Islam’s Nancy Boys

 
Dymphna’s post on Friday about Mukhtar Mai included the following assertion about pederasty under Islam:

…they don’t call it pedophilia in Muslim countries, nor do they consider anal rape of boys by older men as homosexual behavior if a man is the aggressor against the boy. Those acts are just standard operating procedure and this allows them to get around the strictures of Sharia law.

This provoked a question from Pastorius:

I’ve got a question. How does one document this statement?

The reason I am asking is because I have read these kinds of statements about Islamic society many times, but, there is no documentation.

This is not to say that I don’t believe that this kind of thing exists. I think it does exist in primitive societies all over the world. It exists in most prisons as well. And, of course, what is prison life, if not primitive life?

The thing is, as I can not document the above statement, when I have posted such things on my blog, I expect that liberals will think I am simply posting slander against Islam. I would really prefer to document what I write about, rather than going on anecdotes.

Dymphna responded to Pastorius, citing some sources that she has used in the past and providing additional information.

Then ik — a frequent commenter here at Gates of Vienna — supplied a reference to an article (originally found in The Times, but no longer available) about pederasty as it is traditionally practiced by the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. Correspondent Tim Reid was reporting from Kandahar four years ago:

Now that Taleban rule is over in Mullah Omar’s former southern stronghold, it is not only televisions, kites and razors which have begun to emerge. Visible again, too, are men with their ashna, or beloveds: young boys they have groomed for sex.

Kandahar’s Pashtuns have been notorious for their homosexuality for centuries, particularly their fondness for naïve young boys. Before the Taleban arrived in 1994, the streets were filled with teenagers and their sugar daddies, flaunting their relationship.

It is called the homosexual capital of south Asia. Such is the Pashtun obsession with sodomy — locals tell you that birds fly over the city using only one wing, the other covering their posterior — that the rape of young boys by warlords was one of the key factors in Mullah Omar mobilising the Taleban.

Mr. Reid goes on to describe the changes instituted by the Taliban as they imposed their strict interpretation of Sharia, including the now-infamous practice of toppling stone walls onto homosexual offenders.

But the Taliban have been hustled into the dustbin of history, and the traditional ways are re-emerging:

‘In the days of the Mujahidin, there were men with their ashna everywhere, at every corner, in shops, on the streets, in hotels: it was completely open, a part of life,’ said Torjan, 38, one of the soldiers loyal to Kandahar’s new governor, Gul Agha Sherzai.

‘But in the later Mujahidin years, more and more soldiers would take boys by force, and keep them for as long as they wished. But when the Taleban came, they were very strict about the ban. Of course, it still happened —the Taleban could not enter every house — but one could not see it.’

But for the first time since the Taleban fled, in the past three days, one can see the pairs returning: usually a heavily bearded man, seated next to, or walking with, a clean-shaven, fresh faced youth. There appears to be no shame or furtiveness about them, although when approached, they refuse to talk to a western journalist.

‘They are just emerging again,’ Torjan said. ‘The fighters too now have the boys in their barracks. This was brought to the attention of Gul Agha, who ordered the boys to be expelled, but it continues. The boys live with the fighters very openly. In a short time, and certainly within a year, it will be like pre-Taleban: they will be everywhere.’

What is one to make of all this? Does NAMBLA have a position paper on the overthrow of the Taliban?

Islam holds sway over a large part of the world where brutality has been the way of life for millennia. In Islamic tribal cultures, women are a scarce commodity, hoarded by rich and powerful men, leaving unattached men in the same situation as men in prison.

And the outcome is the same: the young and the weak become the “nancy boys” of the older and more powerful men. A culture of pederasty develops, consisting of dominant men and their catamites. Raised on a regimen of brutality, the young boys grow up to inflict it on the next generation.

Talk about a “cycle of violence.”