Sexuality in Islam

Book excerpt: Originally published in 1985. Beginning with the Qur’an, Abdelwahab Bouhdiba confronts the question of male supremacy in Islam, and the strict separation of the masculine and the feminine. He gives an account of purification practices, of Islamic attitudes towards homosexuality, concubinage, legal marriage and of the sexual taboos laid down by the Qur’an. He assesses present-day sexual practice, including eroticism, misogyny and mysticism and concludes that the sexual alienation – and even oppression – of modern Muslim women is the result not of the Islamic vision of sexuality, but of social and economic pressures.