Thursday, December 8, 2005

Alexander the great or Alexander the gay ?

Was Alexander the great really as they are saying now gay?
Sorry to be specific in the description was he really bisexual person?
Since the 70s of the last century and there are claims that were turned as historical facts that the great young leader who invaded the world was a gay and he preferred men over women and the rest of this talk you can find in Oliver Stone's Alexander movie!!
Greeks refuse these claims and if you remember when Alexander the movie was released and even they sued Stone for spreading these claims.
Anyway I was watching today a documentary in Discovery channel in Showtime Arabia, this documentary was Battle ground: Ancient wars, it was about the famous historical war between the Persian army and Alexander the great army.
That ancient war is not only historical but legendary 45 thousand Greek solider in front of 1/2 million Persian solider in Persia "Iran now" and yet Alexander made a miracle and won.
The tactics used in the war are great, the plan, the whole design of the Greek army, also the personality and intelligence of Alexander as a commander, an excellent documentary.
This documentary made me think a lot about the claims about Alexander's sexuality is he or is he not?
I felt from the documentary that he is straight man; the kind of a commander to achieve this victory must be a man on all levels if you understand what I am saying.
Also I remember I saw another documentary on Discovery civilization called lost civilizations: Persia and I remember them saying that Alexander warned his officers and soldiers from imitating the Persian lifestyle as it is homosexual life style no suitable for a man, as Alexander who came from Harsh country compared to Persia finds the Persians were not men enough as they had so comfortable lifestyle, this is recorded in historical records ,as you see Homosexuality was something bad from his point of view ,something he warned his officers and soldiers from , so how come he became a gay!?
Another thing and this historical proof, according to the Egyptian Egyptologists and historians and also Greek literature and history professors there is no single Greek record or document saying that he was a gay.
Also it was well known that he had many wives and the most famous one of them was Roxanna
So what is the story?
It started in the Novel "The Persian slave or boy" as I read some where from sometime after that Alexander the great joined Leonardo Da Vinci in the ancient gay club!!
I don't believe that for one good reason, historians always change history as they are humans; already the western Historians portrayed Cleopatra as whore who stole roman men from their wives while she was an intelligent woman who worked very hard to preserve the independence and dignity of her own country!!
This reminds me with stupid claims by some western historians I saw it on either the National geographic channel "Asia" or on the history channel saying that Akhenaton, the famous pharaoh and the first person in Egypt to call for One God, was a gay!!!!
Despite all the historical proofs that he was a straight man who adored both his wife and his mistress "he had one who gave birth to son!!"
What about you folks? Do you think that Alexander was gay?

8 comments:

  1. I utterly disagree with your attitude towards homosexuality and homosexuals. It might be a historical curiosity to wonder about the sexual and emotional preferences of some historical figures like Alexander; but I can't help but notice how you view a homosexual man as inferior to a heterosexual one. Would you mind explaining on what basis do you have such views? You seem to fall into the trap of stereotyping gay people like the majority of our society. What is ironic is that on your blog, you have an article about Minorities in Egypt. What about sexual minorities? Did you ever think abou them, their rights? Did you ever wonder about those individuals whether they are gay or lesbians, transexuals or intersexed whose gender or sexual identity does not conform to the norms of the society? A person who is concerned about human rights, should not hold degrading views about other individuals just becuase they happen to have a different sexual orientation than the majority of people in the society. I encourage you very much to rethink your views on homosexuals and to read more and educate yourself about sexual orientation.

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  2. My basis is my religion the Islam, Islam prohibited Homosexuality,not only the Islam but all other divine religions Chirstianity and Judism
    this is how I think

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  3. Ok Ms Zeinobia, I warn you this is gonna be long.

    You say that islam prohibits homosexuality and we often hear similar claims from muslim clerics whenever the subject is brought up. But, let's see what that means. Now, if we consult any reputable medical source and ask what is homosexuality, the answer will most probably be something like: homosexuality is the emotional and sexual inclination towards members of one's own gender. While we don't have yet a clear understanding of the factors that determine the sexual orientation in an individual, the extensive body of sceintific research conducted about that topic point out that the one's sexual orientation is determined either genetically or in an early phase of the person's childhood. The scientific community also agrees that sexual orientation is not something that one can control or alter either through some form of medication or otherwise. A heterosexual man or woman who engages, say out of curiosity, in a homosexual activity doesn't become a homosexual and the same is true for a homosexual who engages in hetrosexual activities. One's sexual and emotional inclination are more deeply rooted inside oneself to be changed by any known means.

    Now the claim that islam or any religion prohibits homosexuality seems to me ridiculous. How can any religion prohibit a feeling or a desire? If that feeling or desire came about as a result of a conscious engagement in some activity, then your claim might make sense. But, this is not the case for sexual orientation. Even the catholic church, which by no means can be called gay friendly, has been forced to modify its position on homosexuality in light of the existing scientific evidence to say that catholicism does not prohibit homosexual feelings and desires, but only homosexual activity.

    One has no choice over his/her sexual inclination. Yet, a heterosexual person is definitely blessed when compared to his homosexual counterpart in religiously conservative societies like our beloved country. Our society would accept that a person would fall in love with another of the opposite sex, get married and so on. Not only does the society condones this, it encourages it. Even islamic teachings discourage celibacy, encourge hetrosexual marriage and even describes a person who marries as someone who is completing/perfecting his religion. So for the majority of people, the hetrosexuals, islam offers a kind of guidance on how to deal with their sexuality: get married or die trying. A homosexual muslim, on the other hand, is greatly disappointed to see that amid the volumes upon volumes of islamic teaching whether it is the qur'an or the never ending recorded sayings and doings of muhammed and his close companions, there is hardly any similar guidance offered for him. The qur'an has nothing for him except the story (legend) of lot and his people and the terrible punishment they received. You might want to say that a devout homosexual muslim should see that the moral of the story is that he has to remain celibate. So a hetrosexual, can dream and pursue love, sex (inside marriage) and a lifetime companion with all the blessings he can hope for from God, while if a gay person dreamt or (God forbid) sought these same normal harmless ends, he incurs upon himself not only the wrath of God but also the vengenace of His earthly delegation who carry the burden of protecting the morals of the society.

    Well, Ms Zeinoba I have more to say, but I have written too much already. I felt I had to respond when you tried to justify your views of homosexuals by appealing to your faith and made no attempt to understand those people as human beings first. What good is faith and religion if it does not envoke inside us feelings of tolerance, compassion and understanding towards our fellow humans? If religion is our excuse to hate, discriminate against or degrade others then something is fundamentally wrong with our religion or at least with our understanding of it.

    Thanks for reading this.

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  4. Mr.Sherif sorry for my late reply as I was so busy
    anyway I still on my position and my opinion about homosexulatiy ,based upon my islamic belief
    God created the woman as the other half of the man who completes him on all level ,there are two pairs from every creature even those like plants which don't have gender got female and male organs inside.
    another point I couldn't understand referring the two villages of Luke as legend ,it is not a legend
    Also the point you refered as the problem the muslim gay will find from the many religious text against him ,so what we will do delete verses from the Quran or Sona' for him , this is dangerous issue which I can't approve ,call me retarded or radical but there are some constants that I don't like to discuss

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  5. Unlike the homophobic air that prevails the western world today, homosexuality in its different shades and tones was tolerated as an aspect of life in ancient times.

    Until very recently, the country-side 'Ariaf' in Egypt for example are generally more relaxed towards the existence of different people among them. I don't know how this has changed under the influence of both western media raining from above and neo-Islamist speech seeping from below.

    The same can be seen in other traditional societies; India for example, and indeed paintings on ancient Greek artefacts showed men in situations that can be sometimes described as homosexual and at other times as merely intimate friendship of the kind we used to see in our streets until today (friends holding hands, sitting close, hugging?)

    Back to the issue of Alexander and the Greeks in specific, I should mention that I once read a historical thesis on how close-knit comradery between Greek soldiers in their ever lasting warring could have created very strong bonds of brotherhood, friendship and love that roamed on the fringes of homosexuality as we define it today, and how such close relationships actually could have enhanced the comradery and sticking-together-ness of soldiers at the times of hardship.

    So expecting to find a historical record saying that someone who lived in a society which maybe perceived homosexuality as normal was in fact gay doesn't make much sense to me, and in that ancient and, to us an alien society, there would be no contradiction between having many wives and at the same time having a very special and close relationship with a male friend, which is not necessarily the anal-penetrative stereotype of 'gay'.

    What is 'gay' anyway?
    It's just another pointer to some vague point on a continuous spectrum of human sexual orientation which, depending on your standpoint, can be used as an insult, just like 'whore'.

    In all cases our judgement on the sexuality is culturally influenced and cannot be non-biased, specially of societies of past times.

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  6. Thank you for your reply. No, I don't think you are retarded :)
    It's very dangerous, however, to declare that there are some constants you don't like to discuss. This is the death of critical thought!!!

    You say that God created man and woman, but then God also created the intersexed "an individual whose sexual characters lie between a typical male and a typical female". Contrary to what the qur'an suggests, it is simply not true that human beings are born either male or female.

    You also say that God created men and women to "complete one another". But, the whole point of my previous comment was to highlight that sexual orienation is not a person's choice. It is either determined before birth or in the early phases of childhood. If God created the hetrosexuals, then who created the rest of the people with dissident sexualities, eblis???

    You end your remark by saying that we can not ignore the negative attitude of the religious texts towards gay people. Well, you shocked me. I thought qur'an and science agree. Isn't that what the great Zaghloul El Naggar writes about day and night??!!!

    If there is something we can't ignore, Zeinobia, it is the reality around us. We can not reject scientific findings in favour of religious dogmas.

    You may find this article interesting: http://www.muslimwakeup.com/sex/archives/2004/12/dissident_voice.php#more

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  7. The address for the page was cut off:

    http://www.muslimwakeup.com/sex/archives/2004/12/dissident_voice.php#more

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  8. Sorry for all those posts, the address keeps being cut off. You can just go to the main page:

    http://www.muslimwakeup.com/sex/

    then scroll down to the third article: "Dissident sexualties: Muslim and Gay in the UK" and then follow the link below the excerpt to the remaining of the article.

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