Fayruz (Turquoise), Zumurrud (Emerald), Lu’lu’ (Pearl). These are traditional Arabic names, with varying spellings across the Islamic(ate)1In brief, the “Islamic world” refers to regions where Islam is the dominant religion and shapes society. “Islamicate” describes the broader cultural influence of Islam, including non-Muslim areas influenced by Islamic civilization. Here, the term better addresses the spread of Islamic civilization beyond purely religious or political contexts. world. As names of precious gems, one might assume they are predominantly feminine in nature. At least, that would seem logical. Yet, the lines between gender in Arabic names — especially under the influence of slavery in Islam — were often blurred. It is not unusual to encounter men bearing these names or to find them within their lineage as part of the intricate Arabic naming tradition. Gem-based names were often given to male slaves, or ghilmān,2In Arabic, ghilmān, with its singular form ghulām, means “boys” or “servants.” challenging preconceived notions of gender based naming. Consider Lu’lu’ al-Kabir, Emir of Aleppo (r. 1002–1008/9). His name, Lu’lu’, was not merely a poetic expression of beauty, but a ‘pet name’ associated with his status as a ghulām. This fluid use of gem-inspired names for male figures, particularly slaves, reveals how beauty, value, and identity were shaped in ways that defied modern expectations of gender distinctions.
Ghulām, male slaves, had female counterparts. That is, jawārī, female slaves. I do not wish to reduce them to ‘just slaves,’ as they are socially and culturally much more than that. I also do not wish to ascribe any form of exaggerated notions of freedom to the ghilmān and jawārī. But reductively speaking, they are servants (albeit, not necessarily through the highly problematic conceptualisation of slavery in the West). In Abbasid society, as in others, it was possible for a slave to experience more ‘freedom’ than a free person. Legal status as a jāriya3The plural of jawārī. may coexist with substantial wealth and influence, while legal freedom as a ḥurra4The literal translation here is “free woman.” could coincide with poverty and destitution. This is precisely the difference between legal and social status, and for me, sparks curiosity – who really were the people of mediaeval Near Eastern society? And how should these matters be approached to fairly understand them without retroactive impositions?
Studying past cultures presents a unique challenge: understanding how different they were from our own, but in their own right. Take modern-day Syria, Egypt, and Iraq — do their cultures resemble those of the past? Are they reflections of their mediaeval counterparts, such as the Umayyad, Fatimid, and Abbasid empires? How do these societies compare to contemporary Muslim communities? For instance, would Fatimid Egypt seem more similar to modern Egypt or to Canada today? Consider a modern American time traveller feeling less culture shock in the 9th century than an Egyptian from today. These questions serve as thought experiments to help us understand how drastically different or similar past cultures might be compared to our own. It’s a tricky question with no straightforward answers. L.P. Hartley’s opening quote from The Go-Between, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there,” captures this idea. Just like a Canadian visiting Thailand for the first time would be immersed in a world that’s both familiar and radically different, exploring historical societies means navigating and gathering clues to bridge this gap.
A key question to consider is: To what extent was the mediaeval Middle East culturally and socially “Islamic” in the way we understand today? Some parts of the past are celebrated, while others are questioned or rejected, often based on what current society finds compelling. It makes total sense that people are drawn to history to honour the ideas and heroes who shaped our world, while shunning and looking down upon anything unorthodox for the times. Yet, as we constantly reassess historical figures and their legacies — like the debate over renaming Ryerson University or Dundas Street due to their connections to controversial histories — we are forced to grapple with the complexities of their contributions. This tension between celebrating and critiquing historical legacies reflects broader questions about how we view the past. We are constantly changing how we view the past and it is difficult to affix ‘static understanding’ much after the fact.
The above introduction sets the stage for the kinds of comparisons we might want to make. In the case of Abbasid social and cultural history, we often have to rely on our imagination, based on the evidence available. While we have some primary sources, we lack visual culture — unlike today, where photos, videos, movies, and social media provide a rich visual context. The Abbasids left us with virtually nothing in this regard. Baghdad was destroyed and rebuilt, with much of our understanding of the round city relying on textual descriptions. In this context, exploring the peculiar preferences of al-Amīn, the Abbasid caliph, not only satisfies historical curiosity but also challenges our assumptions about identity and desire. His apparent attraction to eunuchs and the fashioning of young girls to resemble boys prompts us to question our modern labels. Could our current understanding of sexuality and gender be too narrow to grasp the complexities of the past? This historical enigma invites us to rethink how we interpret old customs through today’s lens and consider that ancient fashion and identity might be more fluid than we assume.
Let’s look at a primary source, one by Abbasid scholar al-Masʿūdī (d.956 CE) on Queen Zubayda, from The Meadows of Gold (Murūj ad-Dahab).5An English version, The Meadows of Gold: The Abbasids (1989), is an abridged edition translated and edited by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone. There have been minor abbreviations and edits to this version, and I have pulled only what is relevant from the source:
“Then, O Commander of the Faithful, when the Caliphate passed to her son [al-Amin], he gave precedence to his eunuchs, such as Kawthar and others, and showed his preference by bestowing upon them the highest honours. Zubayda, noticing her son’s marked taste for these eunuchs (khadam) and the ascendance they were gaining over him, chose young girls (jawārī) remarkable for the elegance of their figures and the charm of their faces. She had them wear turbans and gave them clothes woven and embroidered in the royal factories, and had them fix their hair with fringes and lovelocks and draw it back at the nape of the neck after the fashion of young men. She dressed them in close-fitting wide-sleeved robes called qaba and wide belts which showed off their waists and their curves. Then she sent them to her son. Al-Amin, as they filed into his presence, was enchanted. He was captivated by their looks and appeared with them in public. It was then that the fashion for slave-girls with short hair, wearing qaba and belts, became established at all levels of society. They were called ghulāmiyyāt.”
“This description fascinated al-Qahir. He showed great delight, and with a resounding voice cried out: ‘Boy! (yā ghulām, i.e. page-boy) A cup of wine in honour of the page-girls (al-ghulāmiyyāt)!’ Immediately, a swarm of slave-girls (jawārī) appeared, all the same height and all looking like young men. They were wearing tight-fitting jackets, qaba and all had fringes. They wore their hair in lovelocks and had belts of gold and silver. While the Caliph was raising his cup, I admired the purity of its jewels, the sparkle of the wine which gilded it with its rays, and I was enamoured by the beauty of these young women. But Qahir was still holding his formidable lance. He drank the cup straight off and said to me: ‘Right! go on!'”
The passages suggest that the caliph, Abū Mūsā Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd, better known by his laqab6Laqabs are nicknames, often honorific (i.e. related to religious, military, or political functions), but can also be identifying markers of the individual (e.g. facial appearance, intelligence, health, etc.). In al-Amin’s case, the laqab can mean, devoted, honest, and faithful. as al-Amīn, had some kind of preference for eunuchs. It is not exactly clear what preference this was, and it would be presumptive to say it was romantic or sexual, or solely that in nature. In theory, it could be a number of things, or none at all. We should generally be cautious about historical interpretations of sexuality as attitudes and cultural practices surrounding gender and sexuality in the past may differ significantly from contemporary understandings. Nonetheless, in response, Zubayda presented him with young girls which are described to resemble young men. They are called “ghulāmiyyāt,” which of course, rings bells with the earlier term mentioned, ghulām.
Linguistically, the transformation of the word is straightforward. The “-iyyat” suffix in Arabic is used to form collective or plural nouns, often abstract, from adjectives or nouns. It can indicate a concept or characteristic associated with the root word. In this case, ghulām becomes ghulāmiyyāt, an Abbasid term referring to jawārī (female slaves) dressed as ghilmān (male slaves). However, conceptually, this shift is far more intricate. The distinction here is crucial: these women were still considered jawārī, yet their masculine presentation was significant enough to warrant a separate term. This raises important implications for understanding both their gender expression and al-Amīn’s sexuality. How does this divergence from traditional gender norms reflect on his identity, and what does it tell us about the fluidity of these concepts in his time?
It would be a huge disservice to categorise historical things and people as gay or straight with modern understandings. Today, we are constantly trying to label and strictly group these identities, which may not have even computed to historical figures as anything other than simply going about their lives. Surely, the ghulāmiyyāt and their attire captivated al-Amīn and as he was seen in public with them, the establishment of a fashion trend for slave-girls with short hair and male attire across society grew. This is not much different than current fashion trends and their spread. These ghulāmiyyāt were the influencers of their time, dictating what was ‘in’ and what was ‘out.’ The way we overlook their impact highlights a broader disservice to our historical understanding of people and sexuality.
If future historians look through our fashion archives, among other reminiscent evidence of how we lived, what we liked, what we wore, how easy would it be to ascribe the wrong labels and ideas? I can not predict how those future historians will understand their own sexuality and society, but our fashion, desires, and values may not align with theirs — and they may use entirely different language to describe those values. It’s worth questioning whether the range of emotional, erotic, and sexual experiences in Arab and Muslim societies can be accurately represented by modern Western terms like heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, or gay. The assumption that these labels are universally applicable ignores the unique sociocultural contexts that shape individual experiences and the diverse emotional and psychological landscapes that exist across different societies.
In recent years, the fashion landscape has become saturated with trends, one of the many consequences of post-industrial capitalism: pixie cuts, baggy shirts, baggy pants. Are individuals that sport these looks inherently anything? Probably not! What’s important to recognize is that when we project contemporary labels onto historical figures, we risk misunderstanding them. The core issue is how we approach these identities — both ours and theirs. The challenge lies in recognizing that while we use these labels to make sense of our world, they may not fully capture the complexities of past identities. By attributing modern identities to historical figures, we might be simplifying or even distorting the realities of their lives.
Our present-day frameworks of gender and sexuality are products of specific cultural and historical contexts, and applying them retroactively can reinforce patterns of misinterpretation. Instead, we should strive to understand historical figures within the context of their own time, acknowledging the fluidity and diversity of their experiences. None of this was to say that al-Amīn is not homosexual, or that he is. It is only a matter of how we think about and approach these culture-shocking issues that has been my concern.
