I Forgot to Mention...

I forgot to mention that Peter is an atheist. I thought that was pretty strange, here in the heart of the Muslim world, but he didn't. I got the impression he thought people pretending to be Muslims while being nothing of the sort was fairly standard.

Luckily in Syria there are no religious police as in Iran or Saudia Arabia. This is because Syria, like Turkey, is officially a secular state. This doesn't mean one can feel at ease proclaiming one's atheism, however. Islam, like Christianity when its power was secure, does not possess the imagination sufficient to allow its magnanimous understanding of its tolerance of others to embrace those who think the bearded fellow in the sky is non-existent, if not distinctly malign.

When I say Syria is secular I mean only that the clerics are not in positions of executive power. I don't mean that Islam as a binding ordering cultural force of everyday life is not ever-present. This is even more so in Aleppo, which is one of the most conservative cities in the country, something reflected in the greater number of women in total body covering. Oddly enough, that conservatism didn’t stop Peter telling me it’s the homosexual capital of the country, shortly followed by Deir-Ez Zur. Do these things go together – for a reason I 'm not sure I can explain? Only last year I read Carmen Bin Laden, a relation by marriage of Osama, stating that there are more homosexuals in Saudi Arabia than the whole of Europe. That I find hard to believe but I got her point. Speculating randomly I might want to wonder, if this is true, if it might have something to do with the unavailablilty of women. You can't even, in these conservative areas, look at them in full sensual glory, except at home and only then if she's one particular person – your wife. But you can't get a wife unless you can afford one and have negotiated the various socio-economic hurdles required to convince her father that you're not impoverished or in any way disreputable. Might you want soulful, intellectual communion with that female body with whom you share yours? In a culture that limits the freedom and spirit of women, in order to protect their honour, (I don't understand this, not really), you might not be programmed to expect, nor her to provide, such a stimulus. So rather like boys in a boarding school you might want to look to shores able to provide a more accessible form of intimacy, especially if the available prostitutes are either too expensive or, like the rest of the women, lacking in interesting discourse potential.

I am not trying to insult Islam. I suppose, though, I may offend some Muslims. People must live as they wish, however much I feel that the way they choose to live, on the basis of my own perceptions, is disturbingly exotic. I am just wanting to call a spade a spade and wonder how to explain this connection – if it exists – between homosexuality in Islam and religious conservatism. If that connection doesn't exist, what I say is irrelevant, because untrue, so there's no reason to be offended, surely.

As it happens there is much I like about the culture that has been shaped by Islam. But this has to do with my general respect for its noble opposition to the dehumanizing forces of the consequences of reductive materialism, its stalwart defence of the spiritual side of man, a defence Christendom has unashamedly abandoned under the influence of its technological innovations and misconceived understanding of the scope and role of reason.