Islam in sexuality

Sex and sexuality are central to Joseph Massad’s critique of one of Europe’s most cherished – and, he persuades me, divisive – ideals: liberalism. Muslims have been portrayed as outsiders in the history of sexual liberation, stubbornly repressing themselves and others in the name of their religion and religious culture. Their sexual attitudes and practices have been cited within broader claims about their non-liberalism and, conversely, the liberalism of Western and European majorities.

In Islam and Liberalism, Massad revisits a question which is frequently asked in Europe about ‘how non-liberal cultures can fit into mostly liberal societies’ (Craig Calhoun, foreword to Modood, 2005: xii). This rhetorical question puts the onus on ostensibly non-liberal minorities within Europe and majorities without to defend and assert their liberal credentials – something that has become increasingly difficult to do following a wave of sensational stories about the sexual lives and attitudes of Muslims, which feature illiberal practices including forced marriage, honour violence, homophobia and female genital mutilation (Phillips, 2012). Western governments and activists have also highlighted the sexual attitudes and practices of Muslims beyond their borders, though in this case the uncomfortable spotlight is shared more equally with others in the Global South, particularly sub-Saharan Africans, their governments and Christian churches. One response to this challenge is for Muslims to be seen to be conforming to or catching up with mainstream liberalism, while condemning and rooting out non-liberal attitudes and practices within their communities. Massad offers an alternative. Taking points of departure from the work of his mentor, Edward Said, he argues that liberalism is a European invention, which is defined against its imagined other: a sphere inhabited by people who are not and never will be liberal on their terms. This argument shifts the intellectual and political agenda away from showing that ‘Muslims can be liberal too’ towards the more challenging project of interrogating liberalism and exploring the many different paths that may lead to rights and freedoms that liberalism has claimed to monopolize. This has practical as well as intellectual implications. Practically, Massad offers new ways of thinking about non-liberal attitudes and practices and the ways in which these are associated with Muslims. In relation to sexuality, this means shifting attention from ‘sexuality in Islam’ – manifest in forms such as homophobia and forced marriage – towards ‘the production of Islam in sexuality’ (p. 272). Rather than simply developing more nuanced understandings of the extent to which Muslims are implicated in such practices, this means interrogating the terms in which debates about sexuality and Islam are framed. This is one reason why Massad takes liberalism – among the most fundamental of these terms – off its perch and puts it on the table.

This interrogation of liberalism may take some cues from critique, not just endorsement, of Massad. I begin with his treatment of Europe. Though the European and Euro-American mind and the discourse with which it is associated form the primary focus of this book, Europe feels rather distant to me. This book was written during years of financial turmoil in the Eurozone, growing debt and economic decline, and fractures within the European Union (EU). From within, the object of Massad’s study has often felt much less assured and coherent than it might have seemed to an author based in Jordan, Egypt and United States (according to the acknowledgements, the book was written in Amman, Cairo and New York). I find his Europe monolithic, dominated by the two former colonial powers that took centre stage in Said’s Orientalism. France may now occupy Europe’s shaky centre ground, but the United Kingdom is increasingly marginal within the EU and, notwithstanding the influence of a few genuine powerhouses such as the City of London, neither of these countries has much claim to dominating the European economy.

Another area in which I find Massad’s analysis sweeping is his condemnation of the ‘Gay International’. Massad’s views on this subject are well rehearsed and well known. Here, as in Desiring Arabs (2007), he claims that Western activists, non-governmental organizations and governments, attempting to defend minority sexuality rights outside Europe, are guilty of cultural imperialism. Massad argues persuasively against the universalization of sexuality and particular sexualities, evident in monographs with titles such as Homosexuality in Islam, and in threats by Western government to link foreign aid to lesbian and gay rights. But Massad may be overstating the originality of his position – against universal claims about sexualities – which is arguably now something of a consensus among theorists and activists. The recognition that terms such as sexuality and homosexuality bring unhelpful and unnecessary baggage is incorporated into theoretical understandings and practical work about and among ‘men who have sex with men’ (MSM) (e.g. Tucker, 2010). Massad asserts that the language of MSM has been ‘quickly transformed from a descriptor into an identity formation’ (p. 266), but I do not find this fully substantiated or fair. MSM needs to be understood in context: as a practical vehicle for intervening in a sexual health crisis where who has sex with whom matters.

But, while elements of Massad’s analysis may be sweeping and polemical, they are full of ideas and provocations for exploring the production of Islam in sexuality, and of Islam and sexuality in liberalism.

To develop this agenda, I propose that it is necessary to pay more attention to the textured realities of Europe, differentiated engagements with Islam, and the liberalism it invents and mobilizes. This project is not just about Britain, France and North Africa. To understand ‘Europe’ it is also necessary to consider other parts and connections, many of which can be traced to European colonialism: relationships between Italy and Libya, Germany and Turkey, the Netherlands and Indonesia, as well as the United Kingdom’s relationships with other parts of the world where there are large Muslim populations, particularly Nigeria and Pakistan. It is also important to consider the different ways in which liberalism is constructed across Europe including Scandinavian countries that emphasize gender equality, the Netherlands where sexuality rights are more to the fore, and the United Kingdom where more emphasis is arguably placed upon cultural minority rights and tolerance of cultural difference within the framework of multiculturalism (Modood, 2005). And it is important to examine the variable significance of liberalism across different European countries, for example, by asking whether attitudes towards and restrictions upon Muslims are shaped more by well-meaning liberalism in some settings and more by racism in others. By exploring fractures and differences within and between European-identified countries, we might then pick apart ‘the European liberal project’ (p. 17), and challenge the constructions of Islam and sexuality within which it is associated.

In the context of sexuality politics, this agenda would focus attention upon the differentiated production of Islam in sexuality and the different ways in which both Islam and sexuality are mobilized. This means understanding the ways in which ideas about Islam are constructed through claims about sexual attitudes and practices such as homophobia and marriage customs within Muslim communities. But it is also important to recognize the limits to reductionist understandings of relationships between Islam and sexuality, for example, by recognizing the practical work of agencies such as the Forced Marriage Unit (in the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office), which is careful to address forced marriage within some Muslim communities while recognizing that this problem is not present in others and that, when present, it is not ‘caused’ by Islam (Phillips, 2012). Similarly, it is important to recognize that, while some transnational sexuality politics might be identified with the ‘Gay International’, others are more nuanced, and that those who adopt lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered identities and politics in North Africa are not necessarily victims of cultural imperialism (Tucker, 2010). I think it is important to respect – critique but not dismiss – efforts to navigate the minefields of international and cross-cultural sexual cultures and politics because these efforts speak to an important question: how to forge solidarities across distances and differences, which seek to establish beneficial and supportive networks and relationships.

Islam and Liberalism is an agenda-setting book. It is polemical and combative in places, but even these elements can be read as provocations. Though not the first to argue that liberalism is exclusionary, Massad breaks new ground in the way he develops this claim, particularly in relation to sex. Doing so, he speaks both to sexual life and also to the broader issues and politics it raises, which broach some of the most important issues of our day: debates about who belongs or does not belong in Europe, and how Europe and the West should conduct its relationships with North Africa. At the same time, he gives us something to think about: something challenging, unsettling and fundamental.