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Queer Heavens: Rethinking the Islamic Garden in Contemporary Art

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This chapter examines the use of flower and garden imagery as indicators of spaces for homoerotic and same-sex encounters. Creating links between contemporary artistic production in the SWANA region and aesthetic traditions of the Islamic world, it allows us to situate contemporary queer subjectivities within the cultural fabric of Muslim society and history.

Keywords: Aesthetic traditions ; al Buraq ; Gender fluidity ; Homosociality ; Miniature painting ; Pahlavan ; Paradise ; Persian poetry ; Rustam ; Shahnama ; Zurkhana

Hardback ISBN: 9781835950265
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Queer Heavens: Rethinking the Islamic Garden in Contemporary Art
Intellect , 183 (2024); https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2102/10.1386/9781835950265_14
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References

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References

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  2. Chamas, Sophie and Sabiha Allouche. “Mourning Sarah Hegazi: Grief and the Cultivation of Queer Arabness.” WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly 50.3–4 (2022): 230–49.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Charafeddine, Chaza. Divine Comedy. Beirut: Plan Bey, 2015.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Chehabi, Houchang E. “Gender Anxieties in the Iranian Zurkhanah.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 51 (2019): 395–421.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Dalacoura, Katerina. “Homosexuality as Cultural Battleground in the Middle East: Culture and Postcolonial International Theory.” Third World Quarterly 35.7 (2014): 1290–1306
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Dinshaw, Carolyn, Lee Edelman, Roderick A. Ferguson, and Carla Freccero. “Theorizing Queer Temporalities: A Roundtable Discussion.” GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 13.2–3 (2007): 177–95.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. El-Rouayheb, Khaled. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500–1800. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books 1990. First published 1976.
  9. Gayed, Andrew. “Islamicate Sexualities: The Artworks of Ebrin Bagheri.” Esse Arts + Opinions 91 (Special Issue: “LGBTQIA,” edited by Clinton Glenn, 2017): 17–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Gayed, Andrew. “Queering Middle Eastern Contemporary Art and its Diaspora.” In Unsettling Colonial Modernity: Islamicate Contexts in Focus. Edited by Siavash Saffari, Roxana Akhbari, Kara Abdolmaleki, and Evelyn Hamdon, 140–55. London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Gopinath, Gayatri. Unruly Visions. The Aesthetic Practices of Queer Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Gruber, Christiane J. “‘To Not Toil in Lonely Obsession’: Modern Persian Erotica in the Kinsey Institute.” In Eros and Sexuality in Islamic Art, 209–35. Edited by Francesca Leoni and Mika Natif. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2013.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Ingenito, Domenico. Beholding Beauty: Sa‘di of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Leoni, Francesca and Mika Natif. Eros and Sexuality in Islamic Art. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2013.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Luijendijk, Dick H. “The ‘Zurkhaneh’ in Shiraz.” Iran & the Caucasus 15.1–2 (2011): 99–116.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Meisami, Julie Scott. “Allegorical Gardens in the Persian Poetic Tradition: Nezami, Rumi, Hafez.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 17.2 (1985): 229–60.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Najmabadi, Afsaneh. Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.203
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Natif, Mika. “The Generative Garden: Sensuality, Male Intimacy, and Eternity in Govardhan's Illustration of Sa‘di's Gulistan.” In Eros and Sexuality in Islamic Art. Edited by Francesca Leoni and Mika Natif, 43–64. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2013.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Pratt, Nicola. “The Queen Boat Case in Egypt: Sexuality, National Security and State Sovereignty.” Review of International Studies 33 (2007): 129–44.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Ridgeon, Lloyd. “Introduction: Medieval Sufi - Futuwwat/Jawanmardi.” In Jawanmardi: A Sufi Code of Honor. Edited by Lloyd Ridgeon, 1–22. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Ridgeon, Lloyd. “The Zurkhana Between Tradition and Change.” Iran 45 (2007): 243–65.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Rowson, Everett K. “The Effeminates of Early Medina.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111.4 (1991): 671–93.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Scheid, Kirsten. “Necessary Nudes: Hadatha and Mu‘asira in the Lives of Modern Lebanese.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 42 (2010): 203–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Wedeen, Lisa. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Ze'evi, Dror. Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East 1500–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
     [Google Scholar]

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