Mukhannath

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Mukhannath (مُخَنَّث; plural mukhannathun (مُخَنَّثون); "effeminate ones", "ones who resemble women") was a term used in Classical Arabic and Islamic literature to describe gender-variant people, and it has typically referred to effeminate men or people with ambiguous sexual characteristics, who appeared feminine and functioned sexually or socially in roles typically carried out by women.[1][2][3][4][5] Mukhannathun, especially those in the city of Medina, are mentioned throughout the ḥadīth literature and in the works of many early Arabic and Islamic writers. During the Rashidun era and first half of the Umayyad era, they were strongly associated with music and entertainment.[1] During the Abbasid caliphate, the word itself was used as a descriptor for men employed as dancers, musicians, and/or comedians.[6]

In later eras, the term mukhannath was associated with the receptive partner in gay sexual practices, an association that has persisted into the modern day.[7] Khanith is a vernacular Arabic term used in some parts of the Arabian Peninsula to denote the gender role ascribed to males and occasionally intersex people who function sexually, and in some ways socially, as women. The term is closely related to the word mukhannath.[8]

  1. ^ a b Rowson, Everett K. (October 1991). "The Effeminates of Early Medina" (PDF). Journal of the American Oriental Society. 111 (4). American Oriental Society: 671–693. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.693.1504. doi:10.2307/603399. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 603399. LCCN 12032032. OCLC 47785421. S2CID 163738149. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 October 2008. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Transgenderism 2017 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference TransgenderHealth 2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Geissinger 2021 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ رواس قلعه جي, محمد; صادق قنيبي, حامد; مصطفى سانو, قطب (1996). معجم لغة الفقهاء : عربي - انكليزي - فرنسي [Dictionary of the language of jurists: Arabic - English - French] (in Arabic, French, and English) (1st ed.). Beirut, Lebanon: (Dar An-Nafes)دار النفائس. p. 386. OCLC 1158651576. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
  6. ^ Moreh, Shmuel (1998). "Mukhannathun". In Meisami, Julie Scott; Starkey, Paul (eds.). Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. Vol. 2. Taylor & Francis. p. 548. ISBN 9780415185721.
  7. ^ Murray, Stephen O.; Roscoe, Will; Allyn, Eric; Crompton, Louis; Dickemann, Mildred; Khan, Badruddin; Mujtaba, Hasan; Naqvi, Nauman; Wafer, Jim; Westphal-Hellbusch, Sigrid (1997). "Conclusion". In Murray, Stephen O.; Roscoe, Will (eds.). Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature. New York and London: NYU Press. pp. 305–310. doi:10.18574/nyu/9780814761083.003.0004. ISBN 9780814774687. JSTOR j.ctt9qfmm4. OCLC 35526232. S2CID 141668547. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
  8. ^ Almarri, Saqer (Fall 2018). "Identities of a Single Root: The Triad of the Khuntha, Mukhannath, and Khanith". Women & Language. 41 (1): 97–109. Archived from the original on 9 July 2024. Retrieved 12 August 2024 – via Stanford Humanities Center.