There is a group of historians writing about the long and well documented history of homosexuality in the Middle East, but most of them focus nearly exclusively on men. The first scholar to make Arab lesbians of antiquity her focus is Professor Samar Habib, author of Islam and Homosexuality, and Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representations.

In the interview, Habib discusses lesbians throughout history in the Middle East, addressing questions such as: Is there such a thing as an indigenous Middle Eastern homosexual, or is it a Western import? Isn't calling same-gender-loving women of antiquity 'lesbians' ahistorical, since they would never have conceptualized themselves as lesbians? What kind of evidence is there for the existence of these lesbians (or, as Habib  translates the ancient Arabic term for them, 'grinders')? How do lesbians in the region today compare to their foremothers?

Click HERE to listen to the 27-minute interview.

Click HERE to listen to a revisited, 15-minute version of the interview.

Professor Habib

One of the highlights of the interview is at the end when Habib recites and analyzes this medieval Arabic lesbian erotic poem:

But my vagina succeeds and glimmers between a cheek and a freckle

Like a dot of musk swinging above the crescent

Revealing a pure mouth, smiling like pearls

In which there is a savoury saliva

Instantly sweet to the taste

And a fine neck as slender as the gazelle’s

From what I have seen of her beauty—

And O how much have I seen!—

I say glory to whoever moulded beauty from clay

To create a perfect creature made of beauty

I came to sip from her and her extreme thirst is at a well

If that is prohibited (?aram) then this is not lawful (?alal).