Sexuality and Islamic Spirituality in Early Malay Writings

Autorentext

Maznah Mohamad and Syahirah Rasheed

Klappentext

It is argued here that before the extensive formalization of sharia laws from the late nineteenth century onwards, Islam was prominently influenced by elements of enchantment and mysticism, mirrored in its textual portrayal of passionate and sexual relations.

This book's analysis is based on Malay manuscripts and texts about the body, sex, and sexuality. These include religious guidebooks on sexual techniques and etiquette, of which some are translated from the original Arabic or Persian, but almost all of which have been adapted for local Malay relevance. Also analyzed are collections of Malay erotic poetry from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries and the only known female-authored early twentieth-century text on sex and women's sexual pleasure.

Over the centuries changing sexual norms and attitudes in the Malay world has disengaged sex and sexuality from being a crucial component of faith and spirituality-gradually receding into the discreet margins of contemporary discourse on gender relations.

Inhalt

List of Figures
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations

By way of a prologue: Zulaikha the Paragon of Women's Passion in Islam

I. Passion

1. Passionate Spirituality Through a Sensuous "Feminine" Beloved
2. Reclaiming Eroticism from, and Reading Spiritualism into Animal Poetry

II. Paradise
3. The Kitab Jimak: A Manual on the "Science of Women" and Paradise on Earth
4. The Path to Pleasure is Orderly, and not One of Careless Abandon
5. A Vaginal Viewpoint: "Orgasm is Half of What to Expect in Heaven"

III. Propriety
6. Syariah Poetics on the Essentials of Marriage, Flawless Sex and a Pure Body
7. The Chaste Body at the Cusp of 20th-Century Modernity
By Way of an Epilogue: Zawiyah the Paragon of Women's Passionlessness in Islam

Bibliography
Contributors