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Medieval Armenian Perceptions of Islamic Sexuality
Abstract
This paper will interrogate Armenian historical narratives produced between the seventh and tenth centuries with the intention of illuminating Armenian sexual attitudes as they manifest through their discourse with Islamic thought. The earliest Armenian texts elevate to exceptionally high esteem the virtue of sexual continence. This tradition initially constructs itself in opposition to a Zoroastrian suzerain. The arrival of Islam c. 640 provided the Armenians a novel adversary onto which to project these hostilities. Many of the Armenians’ reactions to and misconceptions of the newly arrived Muslim faith center its sexual customs and the ways in which those customs conflict and contrast with native Armenian values of restraint, moderation, and carnal containment. This research engages with a robust body of literature concerning the political, theological, and medical approaches to sexuality as both a temporal and eternal experience in Islamic culture. Primary sources under inquiry include those of Sebeos, Ghevond, Tovma Artsruni, Yovhannes Drasxanakertc’i, and Movses Dasxuranc’i. In addition, this project will consult the texts of Ibn Sina and al-Razi, as well as their Hippocratic and Galenic progenitors. Medieval Armenian texts express astonishment and revulsion, often performatively so, at the perceived sexual libertinism of Islamic culture. Specific targets of Armenian literary outrage include: 1) Islamic attention to female genitalia (never acknowledged in the Armenian literature other than through the proxy of Armenian-Islamic discourse); 2) The Islamic embracement of sexual pleasure, condemned by the Armenians even within a marital context; 3) The sensory imagery with which marital sex is endorsed in Islamic thought; and 4) Inflated accusations of Islamic hypersexuality, citing such practices as concubinage and temporary marriage. The sexual proclivities of the prophet Muhammad himself feature prominently in these narratives – a device often employed to caricature the libidinal alterity of the newly arrived Islamic exogeneity and underscore the moral malignancies alleged of Islam by the Armenians. The methodology will critically focus the medieval Armenian orientation toward asceticism as the primary filter through which Islamic sexuality was interpreted, maligned, and ultimately assimilated by the Armenians. In so doing, this research reconstructs the development of sexual cultures in the region as it transitioned from Zoroastrian to Islamic suzerainty between the seventh and tenth centuries.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Armenia
Sub Area
None