Throughout Islamic history, Muslim jurists have prohibited sex between men. Yet, this prohibition was not based solely on scriptural commands. Tracing a genealogy of Muslim discourses across the first five centuries of Islam, this study situates liwāṭ within wider debates about the body, gender, morality, medicine, and religion. Sara Omar examines changing interpretations of the Lot narrative, the evolution of ḥadīth traditions, and the gradual formation of Islamic legal frameworks. Through close readings of legal, exegetical, medical, and ethical texts, the book uncovers deep disagreements over evidence, authority, culpability, and punishment, revealing a tradition marked by contestation rather than consensus. Omar engages Jewish, Christian, and Hellenic intellectual legacies to show how early Muslims negotiated the boundaries of nature, desire, and the permissible. Accessible yet analytically rigorous, the book offers new perspectives on Islamic law, sexual ethics, and the historical roots of contemporary debates.
‘A book of astonishing breadth and depth, Sex Between Men addresses not only the legal status of same-sex intercourse in Muslim texts, but also its social, historical, and medical contexts. This thoroughly researched and clearly written study will now be the standard reference for many years.'
Jonathan Brockopp - Penn State University
‘Omar offers a rich reframing of attitudes to sex between men in premodern Islamic thought, placing her issue at the confluence of multiple independent discourses. Ranging from qur'anic exegesis to hadith, from law to medicine, Omar's account vividly displays the diversity and historical contingency of Islamic approaches to her topic.'
Marion H. Katz - New York University
‘Impressively thorough in its research and frequently surprising in its findings, Sara Omar's exemplary study of how Muslim thinkers treated sex between men reveals complex legal-methodological debates and significant evidentiary and interpretive shifts over five centuries, contributing to specialist debates in Islamic legal history and serving as a much-needed corrective to simplistic claims about ‘homosexuality in Islam.’’
Kecia Ali - Professor of Religion, Boston University
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