How This Gay Love Story in Medieval Persia Got Tainted By Religion
And how poetry helped keep alive the memory of this complicated love between two men from different social classes
In Islam, according to Malfuzat, the concept of servitude is likened to the relationship between a man and a woman, but also to the relationship of men and God — united in love for one another, in a bond fortified by the spiritual pleasure derived from it.
The Sufis, who belong to a body of religious practices in Islam, say that a person who is able to experience something akin to this pleasure may find it more satisfying than all the other pleasures in the world.
In fact, Sufism adopted the story of Mahmud of Ghazni and his slave Malik Ayaz as an example of this superior connection.
Unfortunately, religious interpretations of their relationship, and the part slavery itself played in their story, make it hard to construct a pure and positive picture of their love in our times.
In the beginning of the eleventh century, Mahmud of Ghazni was one of the most important Persian sultans. Under his reign, the borders of his empire reached over most of modern Iran, parts of the Indian Subcontinent, and the greater Khorasan. His kingdom was extensively…
