Cultural Construction of Sexuality in Islam

Chapter Four
The Cultural Construction of
Sexuality in Islam

Introduction

With the creation of humankind, to be exact, its primeval couple, viz., Adam and Eve as husband and wife, human sexuality came into being. God created Adam and then Eve as his mate and installed them in Jannat-ul-Adan, or the Paradise of Garden, popularly called Garden of Eden. There in their paradisal abode, Adam and Eve were plentifully provided for and all that they were occupy themselves was the enjoyment of the blessings of God and of each other sexually as mates unto each other. The Qur'an has narratives both of the creation of Adam and Eve and their rehabilitation in the Garden of Eden. Most pertinent are the following verses only:

We (Allah) said: ‘O Adam! Dwell thou

And thy wife in the Garden;

And eat of the bountiful therein

As (where and when) ye will; but approach not this tree,

Or ye run into harm and transgression.’

Then did Satan make them slip

From the) Garden), and get them out

Of the state (of felicity) in which

They had been. We (Allah) said:

‘Get ye down, all (ye people),

With enmity between yourselves.

On earth will be your dwelling –place

And your means of livelihood for a time.

Quran, 2:35-36

Sexuality and gender are separate things, though they are intimately inter-related and the social conceptualization and cultural construction of one influences the other. Also, sex and sexuality are distinguishable things in that the former, i.e., sex, is a biological phenomenon, which men and women share with animals, whereas when we speak of the latter, i.e., sexuality, it comprises within its scope the aesthetics, psychology, education, and ethics of sexual relations as well. Hence, sexuality is, more than a biological phenomenon, i.e., a social and cultural construction, which is why it can be said that, for example, Western sexuality is different from Muslim sexuality, though sex or the sex act, per se, is the same in the East and the West, and in the North and the South. According to the West’s social conceptualization and cultural construction of premarital sex, homosexual sex, and lesbian sex, when engaged in by consenting adults, may be considered just as permissible, proper, and ethical as sex within marriage, but according to Islam’s social conceptualization and cultural construction of sexuality, only the latter of the four may be considered permissible, proper, and ethical, notwithstanding the freely given consent of the adults involved to the sex act. By contrast, Islam permits, regards proper, and judges as ethical for a man to have sexual intercourse with his concubine, slave girl, and/or a female captive of war even without her consent, which the Western tradition considers reprehensible, because they violate the essential dignity of women. Again, when and if an unmarried or premarried daughter or sister of a man in the Western culture engages in or is known or makes herself known, through open dating in the Western style, to be engaging in sex (i.e., premarital sex), it is considered no business, actually "no damn business," of the father or brother, because, as an adult, in other words, being of the age of consent, she is personally free and socially empowered to do so, i.e., date men and have sex with anyone of them consensually, if she so chooses. Her sexuality and its expression and Page 34

fulfillment are her business, and no business of her family, the state, or the legal system. She is in charge and in control of her sexuality, as is a man of the age of consent. All such matters, and marriage too, fall within the scope of the social conceptualization and cultural construction of sexuality in a given tradition, society, and culture. By contrast, in the Muslim culture it is the men (chiefly father and brother(s) or the social and legal guardian) who are in charge of and control of the women of he family and, therefore, their sexuality, especially of the sexuality of the unmarried or premarried woman. A daughter or sister, when and if un-or-premarried, even if she is of the age of consent, may not personally, freely, and of her own volition socialize with men, much less consent to engage in sexual intercourse with any man. The Muslim society and culture do not empower her to do so. Legally, too, i.e., according to the Shariah, or Islamic law, there is no difference between consensual sex and fornication, adultery, or forcible rape. They are alike crimes—transgression of the hadd, or boundary, fixed by God in the Qur'an---and, therefore, punishable under the Shariah. But in real life, in all probability the guilty woman is killed by the father or the brother(s) for the social dishonor and disgrace she brings to the family by her immoral and unlawful sexual conduct, for which an "honor killing" of the un-or-premarried woman is considered justifiable in the Muslim society and culture. Incidentally, the man who was her partner in the "crime" usually goes free.

Obviously, human sexuality is not without problems. Of all the problems, perhaps the most complicating are those that are presented by the, supposedly or common-sensically presumed, biological conditioning of men and women that leads people to entertain the popular belief, on the one hand, in the natural tendency of men to seek, want, and to have sexual intercourse with many women and, on the other hand, per popular belief, the natural desire of women to seek, want, and to have sexual intercourse with one man only. In other words, men are considered naturally promiscuous (a term used to refer to someone who engages in sexual activity with many different partners) and women are considered naturally not to be promiscuous. I have never come across anything in what little I have read about human sexuality as to the reason or cause for this difference in male and female sexuality. But this assertion, true or false, underlies virtually all social conceptualizations and cultural constructions, not only of sexuality, but also of gender, both in the East and the West. In the specifically religious construction of sexuality, it takes the form of the maxim that the man is polygamous by nature and the woman monogamous.

The Cultural Construction of Sexuality in Islam

A society, culture, religion, and/or tradition may either appreciate sex and/or sexuality or it may depreciate it. For instance, Judaism and Islam appreciate sexuality but Christianity depreciates it. Sexuality in Islam is a wholly positive thing. Sexual fulfillment is the birthright of every man and woman. Islam’s normative doctrine of human sexuality is very much like that of Judaism and unlike that of Christianity. Islam looks definitely disapprovingly upon celibacy, because it is considered both unnatural and undesirable. Muslims also regard it impossible to practice, which is so very evident by the publicly known practice of homosexuality in the religions, which pretend to uphold priestly celibacy as a requirement for priesthood. In this regard, Islam has a highly normal and reasonable doctrine of human sexuality. In the story of Adam and Eve and their conscious act of sexual intercourse with each other in the Garden of Eden, in transgression of God’s command, too, Islam distributes equal moral responsibility and blame to both. According to the teaching of the Qur'an, there will be sex in the Paradise, too. Indeed, it is offered as a great incentive to men to be pious, by not committing sexual sin, in this world to earn the Paradise and the infinitely more satisfying and everlasting sexuality with the houris of Paradise. Concerning the wholly positive and appreciative valuation of human sexuality in Islam, for example, Hyde and DeLamater write:

The Muslim believed that sexual intercourse was one of the finest pleasures of life, reflecting the teachings of the great prophet Muhammad. Moreover, extraordinary prowess is attributed to Muhammad, who had several wives.⁴⁰

Bouhdiba on Sexuality in Islam

Obviously, Muslims realize it even more than can outsiders that sexuality is a core value in Islam, a blessing from God. An informed and analytical source on sexuality in Islam is the book in English Sexuality in Islam, written originally in French, by Abdelwahab Bouhdiba. I will draw liberally upon it. Bouhdiba writes about Islam’s view of sexuality:

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Islam in no way tries to depreciate, still less to deny the sexual and invests it with such a transcendental significance that any trace of guilt is removed form it. Taken up this way sexuality is full of positivity. Islamic life becomes an alternation and complementarity of the invocation of the divine Word and the exercise of physical love. The dialogue with Being and the dialogue of the sexes punctuate our daily lives.⁴¹

A few pages later in bringing out the significance of sexuality in Islam, he writes:

One cannot but be struck by the central place given to human love. Sexual relations, which are correlative to it, are mediators in this universal process that begins with opposition, continues through alternation and becoming, and culminates in prayer. It is no accident that the quranic text is placed under the sign of the Sign [a revealed verse of the Quran] and that the word aya should recur in it so frequently.... It may even be said that sexuality, by virtue of the central, universal position that it occupies in this process of the renewal of creation, is a sign, and ‘ayat al-ayat’.⁴²

Everything is centered on the notion of zawj…Azwaj is two…The sexual relationship of the couple takes up and amplifies a cosmic order that spills over on all sides: procreation repeats creation. Love is mimicry of the creative act of God. The Quran, therefore, abounds in verses describing the genesis of life based on copulation and physical love.⁴³ The sacred mission of sexuality is to propagate life, to multiply existence. In assuming it, man takes part in a divine work whose majesty is enough to give a new meaning to his existence. Sexuality is a deployment of the intensity of life.⁴⁴

Finally, Bouhdiba points out that "Muhammad himself is berated by the Qur'an for swearing to go on sexual strike against his nine wives as a result of certain marital difficulties. ‘O Prophet, why forbiddeth thou what God has made lawful to thee, seeking the good pleasure of the wives’."⁴⁵ The verse quoted above is 66: 1 of the Qur'an. All quotations from the Qur'an in his Sexuality in Islam are from the English translation, viz., The Koran Interpreted. by A.J. Arberry.⁴⁶ As Bouhdiba proceeds with his exposition of sexuality in Islam, he quotes a number of the verses of the Qur'an, as rendered into English by Arberry. I have retained his quotations.

As Bouhdiba socially and culturally constructs sexuality in Islam, he starts with the declaration of the Qur'an: "They [your wives] are a vestment for you, and you a vestment for them…. So now lie with them, and seek what God has prescribed for you" (2:183-187). He observes: "Sexuality is presence to my body, but also presence to the bodies of others. Sexuality is a transcending of solitude. It is a call to others, even at the carnal level…. For man finds his fulfillment only in woman…. And the exercise of sexuality is a pious obligation."⁴⁷ But the Qur'an "regulates sexual practices [for Muslims]…. Premarital relations are condemned."⁴⁸ Zina, or sexual intercourse outside the limits set by the Qur'an, is both a transgression of God’s law as well as a break with the Muslim community. Though God permits and exhorts man and woman to seek and maximize their sexual pleasure, He commands them to abstain from zina, under all circumstances and temptations. That is the moral lesson, according to Bouhdiba, of the story of Joseph and Putiphar’s wife, whom the Islamic tradition has given the name of Zuleikha. She tries to seduce him, when she tells him: "Lie with me!" But Joseph is too moral and faithful a young man to commit zina, and he flees from her bedroom. In this Bouhdiba sees in Islam "the reality principle defeating the pleasure principle."⁴⁹ In this there is a great lesson for both men and women. He underscores the message of the Qur'an: "Innocence is revealed and the temptress confounded. Furthermore it is an essential feature of the eternal feminine that the Qur'an wishes to bring out: ‘Inna kaida-hunna ‘adhim’ [Qur'an, 12:28]. This ‘your guile is great’ is addressed beyond Zuleikha, to the whole female sex."⁵⁰ In Islam, woman is called fitna, or the spreader of chaos, for which the French language has the right word, femme fatal.

"Homosexuality (liwat) incurs," according to Bouhdiba, "the strongest condemnation [in the Qur'an]…. Female homosexuality (musahaqa), while equally condemned, is treated with relative indulgence and those who indulge in it incur only the same reprimand as those condemned for auto-eroticism, bestiality or necrophilia."⁵¹ Also forbidden is vaginal intercourse

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with the menstruating woman, wife or concubine, slave girl, or captive of war. Bouhidiba writes: "Lastly, intercourse is forbidden with a woman during her period or lawful confinement: ‘The husband may embrace her, lie next to her and enjoy her whole body except the part comprised between the navel and the knees’."⁵² Incest is categorically forbidden. The Qur'an makes no mention of the incest of Lot, who is mentioned as a prophet in the Qur'an, with his daughters. Actually, there exists no word for incest in the Arabic language. All that may be considered sexual deviation and/or perversion, i.e., departure from heterosexuality, is forbidden. Bouhdiba writes:

The Islamic view of the couple based on the pre-established, premeditated harmony of the sexes presupposed a profound complementarity of the masculine and the feminine. The harmonious complementarity is creative and procreative. By that is meant that the extension of life, which is happiness and appeasement of tension, but also satisfaction and legitimate pleasure…. Islam conceives of sexes and their union, their differentiation and their mutual adjustment. Hence the unique value attributed to each of the two sexes.

Islam remains violently hostile to all other ways of realizing sexual desire, which are regarded as unnatural purely and simply because they run counter to the antithetical harmony of the sexes; they violate the harmony of life; they plunge man into ambiguity; they violate the very architectonics of the cosmos. As a result the divine curse embraces the boyish woman and the effeminate man, male and female homophilia, autoeroticism, zoophilia, etc. Indeed all these ‘deviations’ involve the same refusal to accept the sexed body and to assume the female or male condition. Sexual deviation is a revolt against God…. Tradition has it that four categories of person incur the anger of God: ‘Men who dress themselves as women and women who dress themselves as men, those who sleep with animals and those who sleep with men’ [mind you this Saying of the Prophet does not mention women who sleep with women].⁵³

An essential part of sexuality in Islam is the requirement of purifying for both parties to the intercourse (heterosexual, homosexual, or lesbian). The general rule is that both must bathe after it. Indeed, this requirement applies when one has a wet dream or masturbates in which the discharge of the semen takes place.

What may surprise the reader is that Bouhdiba makes it clear that here on earth, according to the teaching of Islam, there is sexual commerce between human beings and the invisible beings, devils and djinns (genies) "with whom sexual intercourse is possible de jure and…de facto."⁵⁴

Human enterprise began with the sexual intercourse between Adam and Eve and this is also the Islamic doctrine, though Islam does not hold the doctrine of the original sin. Neither does it hold Eve alone responsible for it. Both Adam and Eve are held equally responsible for and guilty of being enticed into their sex act by Satan. At any rate, given that in the beginning there was sex, it could not be that there would not be sex at the end of days. So there will be sex in Paradise between those who will go to heaven and the houris. "Paradise is a place of sexual pleasure."⁵⁵ God Himself preordained it. Bouhdiba writes:

"Pleasure there is also carnal. For paradise are people with houris. These creatures are as feminine as can be imagined, their faces white, green, yellow and red at once…. On their breasts is written the name of their [earthly] husband, linked with one of the beautiful names of God…. All the houris are in love with their husbands…"⁵⁶ Apparently, the celibacy of Jesus and the love of women of Muhammad will have consequences in the paradise, for Bouhdiba writes: "In other words, the Christian will be a-sexual in paradise, whereas the Muslim will experience infinite orgasm."⁵⁷ In essence:

The meaning of paradisiacal pleasure is certainly that it takes the body seriously. Far from derealizing our desires, Islam teaches us to realize them more fully. The evocation of Paradise is a vigilant oneirism. It is not the theological that is at issue here, but the psychological. The image of the Muslim paradise is positive and affirmative of self. Islam does not repress the libido. In paradise our desires will be accommodated, taken

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seriously. This means that the peace of paradise is achieved through self-fulfillment. For paradise is first of all a meeting with others. Love is a sense multiplied by the presence not only of wives, but also of houris. This pluralization of love implies its own transcendence in others. In paradise everyone will have at least one companion, for ‘there is no celibacy in paradise’ (ma fil jannati min a’za).⁵⁸

Bouhdiba concludes the discussion of the infinite orgasm of man in paradise on the note:

Islam, then, is an economy of pleasure. In its over-conscious valorization. To integrate the sexual in the sacral is, I believe, ultimately the great lesson and the great merit of this Islamic vision of the afterlife. It is, I believe, in the final analysis, the import of what the Qur'an calls parable, mathal…Once again the sexual proves to be co-extensive with the sacral…. Islam is a lyrical view of life.⁵⁹

Let us note in passing that, as men are permitted in the Qur'an to seek their sexual pleasure with their wives and concubines in this world, so they will be permitted to seek their sexual pleasure in the next world in a state of perpetual erection (a decided advantage over their state here on earth) with their own earthly wife or wives and the houris in the paradise. What Bouhdiba does not discuss in his Sexuality in Islam is the sexuality of women in paradise, whether they, too, will have two kinds of lovers, i.e., the husband or the husbands they had during their earthly life and the male counterpart of female houris whose constant love, companionship, and sexual favors men shall have in the paradise in addition to their wife or wives from their earthly existence. But this probably might not be an omission on his part, for I do not think there are definitive answers to the questions about the sexuality of women in paradise. I may make a comment here. I think this simply shows that female sexuality is not valued in Islam as much as is male sexuality. At best, women are only thought of and seen as those who service and satisfy men’s sexuality. And if they, women that is, derive in the process of servicing men’s sexuality the satisfaction of their own sexuality, well and good. But the cultural construction of Muslim women, as sexual beings, does not view them, certainly not encourage them, as the cultural construction of Muslim men, as sexual beings, nor view them and encourage them to become active seekers of sexual gratification at their own initiative and initiators of sexual activity.

As Bouhdiba interprets the message of the Qur'an, "male supremacy," as in gender relations in general, so in sex and sexual relations, "is fundamental in Islam."⁶⁰ Man has to be mindful of it in all situations in life, including in the sexual ones. Bouhdiba does not mention it but, for instance, man may not have a sexual intercourse with woman in female superior position, i.e., woman on top of man.

Obviously, so integral a part of life and religion in Islam as sexuality, which connects both the sexual and the sacral with the social in Muslim life and living, cannot be without a definite and characteristically Islamic sex ethic. According to this ethic, sexual gratification is permitted within the context of marriage and concubinage only. Within the bounds of both, men may seek it, sexual gratification, to their heart’s content. Women are permitted to seek sexual gratification within nikah, or permanent marriage, only. A third alternative which Prophet Muhammad permitted during the military campaigns, when the soldiers were separated from their wife, wives, and/or slave girls and concubines, was the seeking and obtaining of sexual gratification in muta, or temporary marriage for pleasure only, whereby a man propositioned or bargained with a woman to enter into a contract of "marriage" for a fixed period of time for an agreed upon consideration in cash or kind to allow him to have sexual intercourse with her, which marriage stood automatically dissolved at the end of the agreed upon period of time, or a single sexual intercourse, depending upon the agreement. Typically, the period of mutah, or temporary marriage, was/is three days and three nights. The difference between nikah and muta is that, whereas the former is a marriage for procreation, the latter a marriage for pleasure only, as we know only too well that man engages in sex, more often than not, purely, simply, and solely for the sake of pleasure. Islam is fully cognizant of it. I will discuss this further later. What is immediately relevant here is that muta, or temporary marriage, is an arrangement within which is fulfilled the need and desire for sexual gratification for its own sake. Bouhdiba writes as to how muta entered the domain of sexuality in Islam:

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The autonomy of desire assumed such importance that primitive Islam hesitated for a long time. At one moment it even legitimated a very curious type of nikah, nikah al-muta, temporary marriage, whose purpose therefore was pleasure (muta). It was, therefore, a temporary, but legal union. Travelers and soldiers could take advantage of it. Pilgrims, too, for whom the ritual of desacralization is a reinsertion in sexual life. The sacralization of hajj involved among other things, as we know, total sexual abstinence. The end of the ritual is marked by a return to civil life, by the raising of all taboos, the sacrifice of the hair and a return to sexual life. It derives from a survival of sacred prostitution that took place in Greco-Roman antiquity. At first Muhammad kept it. Then, at Khaybar, he forbade it. Then he authorized it again on the day of Awtas, then finally forbade it the day he returned to Mecca.

‘It is not nikah [marriage] in the ordinary sense of the word, or debauchery, nikah wa la sifah, but a sexual pleasure tolerated by God at a particular moment. It is the hiring for money of a woman with a view to sexual pleasure that must last for three days and three nights, after which the two parties separate and their situation is regularized by a deed of nikah.’ And it is a qura'nic text [verse] that warranted this tolerance:

Lawful for you,

Beyond all that is, is that you may seek,

Using your wealth, in wedlock and not

In license. Such wives as you enjoy thereby,

Give them their wages apportionate; it is no

Fault in you in agreeing together,

After the due apportionate.

Qur'an, 4:24

In other words, there is a price and a gift, but at the center there is pleasure, tamattu’, mut’a.⁶¹

But sexual pleasure and fulfillment does not come naturally, though there is, should be, no more a natural act than sexual intercourse. Bouhdiba emphasizes that when hurriedly, clumsily, and naively done, sexual intercourse brings a release, but no real satisfaction, certainly no sweet joy, to either the man or the woman. Only sex education, training, and artful lovemaking can remedy this sad state of affairs. Lovemaking is an art, a learned art, and people should be encouraged to learn it. Bouhdiba writes:

Muhammad himself set the example, when he encouraged his disciples to venerate the flesh, to attend to the preliminaries of lovemaking, to sexual play and to fantasy. Beauty is a gift of heaven that one must know how to exploit and set off. For there is an art of making things beautiful, of releasing and refining pleasure. And it is a pious duty for a good Muslim to help all other members of the Umma [community] to become aware of the art of pleasure, to use it consciously, to benefit from it, in a word, to assume their bodies. The techniques of sexual pleasure must be widely spread among the faithful so that the community of Allah does not suffer depression or sorrow. Being a Muslim means knowing how to be happy and cheerful and to know that God’s purpose is achieved through the beautiful, not through the ugly, through pleasure, not through contrition.⁶²

One must ready oneself consciously, deliberately, and meticulously for lovemaking. Bouhdiba writes:

This lyrical vision of life is also a sensualization in time. Nothing is so alien to our domain than the brief act. It is not a question of getting through the work of flesh as it were some chore that one has to carry out. One must lose oneself in pleasure and extend the time of its performance. Hence the importance of ‘foreplay’. The woman who goes to the hammam [public bathrooms or beauty parlors] and spends long hours preparing

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the most varied, the most studied, the most skillfully composed delicacies [for her man] and the man who goes to the market looking for food, drink, silks and perfumes are merely preparing themselves for long nights of love. Sometimes the whole of daily life is structured with a view to the supreme end of sexual bliss.⁶³

None other than the Prophet Muhammad "himself set the example [and] insisted that words should accompany coitus. Silent, furtive coitus is worthless. Love cannot be silent. This is because language conveys tenderness and makes the feelings reciprocal. It makes the desire shared."⁶⁴ Bouhdiba has emphasized throughout his exposition of the cultural construction of sexuality in Islam that sexuality is intimately interconnected and integrated with the whole teaching of Islam: its theology, eschatology (life and sexuality in the next world), worship, prayer, religious practice, sociology, social order, family system, community life, political governance, economic institutions, culture, civilization, indeed, the whole way of life and living of the Muslim during the day and during the night. In Islam to be sexually fulfilled is both a precondition and accompaniment of religious life and spiritual self-actualization. It is so in the life of this world and it would be so in the life of the next world, that is for those who will go to and be rehabilitated in Paradise. Only the sexual happiness and fulfillment in Paradise will be infinitely more complete and everlasting than it is in this world of the short span of the potency of men and the beauty of women. Every man knows only too well how quickly vigor, vitality, and erection are gone. Also, every woman knows how quickly her youth, beauty, and sex appeal is gone. Anyway, that is the human condition. I say all this because that is the sense I get from Bouhdiba’s construction of sexuality in Islam. His following passage is indeed telling:

Through sexuality the whole human being is taken seriously. This is why so much attention is paid to sexuality. Sexuality is to be taken seriously because it bears witness to the seriousness of existence. The whole of life, according to Islamic teaching bathes in an atmosphere of sexuality. Sometimes this is carried to the point of obsession. One should marry. One should have sexual intercourse. Parents must marry off their children and among the duties of filial piety is that of getting a widowed parent to remarry. To make love is an overriding duty, from which there is no excuse, even devotion to God. Devotion itself is expressed in terms of the lawful satisfaction of desire. So, in its every practice, sexuality transcends earthly existence: the afterlife is again a sexual existence. Paradise implies orgasm and perpetual erection.

Though a serious matter, sexual activity is nevertheless ludic. Sexual games (mula’aba) are warmly recommended by the Prophet, hence that specific erotological dimension. Love is not to be performed in sadness or gloom. Love is not a painful duty. It is the most joyful gift of heaven. It is one of those ‘good things’ (tayyibat) that God lavishes on existence. It is pleasure. Indeed it is the highest form of pleasure. It is the royal way to eudemony.⁶⁵

A Word of Caution! But for all its lyrical view of life and the recognition of the centrality of sexuality and sexual gratification in human life, Islam regulates sexuality as methodically and meticulously as it regulates the Five Pillars of Islam, i.e., the religious obligations of the Muslim, viz., bearing the testimony of faith; observance of the fast; saying the daily and Friday prayers; payment of the zakat, or the mandatory charity; and the performance of the hajj, or the pilgrimage to Makkah. There is none of the Playboy’s philosophy or libertarianism or libertinism in Islam. Neither does Islam have a hedonistic or an Epicurean philosophy of life. Sexuality in Islam is a very serious matter, as serious as the worship of God in the prescribed and proper manner. It exists within the boundaries of halal (permitted, lawful) and haram (forbidden, unlawful) with capital punishment, too, for certain forbidden or unlawful sexual acts. Islam is not content with declaring certain acts immoral and/or unethical either. For instance, the Shariah, or Islamic law, prescribes the punishment of 100 lashes (in some cases death by stoning) for such sexual acts as fornication, adultery, rape, incest, homosexual sodomy (sexual intercourse between two males), heterosexual sodomy (anal intercourse with a woman, including one’s wife or concubine), and bestiality. Islam rejects the whole concept of

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consensual sex, in other words, just because two adults consent freely to engage in a forbidden sexual act in the privacy of their bedroom as, for instance, premarital or extramarital sexual intercourse, or/or the husband and wife consenting to commit heterosexual sodomy, i.e., the wife consenting to the husband’s request to have an anal intercourse with her, or she requesting him to do it, or both desiring and freely consenting to do it does not make it any the less unethical and unlawful and, therefore, deserving of the punishment prescribed for it in the Shariah. The uncompromising law of the Shariah is that, even though it may be consensual sex (sexual intercourse between two consenting adults), fornication (premarital sex), adultery (extramarital sex), homosexuality (sodomy between men and anal intercourse between man and woman), bisexuality (engaging in sexual intercourse with persons of the opposite and of the same sex), and/or what is called menage a trois (a sexual relationship involving three people, not even between the husband and his two wives or the master and his two slave girls), are still forbidden and unlawful. In each of the above-mentioned cases, the Muslim crosses the hadd, or the boundary, which God has fixed permanently in the Shariah, or Islamic law, with the mandatory penalty for it. Islam sees no difference between haram, or forbidden sex, even when engaged in with a consenting partner and forcible rape and punishes it accordingly. It has to be clearly understood that sexual intercourse in Islam is either halal, meaning lawful, or haram, meaning unlawful. The question of consent does not arise. The husband may have a sexual intercourse with his wife against her will and, likewise, the owner may have a sexual intercourse with his concubine, slave girl, or a female captive of war in his possession without against her will, but it is still halal, or lawful sexual intercourse. By contrast, a sexual intercourse outside marriage and concubinage, and/or in the case the man and the woman both consent to it freely, voluntarily, and within context of what is called a relationship or even when the two are betrothed to each other to be married is still haram, or unlawful, and, as such, punishable as a crime, technically a violation against huqooq Allah, or the rights of God, to the full extent of the letter of the law under the Shariah, or Islamic law. Also, because certain sex acts are unlawful, therefore, they are immoral and/or unethical. The primary attribute of sex acts in Islam is their lawfulness or unlawfulness.

Sexuality in Islam is a premeditated activity, too. There is little of the spontaneity of a sexual encounter between two persons. The permissible, i.e., lawful, sexual intercourse must take place between partners who are lawful to each other. The only persons who are lawful to each other are either the husband or his wife, or the owner and his concubine, slave girl, or female captive of war. As can be readily seen, this makes sexual intercourse rather mechanical, and perhaps it is just as well. When, suppose, a Muslim man has four wives, leaving aside if has any concubines besides, he is duty-bound, under the requirement of the Shariah, or Islamic law, to rotate himself one night at a time between his wives and is duty-bound, too, to have sex with each one of his wives on her night. Assuming he can do it, i.e., his duty, every night with a different woman, it is more than probable that he would be doing it mechanically only. Most likely, he would be servicing his wives than making love to them as a loving husband. But the Shariah ethics requires this. But this is my view of sexuality and the sex ethic in Islam.

Bouhdiba considers the sex ethic of polygamous marriage in Islam profound and akin to religious and spiritual experience itself, though he does acknowledge the "quasi-obligatory character." His view is well described in the quote below:

In short, the working of the flesh is a benefit of God, whose pleasure must be put at the disposal of all, from puberty to the ripest old age, in which every Muslim, like Jacob, hopes to be green and vigorous. Polygamy, the rotation of wives, the permutation of men, the quasi-obligatory character of the sexual act, from which there is no escape, not even through devotional practices, all this gives a special character to the sexual ethics of Islam…. The personality of man finds fulfillment only in the intimacy of the sexes…. Sexual pleasure brings us close to God…. So, in Islam love [sex) is actually prayer.⁶⁶

Bouhdiba goes on to say:

Orgasm is certainly a pleasure. But a shared one. And it is in the pleasure derived from another at the same time as oneself that this work of piety resides, a work analogous to fasting, prayer and chastity. Eros and Agape, then, are both involved in sexuality. The sexuality encountered in others is also a projection in God.⁶⁷

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Throughout the Qur'an the mutuality of sexual pleasure is emphasized. As women have the obligation to serve and meet the sexual needs and desires of their husband or master, so men have the obligation to ensure that they bring their wives and concubines to orgasm. The husband is strongly admonished not to separate himself physically, meaning sexually, from his wife or wives especially for more than four months at a time. Sexually, however, men are more privileged than women, as can be taken to be the case, as per the commands embodied in the following verses:

Your wives are

As a tilth unto you;

So approach your tilth

When or how ye will.

Qur'an, 2:223

This verse refers to the position or the posture that the man and woman assume to have a sexual intercourse. It is determined by what the man finds more pleasurable. So long as he intends to have a vaginal intercourse, meaning the penile penetration of the vagina, he is permitted by this verse to ask the woman—wife or concubine---to get into the position or posture he wishes her to be in. He may have her lie on her stomach and get on top of her, or on her back and get on top of her, or lie on her side and get alongside her, or assume any other position he wishes her to take to have intercourse with her. The woman has the duty to yield to his wishes. The only prohibition is that the man may not ask her, or allow her, to take the female superior position, meaning she getting on top of him, for them to have a sexual intercourse, as that will violate the precept of the superiority of the male over the female.

The verse, i.e., 2:223 of the Qur'an, quoted above, has been a favorite with Muslims of all stations and positions in all of Islamic history. Muslim caliphs, sultans (kings), war lords, generals, vazirs (state ministers), soldiers, officials, financiers, merchants, ulama (religious scholars), fuqaha (Shariah, or Islamic law jurists), imams (clergy), and the masses alike have taken delight in the permission Allah has given them in the Qur'an to have sex every which way with their wives, concubines, slave girls, and the women of the enemy, captured and distributed among the Muslim men. In the early sixteenth century, the grand vizier of Tunis commissioned a study to be made of how men could best satisfy their sexuality. A man named Sheikh Nefzawi, with the reputation of being greatly informed and knowledgeable about human sexuality, was retained under a royal grant to compose a treatise on the subject. The document that he authored, not only pleased his royal patron, but also became a best seller of the time and has remained so in the Arab world and is probably the greatest classic on the subject in Arabic literature. In our own time, it was translated into English by Sir Richard Burton under the title of The Perfumed Garden in the late nineteenth century and has been published many times since. In it Nefzawi writes, "concerning all that is favorable to coition and the different postures for coition" in commenting upon verse 2:223 of the Qur'an as follows:

The ways of uniting with a woman are numerous and varied, and the time has arrived when you should learn the different postures. God has said: ‘Woman is your field, go to your field with a will!’ (Koran). According to your taste you may choose the posture which pleases you most, provided always the intercourse takes place through the appointed organ: the vulva.⁶⁸

Then Nefzawi goes on to describe in details more than two dozen positions and/or postures in which the sexual intercourse between man and woman can be performed.

Both Western and Muslim interpreters of verse 2:223 of the Qur'an place a cardinal emphasis upon the use of the word or analogy of "tillage" in the husbands sexual relations with his wife, or wives, and, by extension, the Muslim man’s sexual relations with his female slave, concubine, or a female captive of war. As the farmer or the cultivator ploughs his soil to prepare it for sowing the seed to raise a crop, so the Muslim husband penetrates his wife (or the woman his right hand possesses as a slave or concubine or captive of war) to procreate. Never mind if this is not always the case. The point is that, since sexual

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intercourse between a man and a woman is intrinsically associated with procreation, the latter objective can be achieved only if the man penetrates the woman’s vagina—obviously he cannot hope to impregnate her if he inserts his penis in her anus and has anal intercourse with her; inserts his penis into her mouth and she performs fellatio; inserts his tongue into her vagina and engages in cunnilingus; inserts his penis between her thighs and engages in intefemoral intercourse with her; or she masturbates him. None of these things the Qur'an directly forbids. According to some Shia interpreters of verse 2:223, the Quran does not even forbid anal intercourse with the wife. (Here we shall ignore the asexual or artificial insemination of the woman by her husband’s or master’s semen through medical/technological procedures.) Anyway, the stock argument of the orthodox and traditionalist ulama, or religious scholars, is that God’s purpose in the creation of women is not merely to provide men with recreation. Their mutual relationship is like that between a farmer and his tilth. A farmer approaches his field not just for the sake of pleasure, but to acquire produce. Similarly, man ought to approach the tilth of the human race with the purpose of acquiring produce, that is, offspring. What is of concern to the law of God is not the particular mode of cultivating one’s tilth, but rather that one should go only to one’s tilth and not elsewhere, and one should go there for the purpose of cultivation.

This would certainly negate the permission, which the Prophet gave to practice azl, or coitus interruptus, interfemoral intercourse with the wife and having oneself masturbated by the wife during the period of menstruation. All these techniques of the gratification of male sexuality are far removed from the intent of getting a "produce" from the cultivation of the "tilth," or the vagina. It is silly to contend that men do or ought to have sexual intercourse only when and if they want an offspring. Even the Prophet did not think, contend, or say so, or even imply. A great part of the sexual activity in Islam, as per doctrine, not to speak of the practice of Muslims—male and female—would be simply ruled out if Islam had intended sexual intercourse to be engaged in only for the sake of procreation of the human race. Fortunately, neither the Qur'an nor the Sunnah supports such a proposition.

The British scholar of Islam, William Montgomery Watt, has also interpreted the use of the word tilth or tillage in verse 2:223 of the Qur'an in a way similar to that of the Muslim scholars. In his Companion to the Qur'an (Oxford, England: Oneworld Publications, 1994), he writes that the use of the word "tillage" refers to:

A development of the primitive metaphor which compares sexual intercourse with the sowing of seed, and speaks of children as the fruit of the womb…. as you wish: the Arabic word anna, ‘as’ may refer to time or manner; those who take it in the second sense say it refers to the various postures in intercourse, but that ‘unnatural’ practices are excluded by the words ‘as God has commanded you’ in the previous verse.⁶⁹

One last comment on the meaning of verse 2:223 of the Qur'an is in order. This verse likens women to tilth or farmlands to be ploughed and/or cultivated when and how they desire to intercourse with them sexually. Women themselves have little or no say in the matter. Taken by itself and at face value, it seems even to give men the permission to have anal intercourse with their wives and/or concubines, slave girls, and captives of war. But the other verses of the Qur'an rule this out. By general consensus among Muslims, heterosexual sodomy or anal intercourse with women is not implied by the verse. But in our age of feminism and given the opinion of some feminist women that, even within the paradigm of consensual sex, because it is the woman whose vagina is penetrated by the penis, it is she who is the object of the sex act, which is to say, the sex object and the man the subject in the sex act. Hence, even a heterosexual intercourse, engaged in totally consensually, is experienced and represented as a humiliating experience, i.e., being the object, sex object that is, of the sex act, by some feminist women. Is not, therefore, the question in order whether the cultural construction of genderization and sexuality in Islam views and presents women as passive sex objects, unlike men who are viewed and presented as active sex subjects. I think the answer is, Yes. Women in Islam are constructed sexually, and psychologically, socially and culturally, too, as sex objects. But, specifically in the area of sexuality, there is an explanation for treating them as sex objects. The analogy of women being tilth and cultivated as such has a profound meaning in the orthodox, traditionalist, and fundamentalist understanding of the logic and intent of the verse in question. Amin Ahsan Islahi in his commentary for example, very well describes it in his Tadubbar ul Qur'an [(Discernment of the Qur'an)] on verse 2:223: Page 43

It is a common desire on the part of a tiller of the soil that he should obtain the best crop from his land and for this purpose to plough it at the right time, to water it and to give manure to it according to need, and see that it remains protected, from seasonal calamity and the depredation of the beast of prey, grazing animals, birds, enemies and thieves. When he looks towards it, he will be gratified and pleased by its verdure and freshness and when the time comes he may reap excessive crop.⁷⁰

The idea implicit in the above is that the Muslim man has sexual intercourse with his wife or concubine, female slave, or the captive of war in his possession only when and if he wants to have a child with her. That being the case, as per the dictate of nature then he must carry out the sex act with her in her vagina, sow his seed in the right place, because that alone will impregnate her and her womb will provide the fertile soil for the growth of the fetus. Only then will he be able to reap his "crop," in other words, get an offspring.

My reaction to Islahi’s explanation is that what merit it may have depends upon the assumption that the Muslim man approaches his woman sexually only when he wishes to father a child with her. If so, the reasoning in his explanation is demonstrably wrong.

Sexual Imperatives of Islam

What can we, then, say are the cultural imperatives of sexuality in Islam—what men can or cannot do sexually, as Islam constructs male sexuality and what women can or cannot do sexually, as Islam constructs female sexuality? It is important to realize that, in Islam, sexuality, as a biological/physical activity, is no different from sexuality in any other religion or in general. Of course, Muslim boys and girls, and men and women can do physically all things sexually that human beings are physically capable of doing. But, as with gender, every religious, moral, and social system constructs sexuality differently culturally. That is where the question of cultural imperatives of sexuality in Islam, posed above, is. I have tried to itemize them in the following summation. In the Islamic construction of sexuality:

Sex or human sexuality is a wholly positive, constructive, and wholesome thing, a gift from God. Except angels, all beings created by God are sexual beings.

Both men and women need sexual gratification from the age of puberty and continue to need it up to their ripest old age.

Sex or the wanting, seeking, and obtaining of sexual gratification, beyond the age of puberty, is a birthright of every male and female.

Sex has an independent value of its own. It is not merely a means to an end, viz., procreation. Sexual intercourse can be and is, for the most part, engaged in solely for pleasure.

Natural and normal sexual activity is between the male and the female of the species. This rules out bestiality in every shape and form.

But unnatural sexual activity between persons of the same sex (sodomy and lesbianism) is a fact of life and has to checked and punished. In this category falls, too, heterosexual sodomy, or anal intercourse between man and woman, which is to be checked and punished, too.

Islam recognizes masturbation, but there is no general consensus whether it should be punished.

Between the male and the female, the natural (biologically intended) sexual act is vaginal intercourse, i.e., the penetration of the vagina by the penis with the intention of sexual intercourse and the achieving of orgasm by both.

Other forms of sexual acts between the man and the woman as, for instance, when she is menstruating or when he is bodily incapacitated of performing the natural sex act, but as a matter of choice, too, if the two so choose, are permissible. These acts may include oral sex (fellatio or cunnilingus), intercourse between the thighs of the woman (called in English interfemoral intercourse and masturbation of the penis by the hand of the woman. (Some Muslims take the position that, whereas masturbation by one’s own hand is forbidden, it is permissible by the hand of the woman.)

Penetration of the vagina while the woman is menstruating is categorically forbidden.

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Penetration of the woman’s anus (i.e., anal intercourse with the woman) is categorically forbidden.

Sodomy (male homosexuality) and/or any contact or touching between two males, which may be sexuality motivated, intended, or symbolic is categorically forbidden.

Lesbianism (i.e., sexual activity between women) and/or any contact or touching between two females, which may be sexually motivated, intended, or symbolic is probably not forbidden, but is strongly condemned. (The Qur'an and Sunnah do not mention lesbianism explicitly, but, given the spirit of the teaching of Islam on sexuality, lesbianism is as good as forbidden.)

Incest is categorically forbidden.

Celibacy is categorically forbidden, for it is neither natural, nor desirable, nor achievable by humankind—neither by men, nor by women.

All in all, Islam categorically forbids what it calls zina and the Shariah, or Islamic law, prescribes capital punishment for every act of zina. Zina, or unlawful sex, is a comprehensive concept and includes within its scope sexual intercourse outside of marriage and concubinage. As such, categorically forbidden are fornication (premarital sex), adultery (extramarital sex), homosexuality, and/or all that falls outside marriage and concubinage. .

Men and women are exhorted and admonished to be good at sexual intercourse and fully mindful of the necessity that it must produce full and complete satisfaction for both, i.e., especially the man must see to it that the woman reaches orgasm, too.

Not only sex education (in the physical aspects of sex) but also sexuality education (of the place, significance, and role of sex in Islam, and the human objectives, social demands, and ethics and morality of sexual relations between men and women) are the necessary accompaniments and imperatives of sexuality in Islam.

The Prophet admonished his followers not to come upon their wives, concubines, and slave girls like animals. He made foreplay mandatory and for the man waiting, too, until the time the woman was ready for the act of sexual intercourse itself.

When done lawfully (according to the Shariah, or Islamic law) and properly (with due advance physical preparation and psychological anticipation, and in the spirit of cooperation and the pursuit of mutual pleasure, and, above all, without haste), sexual intercourse between the man and the woman between whom exists love and compassion and desire for each other, does not only bring supreme pleasure to the parties to the sex act, but is something akin to prayer and, as such, pleasing to God. It self-actualizes humanity and fulfills the divine purpose behind God’s Creation.

It must be mentioned, too, that Islam takes a very, very serious view of accusing someone of zina, i.e., unlawful sex. While the Shairah, or Islamic law, prescribes one hundred lashes for each party to the zina, in some cases death by stoning, for both parties guilty of zina, it demands four eye witness to the alleged unlawful sex act. These four witnesses must be four reliable Muslim men. In case four witnesses are not forthcoming, the accuser(s) become guilty of the crime of slender for which the Shariah prescribes eighty lashes. Hence, in the absence of confession by the parties, conviction for zina in a Shariah court of law is virtually impossible. However, in the case of a pregnant woman, her pregnancy is treated as the living proof of her guilt.

Every society sanctions and institutionalizes some sort of sexual morality or sex ethic, within which individuals may conduct their sexuality and fulfill them sexually. Islam and Islamic society, too, sanction a unique type of sexual morality and/or sex ethic of their own. B. F. Musallam lists the following as the major elements of Islam’s sexual morality:

Marriage was treated as polygamous.

Legitimate sexual intercourse was not confined to marriage, but extended also to the institution of concubinage.

Marriage was not viewed as a permanent relationship; easy divorce could end it at any time.

Marital intercourse needed no justification by procreative purpose, and was also based on the right to sexual fulfillment.

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Contraception was permitted and abortion tolerated.⁷¹

Within the bounds of its own sexual morality and philosophy of life, Islam rated sexual pleasure most positively and highly of all the peoples of the world. This is recognized both by Muslims and non-Muslims. In his survey of world religions and what various nations of the world pursued seriously in life in the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon listed six goals, one of which a particular nation especially sought in life. These possible six goals were pleasure, riches, honor, power, fame, or the felicity of a future life. According to him, Muslims sought and pursued pleasure. Be that as it may, sexual morality includes within its scope the moral and/or ethical valuation of specific sex acts as such, marriage, and all that falls under the head of family planning. This is true of Islam’s sexual morality and/or sex ethic. In Islam, sexuality, marriage, contraception, abortion, and infanticide are all inter-connected matters. Page 46