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{{Short description|Sufi practice}}
[[Image:Princely Youth and Dervish.jpg|right|thumb|250px|'''Princely Youth and Dervish'''<br>Reza Abbasi, ca. 1625; Isfahan, Iran;<br>[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], [[New York]].]]
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The meditation known in Arabic as '''Naẓarnaẓar ila'l-murd''' ({{lang-ar|النظر إلى المرد}}), "contemplation of the beardless", and in [[Persian language|Persian]]or ''Shahed-bāzī,'Shahidbaazi''' ([[persian language{{lang-fa|Persian]]:شهید شاهدبازی),بازی "witness/ play",شاهدبزى}}) is a [[Sufi]] practice of spiritual realization recorded since the earliest years of [[Islam]]. It is seen as an act of worship, held to realise the absolute beauty that is God through the relative beauty of the human form that is the divine image. In its best-known form it simply consists of gazing upon a beautiful boy.
 
[[Peter Lamborn Wilson]] explainsclaims this as the use of "imaginal [[yoga]]" to transmute erotic desire into spiritual consciousness. It was practiced by [[Awhad al-Din Kermani]].<ref>Peter Lamborn Wilson, "CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNBEARDED: The Rubaiyyat of Awhadoddin Kermani" in ''Paidika'' V.3-4 p.13 (1995): "Love imagery in Persian Sufi poetry usually flows from this mystical, symbolic appreciation of love's spiritual power. In some works, however, the imagery refers also to specific practices, code named 'naẓar ila'l-murd' or 'contemplation of the unbearded,' namely, the unbearded boy."</ref> Its exponents quote the saying of the prophet [[Mohammed]]; "God is beautiful and loves beauty", as well as the [[Platonic love]] of the [[Symposium]].
 
[[Richard Francis Burton]]'s translation of ''[[The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night]]'' (commonly called ''[[One Thousand and One Nights|The Arabian Nights]]'' in English) included collections of stories that were often sexual in content and were considered [[pornography]] at the time of publication. In particular, the ''Terminal Essay'' in volume 10 of ''The Arabian Nights'' contained a 14,000 word essay entitled "Pederasty" (Volume 10, section IV, D) in which Burton speculated and opined that male homosexuality was prevalent in an area of the southern latitudes named by him the "[[Sotadic zone]]".<ref>{{cite web|title=Sir Richard Francis Burton Explorer of the Sotadic Zone|url=http://paganpressbooks.com/jpl/BURTON.HTM|work=Pagan Press|publisher=Pagan Press|accessdate=16 June 2012|author=Pagan Press|year=1982–2012}}</ref> Rumors about Burton's own sexuality were already circulating and were further incited by this work.
By the 13thCCE such ideas were crystallised in the [[Sufi metaphysics]] of the [[Illuminationist philosophy]] of [[Ibn Arabi]], whose Arabic poems, called ''The Interpreter of Desires'', enshrined them in love poetry:
 
::::''Urged on by love, I sought out one among their number:''
::::''For beauty there can be among humanity no sister,''
::::''And if she loose the veil from her mouth she will surely''
::::''Reveal to your eyes the glittering sunlight’s changeless radiance.''
 
::::''Sun-bright her brow and night-black her hair:''
::::''Both day and night she is, and the form transcendental.''
::::''Her light takes the dark out of the night: she tangles''
::::''Broad daylight in the mystery of her midnight tresses.''
 
 
==Chaste love==
Naẓar was a principal expression of a male love that, according to the teachings, was not to be consummated physically.
 
[[Zangi]] discussed the legitimacy of love for a male beloved saying, "And it is said that when God . . . wants to honor a worshiper with the robe of true love and put the real crown of love on his head, He will make him fall in earthly love so that he would learn the ways of being a lover . . . and passes from the raw stage of desiring attention to the ripeness of (spiritual) supplication."<ref>Encyclopedia Iranica [http://www.iranica.com/articles/v12f5/v12f4026c_contd.html]</ref>
 
[[Richard Francis Burton]], claims that Easterners value the love of boys above the love of women, using Persian terminology in which the moth and the bulbul (nightingale) represent the lover, and the taper and the rose represent the boy and the girl, respectively. According to him, "Devotion of the moth to the taper is purer and more fervent than the Bulbul's love for the Rose."<ref>Richard F. Burton, ''[[Arabian Nights]],'' "Terminal Essay" (Part D)</ref>
 
==Physical love==
Not all followed the teachings strictly to the letter. On being challenged by [[Rabia Basri|Rabiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya]] (c.717-801) of [[Basrah]] (Sufi woman saint who first set forth the doctrine of mystical love), upon noticing him kissing a boy, for appreciating the beauty of boys above that of God, the ascetic Sufi [[Rabah al-Qaysi]] retorted that, "On the contrary, this is a mercy that God Most High has put into the hearts of his slaves."<ref>Quoted from as-Sulāmī, ''Early Sufi Women = Dhikr an-niswa al-muta 'abbidat as-sufiyyat,'' translated by Rkia E. Cornell, Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999, pp. 78-79.)</ref>
 
==Criticism==
Conservative Islamic theologians condemned the custom of contemplating the beauty of boys. Their suspicions may have been justified, as some [[dervish]]es boasted of enjoying far more than "glances", or even kisses. Nazar was denounced asand rankdeemed a [[heresyHeresy|heretic]] by such as [[Ibn Taymiyya]] (1263-13281263–1328),. whoDespite complained,opposition "Theyfrom kissthe a slave boy and claim to have seen God!"<ref>"Needless to sayclerics, although the poetspractice ofhas thesurvived Witnessin GameIslamic followedcountries theuntil letteronly ofin therecent Shariʿa and its sexual codeyears, theiraccording dangerousto gameStephen of Sublimation was condemned as rank heresy by such as Ibn Taymiyya, who complained, `They kiss a slaveO. boyMurray and claimWill to have seen God!' However orthodox (or not) the sufis might have beenRoscoe in their privatework lives,on theirIslamic poetryhomosexuality.<ref>Stephen hasO. given much aidMurray and comfortWill toRoscoe, `real''Islamic hereticsHomosexualities;'' likeNew theYork University IsmailisPress, who would of course take quite literally such lines as Iraqi's:1997; p.111</ref>
Forget the Kaaba:
The vintner's gates are open!" Peter Lamborn Wilson, THE ANTI-CALIPH: Ibn 'Arabi, Inner Wisdom, and the Heretic Tradition [http://www.hermetic.com/bey/anticaliph.html]</ref>
▲
The real danger to conventional religion, as [[Peter Lamborn Wilson]] asserts, was not so much the mixing of sodomy with worship, but "the claim that human beings can realize themselves in love more perfectly than in religious practices."<ref>Wilson (1995), op.cit, p.21</ref> Despite opposition from the clerics, the practice has survived in Islamic countries until only recent years, according to Murray and Roscoe in their work on Islamic homosexualities.<ref>Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, ''Islamic Homosexualities;'' New York University Press, 1997; p.111</ref>
 
==Examples==
[[Image:Youth and suitors.jpg|thumb|right|250px|'''Youth conversing with suitors'''<br>Miniature illustration from the ''Haft Awrang'' of [[Jami]], in the story ''A Father Advises his Son About Love.'']]
 
In an illuminated manuscript of Sufi poet [[Jami|Abdul-Rahman Jami]]'s (1414-1492) ''Haft Awrang,'' an anthology of seven allegorical poems on wisdom and love, there is a calligraphed verse in the section titled ''A Father Advises his Son About Love'' in which a father instructs his son, when choosing a worthy male lover, to choose that man who sees beyond the mere physical and expresses a love for his inner qualities.<ref>[http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/loveyearning/base.html Smithsonian Institution, manuscript page]</ref> The verse exemplifies one Sufi way of turning love into wisdom:
<blockquote>''I have written on the wall and door of every house<br>
''About the grief of my love for you.<br>
''That you might pass by one day<br>
''And read the state of my condition.<br>
''In my heart I had his face before me.<br>
''With this face before me, I saw what I had in my heart.</blockquote>
 
A recurrent topic of Sufi homoerotic lore is the tale of [[Mahmud of Ghazni]] and his boy slave [[Malik Ayaz|Ayaz]]. Many poets have treated the subject, among whom [[Attar]] who included eight stories about them in his ''Elahi-nama'' alone. One of them shows how love elevates the beloved:
<blockquote>One day sultan Mahmud asks Ayaz, his famous beloved, whether he knows a king greater and more powerful than he. Ayaz answers, "Yes, I am a greater king than you." When the king asks for proof, he says, "Because even though you are king, your heart rules you, and this slave is the king of your heart."
</blockquote>
 
==See also==
* [[GhilmanBacha bazi]]
* [[Ghilman]]
*[[Pederasty in the Islamic lands]]
* [[Köçek]]
 
==Notes==
Line 58 ⟶ 27:
 
[[Category:Sufism]]
 
[[Category:History of pederasty]]
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