Interest in the various aspects of and possible common points between sexualities in the Islamic world through the ages has been a minor but continuous academic concern during the last three decades, boosted by the emergence of women's and gender studies, almost synchronously with gay/lesbian studies in the mid-1980s and then queer studies in the 1990s. Three groups of epistemological issues pertaining to gender and sexual identity in Islamic societies are addressed here: the constructionist vs.…