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Sex And The Citadel: Intimate Life In A Changing Arab World (2013)

by Shereen El Feki(Favorite Author)

3.83 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0307377393 (ISBN13: 9780307377395)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Pantheon

review 1: Having lived as a queer man in the Arab World, I was at first very enthusiastic to hear about this book, as little has been written on the topic. Unfortunately I found this book has many flaws. The book should have been called "Intimate Muslim Women's Life in a Changing Egypt: My Personal Journey". Clearly, the scope of the book is too ambitious for several reasons:I feel this book is much more about women's sexuality then men, presumably because the author is female which gives her easier access to women. This would have not been possible for a male author. It might also have been difficult for a female author to discuss sexuality with heterosexual Arab males. Furthermore, the book focusses mostly on Egypt. Countries that are hardly or not mentioned at all: Syria, Iraq, ... moreLibya, Sudan, Yemen, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others. Which does not have to be bad, except that I wish she would not give the impression this book encompasses the whole Arab world. It does not. Her argument to focus on Egypt is pretty fair, as it is the most populous and culturaly most influential Arab country. However, when it comes to sexuality, Egypt could hardly be called a leading country. On the contrary: if one looks at the past 40 years, one sees the Gulf countries have had a huge influence on Egyptian society's stance toward sexuality. Tunisia enjoys the most liberal laws on prostitution in the whole region, Morocco is miles ahead when it comes to abortion, and Beirut is the gay capital of the Arab World. Where does that leave Egypt? It might be problematic to focus that much on Egyptian society while leaving other countries out. The book certainly leaves the reader with a lof questions on sexual experience in the other Arab countries. I would have loved to read more about Saudi Arabia for instance. Then there is the issue of Islam and sexuality. The author defines herself as a Muslim with a strong faith. Nothing wrong with that, but one should be warned that the book is written from a Muslim's point of view. This means that the book does not have a grain of criticism towards Islam or religion in general. Her claim is that Islam is not the problem: it is the solution. I cannot help to be reminded of the old Muslim Brotherhood slogan 'Al Islam Howa al Hal'. El Feki's arguments that Islam is actually very open when it comes to sex are not very convincing: 1. El Feki claims that Islam was supposed to have a liberal age when it comes to sex, from the 7-12th century. El Feki mentions several examples which supposedly show an Islam from 10 centuries ago, open towards sexuality, such as an 11th century-book called 'Encyclopedia of Pleasure' (Baghdad) as well as some women cross-dressing in the courts of Baghdad in te 11th century. But these are just some isolated examples, it is not convincing that these are representative of a society as a whole. 2. El Feki claims the Arab World's closeness was brought about by Christian closed-minded stance towards sexuality from the 19th century and onwards. Partially true, but here she attributes the decline in sexual openness to colonialism. It is too easy really to accuse the West of having invoked a change in Islamic societies from an open, liberal society to a closed one. Also, Islamic society went downhill long before Napoleon arrived in Egypt 3. People in the Arab world became less open about sex because they live in in repressive dictatorships. The sixties was a golden age for Egypt and pan-Arabism and Egyptian society was much more open back then. Dictatorship in Egypt, since the death of Nasser in 1970, only spanned one or two generations, while openness in sexuality has been in decline since for several centuries 4. El Feki then claims Arab societies went from open to closed due to an incorrect interpretation of Islam. In her view, Islam is actually very open when it comes to sex, and liberal, but scholars interpret the Quran incorrectly. She hereby dismisses most Islamic scholars in a single step, which is brave but almost laughable. This is the trouble with the book. It does not find any faults with religion and Islam in particular. To illustrate: at the beginning of the book, El Feki applauds a work by Tunisian author Abdelwahab Bouhdiba': "Sexuality in Islam" (1975), in which the author claims there was a flowering of sexuality in the golden age of Islam (7-12th century). Indeed the books says "One cannot deny the fundamental 'hedonism' of the Quran". However, what she fails to mention at all is that the book also sheds some light on the dark sides of Islam: "Islam offers the widest possible view of incest", "Male supremacy is fundamental in Islam", "Islam remains violently hostile to all other ways of realizing sexual desire...the divine curse embraces both the boyish woman and the effeminate man, male and female homophilia, auto-eroticism, zoophilia, etc ...Sexual deviation is a revolt against God" and "he Christian will be a-sexual in paradise, whereas the Muslim will experience infinite orgasm". El-Feki is, in her own words, a muslim with a strong faith, but very selective as this example shows. She has an - almost naive - faith in a very liberal Islam. However the problem is that such an Islam has not been invented yet, except for the odd gay mosques in the US or in France. Sure, religion has been misused by politicians and clerics to assert their power, and the non-liberal reading of sexual matters in the Quran is a tool to curb people's sexuality, which in its turn is a way of surpressing people. But to attribute it only to an incorrect reading the Quran is naive. How does El Feki expect women in Egypt to experience a more open sexuality when most people in Egypt adhere to the view of Islam that male supremacy is fundamental? What about the huge amount of hypocricy in Islamic societies - which can be attributed to the culture of shame and honor? Despite all of this, El Feki does not offer any a single criticism of Islam. "It's all a matter of interpretation..."The book went downhill from the part I was looking forward to most: gay life in the Arab World. El Feki discusses shortly the Quran verses and hadiths which supposedly condemn gay sexuality. However she does not succeed in makin Islam compatible with homosexuality. She does not have to, but again she offers no criticism of Islam and does her very best to give the reader the idea that homosexuals can be perfectly accomodated within Islam, even though all clerics she interviewed agreed that homosexuality is haram. She gives the impression that gay people in Egypt do not wish to kiss or hold hands in public, because "this is an Islamic country" and they do not wish to change the conservative mood of society. Again it is very naive to believe that gay people in Egypt, unlike gay people in Western countries, would never want to be able to kiss in public. Is that the sexual openness Islam offers? To be able to kiss in private but not in public? In the end, when it comes to homosexuality and Islam, El Feki does not offer anything more than just plain tolerance; for people to mind their own bussiness and for gay people to express their sexuality in private, not in public. Which is ridiculous. She even kicks the Arab gay movement in the back, whose people are tortured and mistreated in every way - most of the time in the name of religion - by mentioning an annecdote of a girl who is questioned about the veil she wears while going to underground parties in Beirut. El Feki fails to see that, having been mistreated for decennia, it can be hard for anyone who diverges from heteronormativity, not to be suspicious of someone openly proclaiming adherence to a religion so unapproving of anyone who is not heterosexual. But hey, it is all a matter of interpretation...Closely entangled with her faith Islam, El Feki mostly ignores Christians and other religions in the Arab World, although it would be very interesting to touch upon them, as they hold a special position as the only substantial non-Islamic minority in the Arab world. Even though El Feki does mention some Arab Christians, she does not go into the Christian religion and its stance towards sexuality at all. She fails to make a connection between Beirut as the most sexually liberal city of the Middle East and the fact that it is the capital of a - albeit now formerly - Christian state, with strong ties to France and the Western world. Next to that, I would have been interested to read more about the interaction between Arabs and Jews in Israeli society. She only touches upon this subject briefly, but I feel that Israel holds a special position in the Arab world, as this is one of the few places where Arab people get into direct contact with a liberal and open society. Yet this topic is hardly discussed. Furthermore, El Feki fails to mention secular, atheist Arabs. After having read this book, one would say that the whole Arab world seems sexually frustrated, but I have met a lot of people who are much more open towards sexuality than the people in this book. However, all of them are secular and most of them openly atheist. These people have not been given any voice. Today I was having a conversation with some of my Syrian friends who like to show (Western) movies to a public audience. They recalled how some people in the audience would hold their hands in front of their eyes whenever a couple would kiss on screen. However, my friends who were showing the movie found this behavior ridiculous to such an extent that they asked those "prude" people to actually leave. These friends of mine are avarage low-class people and have never been outside of the Arab World, yet they hold some very liberal and open views towards sexuality. These kind of people are not mentioned at all in El Feki's book. While reading the chapter on gay life, I was shocked to read only about devout Muslim gays, while most gays I met in Arab countries actually denounced religion as it is not accepting of homosexuality. She fails to mention any people who lost faith in religion, even though the figure among gay people in the Middle East is very high. In my eyes, this makes her book biased, towards Islam. I would almost accuse her of orientalism, as for her, Islam and the Arab World seem to be the same side of a coin. It's not. Not always.El Feki argues that the gay movement in Egypt can learn from the Global South. She cites Latin-America and India as examples. However, Latin-America is a rapidly secularizing Christian continent, while India is a Hindu-society with no fixed scripture/holy book comparible to the Quran or Bible - and Hindu society has always been more open when it comes to sex. It is hard too see how Arab countries could learn from these regions, unless they would push Islam out of the public sphere. Nonetheless, with all its faults, the strength of this book is the fact that it is one of the few books to touch upon the subject of sexuality in the Arab World. That alone would make it worth while to read. And I do think it is a very important work, much needed in the region, and El Feki makes a lot of valid points. But perhaps it is better describe the book a coming of age-document, a sentimental journey of the author going back to her roots in Egypt, blended with interviews on the intimate lives of Egyptians.
review 2: Let me quote : "'What is it?'Six pairs of dark eyes stared at me -or rather, at the small purple rod in my hand. 'It's a vibrator.' I answered, in English, racking my brain for the right Arabic word. 'A thing that makes fast movements' came to my mind, but as that could equally apply to a hand mixer, I decided to stick with my mother tounge to minimize what I could sense was rising confusion in the room..." or 'Azza's husband described how a discreet inquiry around the office reveled 20 of his colleagues with sexual difficulties. Some blamed the economy,other pollution, but after much discussion they concluded Western-Israeli plot. According to the office consensus there are secret agents all over Cairo wearing special belts that emit some sort of spray or beam to neuter Egyptian men, therby weakening the nation and reducing population growth'. This book give an inside view on things that 'Western' people are taken for granted as they are not so obvious to people in Arab world. Like sex shops (or italian 'sexy shops') that are not hidden in the darks alleys or the lingerie shops with their colorful and 'spicy' exhibitions in the visible points on the city streets. In other words, worth reading as it gives a different perspective. less

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