Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900 (review)

Dror Ze'evi's Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900 is an absorbing investigation of sexuality in the Ottoman Middle East from the sixteenth to early twentieth centuries. Tracing the transformations within varied discourses, Ze'evi concludes that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as the European influence on various discursive fields expanded, sex and sexuality was silenced in the Ottoman world.

In the first two chapters, Ze'evi looks at two prominent forms of sexual discourse in the Ottoman world. Chapter 1 traces the basic theories and concepts of traditional Ottoman medicine as they relate to the sexual and asexual body. Humoral medicine with its Galenic roots was the sole model that enjoyed the official support and privilege as well as the endorsement of the intellectual elite until the nineteenth century. As translations and adaptations of European knowledge seeped into the heart of the medical profession, medical discourse became silent of sex. Chapter 2 turns to the Ottoman legal discourse. Ze'evi points that seriat, the Islamic religious law that was not a fully codified system, and kanun, the new legal alternative implemented to balance the sacred law with the preferences of the ruling elite, operated as one compound legal system until the nineteenth century. This symbiotic legal model was countered by a new set of reforms, starting in the nineteenth century. Narrowing the spectrum of sexual discourse, the new legal model became the rival of the old one, and such a disjointed system led to the silencing of sexuality.

One of the most interesting readings of the book comes through the comparative analysis of Sufism and the Ottoman shadow theater. Chapter 3 examines the orthodox and Sufi conceptions of sexuality. A central theme of dispute between Sufis and orthodoxy was the contemplation of the beauty of beardless boys—a question that became one of the main reasons behind the downfall of Sufism. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, charges of blasphemy started to threaten the Sufi lodges. The Kadizadeli movement of the early seventeenth century marked a turning point for what Ze'evi calls "the taming of Sufi love" (93). Attacks against Sufism took a harsher turn in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Sufism was now severely repressed by the state for its homoerotic content. According to Ze'evi, this shift in repression coincides with the encroachment of European values and norms. Gradually, a total prohibition of Sufi activity was accomplished "out of fear and shame" (98). Contrary to the "high culture" discourse of the Sufi literature, Chapter 5 deals with "the view from below" (125). Ottoman shadow theater's popularity overcame the boundaries of age, class, and gender as men and women, adults and children, ulema and peasants watched it together. Some plays originated in the palace and found their way to the street; others were conceived in local coffeehouses and made their way to the sultan's harem. Shadow theater welcomed heteroeroticism, depicting both men and women as sexually libidinous and promiscuous. This representation contrasted with the medieval Sufi literature, which lauded homosociality through its representations of promiscuous women and moral men. Hence Ze'evi interprets the heteroerotic insertion within the shadow theater not as a sign of inhibition, but quite the contrary, as one of audacity. The modernization movements of the late nineteenth century, however, turned this audacious and uninhibited heteroerotic language into a family entertainment free of sexual content.

Chapter 4 discusses the dream interpretation literature in pre-modern Ottoman world. It suggests, through a refined reading of the writings of Ibn al-Arabi and Sheikh 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, that pre-modern Ottoman dream lore treated dreams not only as prophecies, but also as reflections of the inner world. The explicit sexual language of the dream manuals showed no disguise for homoerotic or incestuous elements, and, furthermore, such sexual dream content was...