quoted in Murray & Roscoe 1997, p. 176
  46. ^ a b Murray 2007, p. 104.
  47. ^ Murray 2007, p. 103.
  48. ^ a b Arvas 2014, p. 146.
  49. ^ Artan & Schick 2013, p. 187.
  50. ^ For further discussion, see: "Corrections of Popular Versions". www.dar-al-masnavi.org. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  51. ^ Azadibougar & Patton 2015, p. 177.
  52. ^ Artan & Schick 2013, pp. 157–8.

Bibliography

External links

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