Islamic Erotica

.

.

What the contemporary Arab and Islamic collective consciousness is witnessing today is a state of acute cognitive schizophrenia, separating an imagined image of an angelic past from a historical reality that teemed with humanity in all its lusts and physical details. This contradiction is clearly manifested when comparing contemporary moralizing discourse—which depicts history as a long prayer rug devoid of desire—with the foundational heritage books written by top sheikhs, exegetes, and jurists. These figures found no shame in diving into the literature of "Bah" (erotology), while today's public remains largely deceived about this hidden dimension.

For instance, Imam Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, a pillar of Quranic exegesis and Hadith, left behind a list of compositions that would shock the contemporary devout and lead today's censorship authorities to confiscate them on charges of debauchery. Among them are his famous book Nawadir al-Ayk fi Ma'rifat al-Nayk (The Rarities of the Grove in the Knowledge of Coitus), as well as The Suction of Pure Water from Halal Magic, The Precious Rubies on the Attributes of Plump Women, and The Disclosure of the Names of Intercourse. These books were not mere fleeting lapses, but rather an expression of an era's culture that was not ashamed of the body. Al-Suyuti compiled hundreds of names for genitalia and sexual positions, even showcasing erotic anecdotes attributed to Bedouins and jurists, proving that the "modesty" claimed by moderns is a recent culture foreign to a heritage that was once far more open.

The matter is not limited to al-Suyuti alone. We find Sheikh al-Nefzaoui, in his book The Perfumed Garden (Al-Rawd al-Atir), written at the behest of a Tunisian minister, offering a complete guide to sex containing explicit erotic stories that cross all contemporary red lines, yet it was viewed then as an educational and recreational work. In the same context, the book The Return of the Old Man to His Youth emerges, attributed to Ibn Kemal Pasha, one of the great scholars of the Ottoman Empire and its "Sheikh al-Islam," confirming that the pinnacle of the religious hierarchy in the Islamic Caliphate was involved in documenting sexual culture in its finest details. This openness was not restricted to scientific books but extended to the stories of caliphs and companions in major historical sources such as Al-Aghani by al-Isfahani, The Unique Necklace by Ibn Abd Rabbih, and The Ultimate Ambition by al-Nuwayri. In these volumes, we read about the romances of Umayyad caliphs like Yazid bin Abd al-Malik and his obsession with his concubines "Hababa" and "Salama," illustrating how debauchery and explicit sexual poetry were an integral part of the courts in Damascus and Baghdad.

The issue of concubines and female captives represents the greatest pillar of this historical hypocrisy. Modern religious discourse claims that Islam restricted sex to marriage, ignoring the institution of "Milk al-Yamin" (ownership right), which permitted men to engage in sex with as many women as they wished without contracts or restrictions. History tells us of slave markets in Baghdad and Cairo, where concubines—regarded as "merchandise"—were displayed in clothing that revealed their charms so that buyers, including jurists and notables, could inspect their bodies to ensure their "sexual quality." Furthermore, books of jurisprudence, such as Al-Mughni by Ibn Qudama or Al-Mabsut by al-Sarakhsi, contain precise legal discussions regarding the nakedness of the slave girl and which parts of her body may be touched before purchase. These are discussions that, if published today in a modern style, would be deemed by some as apostasy or depravity.

The insistence of contemporary official institutions on banning modern erotic books while prosecuting creators for "offending public modesty" is the height of hypocrisy. They are, in fact, haunting a reality that their ancestors lived and documented with pride. This systematic deception aims to manufacture a "packaged Muslim," severed from his true roots which were far more vibrant and reconciled with instinct. Islamic history over 1,400 years was not a history of claimed purity, but rather an eminently human history, filled with sex, license, and physical exploitation as much as it was with prayer and asceticism. Denying this aspect is a falsification of truth and a deception of generations who no longer read anything except what is dictated by the religious censor’s scissors, while the reference books remain on high shelves, witnessing an era when sheikhs wrote about pleasure with an audacity that the most radical liberals would not dare possess today.

.