(a.), sodomy. There does exist in Arabic a verb lāṭa meaning “to attach oneself, to join oneself to”, but liwāṭ appears to be rather a maṣdar of lāṭa or lāwaṭa , denominative of Lūṭ [ q.v.], i.e. Lot; in modern Arabic there are also the terms liwāṭa , mulāwaṭa , talawwuṭ , etc., as well as a large number of euphemisms and of dialectical and slang terms. The homosexual is called lūṭī or lāʾiṭ (pl. lāṭa), or mulāwiṭ , when he is the active partner, although the distinction is often difficult to establish; the passive is maʾbūn , and his perversion, ubna ; among the synonyms, the most common is muk̲h̲annat…

, like musāḥaḳa , verbal noun of stem III of a verb meaning “to rub” (compare the Greek τρίβειν, Eng. “tribadism”), commonly used to indicate lesbianism. Other derivatives of this root indicating the same are the stem I verbal nouns saḥḳ and siḥāḳa . Occasionally, stem VI tasāḥaḳa is found. Women engaging in lesbian love-making are referred to as sāḥiḳāt , saḥḥāḳāt or musāḥiḳāt . The Lisān al-ʿarab calls the term musāḥaḳat al-nisāʾ a lafẓ muwallad , an expression of post-classical origin. The earliest recorded, probably legendary, instance of lesbian love among the Arabs is a report of the aw…

(a.), unlawful sexual intercourse, i.e. intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married to one another nor in a state of lawful concubinage based on ownership (the relationship between the owner and his female slave). The Ḳurʾān disapproved of the promiscuity prevailing at that time in Arabia and forbade e.g. the prostitution of slave girls by their masters (XXIV, 33). Several verses refer to unlawful sexual intercourse. Some of these mention that it is a sin ( fāḥis̲h̲a ) and that it will be punished in the Hereafter (XVII, 32, XXV, 68-9). Mo…

the Biblical Lot [ Genesis , xiii, 5-13, xvii-xix). The Ḳurʾān, where his story is told in passages belonging to the second and third Meccan periods, places Lūṭ among the “envoys” whose career prefigures that of Muḥammad as a man in conflict with his compatriots, those at whom his message is directly aimed; the crimes of the “people of Lūṭ” were, besides the refusal to believe, their persistence in vices such as lack of hospitality and homosexual practices, a misconduct punished, in spite of intercession by Ibrāhīm [ q.v.], by the dispatch of angels of destruction who utterly devas…

, the Ḳurʾānic term (XXIV, 33) for prostitution. “Prostitute” is rendered by bag̲h̲iyy (pl. bag̲h̲āyā ), mūmis (pl. -āt , mayāmis/mayāmīs , mawāmis/ mawāmīs ), ʿāhira (pl. ʿawāhir ), zāniya (pl. zawānīs ). etc.; a more vulgar term, although we have here a euphemism, is ḳaḥba (pl. ḳiḥāb ), which the lexicographers attach to the verb ḳaḥaba “to cough”, explaining that professional prostitutes used to cough in order to attract clients. Although M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes ( Mahomet 2, Paris 1969, 48) saw in the legend of Isāf and Nāʾila [ q.v.] the “reminiscence of sacred prostitution”, no…

is the Arabic word in use at the present time to denote “sex”, the adjective d̲j̲insī corresponding to “sexual” and the abstract d̲j̲insiyya to “sexuality” as well as “nationality”. The juridical aspect of sexual relations has already been examined in the article bāh , and is to be the subject of further articles, nikāḥ and zinā ; the present review will be limited to general considerations on the sexual life of the Muslims and the place that it occupies in literature. Pre-Islamic poetry, in so far as it is authentic, indicates that a certain laxity of behaviour was prevalen…

(a.), literally “thing possessed”, hence “slave” [for which in general see ʿabd , ḳayna and k̲h̲ādim ], especially used in the sense of military slave”; for these last in various parts of the Islamic world, with the exception of those under the Mamlūk sultanate of Egypt and Syria [see next article], see g̲h̲ulām . Although for many centuries the basis of several Islamic powers, the institution of military slavery can in many ways best be studied within the framework of the Mamlūk sultanate of Egypt and Syria (648-922/1250-151…