Friends of Opposite Gender

Everything is possible is human condition: supreme eminence to ultimate debasement; selfless love to demonic barbarism not to forget sexual love to platonic love.

Platonic love between the friends of opposite gender and open declaration of same hasn’t been uncommon in his story of the humankind, even in the Muslim countries.

Following is an excerpt from the book titled “Indentity and Violence” by Amartya Singh

Religious Identity and Cultural Variations

There can also be vast differences in the social behavior of differen persons belonging to the same religion, even in fields often thought to be closely linked with religion. This is easy to illustrate in the contemporary world, for eample, in contrasting the typical practices of traditionalist rural women in, say Saudi Arabia and those of Muslim women in urban Turkey where head scarves are rare, dress codes that often similar to those of European women.

 It can also be illustrated by noting the vast diffenrnces in the habis of socially active women in bangaldesh and the less outgoing women in more conservative circles in the very same country, even though the persons involved may all be Muslim by religion.

These differences must not, however, be seen simply as aspects of a new phenomenon that modernity has brought to Muslim people. The influence of  other concenrns, other identities, can be seen throughout the history of Muslim people. Consider a debate between two Muslims in the fourteenth century. Ibn Battuta [1], who was born inn Tangier in 1304 and spent thirty years in various travels in Africa and Asia, was shocked by some of the things he saw in a part of the world that now lies between Mali and Ghana. In Iwaltan, not far from Timbuktu [2], Ibn Battuta befriended the Muslim qadi, who beheld an important civic office there.

Ibn Battuta records his digust wiuth the social behavior in the qadi’s family:

One day I went to the presence of the qadi of Iwaltan, after asking his permission to enter, and found with him a young and remarkably beautiful woman. When I saw her I hesitated and wished to withdraw, but she laughed at me and experienced no shyness. The qadi said to me: “Why are you turning back? She is my friend.” I was amazed at their behavior.

But the qadi was not the only one who shocked Iban Battuta, and he was particularly censorious of Abu Muhammad Yandakan al-Musufi, who was a good Muslim and had earlier on actually visited Morocco himself. When Ibn Battuta visited him at his house, he found a woman conversing with a man seated on a couch. Ibn Battuta reports:

I said to him: “Who is this woman?” He said: ‘She is my wife.” I said: ‘What connection has the man with her?’ He replied: “He is her friend.” I said to him: “Do you acquiesce in this when you have lived in our country and become aquainted with the precepts of the Shariah?” He replied: “The association of women with men is agreeable to us and a part of good conduct, to which no suspicion attaches. They are not like the women of your country.” I was astonished at his laxity. I left him and did not return thereafter. He invited me several times, but I did not accept.

Unquote “Indentity and Violence” by Amartya Singh, ISBN-13: 978-0-393-32929-2

[1] Ibn Battuta
The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century By Ross E. Dunn
Ibn Battuta visited Ceylon (Sri Lanka) on his way to Ma’bar so that he might go on pilgrimage to the top of Adam’s Peak, the spectacular concical mountain that loomed over the southwestern interior of the island. “That exceeding high mountain hath a pinnacle of surpassing height, which, on account of the the clouds, can rarely be seen,” wrote John de Marignolli, the Christian monk who passed through Ceylon just a few years after Ibn Battuta. “But God, pitying our tears, lighted it up one morning just before the sun rose, so that we beheld it glowing with the brightest flame’ Ibn Battuta recalls that he  first saw the peak from far out to sea, “rising up into the sky like a column of smoke.” The mountain was scared to Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists alike, and pilgrims of all three faiths climbed together to the summit to behold a depression in the surface of the rock vaguely resembling the shape of an enormous foot. For Buddhists it is a trace of the Great God Shiva, and for some Christians it belongs to St. Thomas. In Muslim tradition God cast Adam and Eve from the seventh heaven in disgrace, and when they tumbled to earth the man landed hard on the peak on the mountain, leaving an impress of his foot in the solid rock. He remained there for a thousand years atoning for his sins, until the Archangel Gabriel led him to Arabia, where Eve had fallen. The man and the woman met on the plain of ‘Arafat and later returned  to Ceylon to propagate the human race. Adam was not only the first man but the first prophet of Islam as well, and it was to reverence him that Muslim pilgrim trekked to the Foot, As they still do today.

[2] Timbuktu
In its Golden Age, the town's numerous Islamic scholars and extensive trading network made possible an important book trade: together with the campuses of the Sankore Madrasah, an Islamic university, this established Timbuktu as a scholarly centre in Africa. Several notable historic writers, such as Shabeni and Leo Africanus, have described Timbuktu. T
Timbuktu is a town in the West African nation of Mali situated 15 km (9.3 mi) north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali. It had a population of 54,453 in the 2009 census.
Starting out as a seasonal settlement, Timbuktu became a permanent settlement early in the 12th century. After a shift in trading routes, Timbuktu flourished from the trade in salt, gold, ivory and slaves, and it became part of the Mali Empire early in the 13th century. In the first half of the 15th century the Tuareg tribes took control of the city for a short period until the expanding Songhay Empire absorbed the city in 1468. A Moroccan army defeated the Songhay in 1591, and made Timbuktu, rather than Gao, their stronghold. The invaders established a new ruling class, the arma, who after 1612 became independent of Morocco.
In its Golden Age,  Timbuktu's numerous Islamic scholars and extensive trading network made possible an important book trade: together with the campuses of the Sankore Madrasah, an Islamic university, this established Timbuktu as a scholarly centre in Africa. Several notable historic writers, such as Shabeni and Leo Africanus, have described Timbuktu. 
However, the golden age of the city was over and it entered a long period of decline. Different tribes governed until the French took over in 1893, a situation that lasted until it became part of the current Republic of Mali in 1960. Presently Timbuktu is impoverished and suffers from desertification. Several initiatives are being undertaken to restore the historic manuscripts still kept in the city. Meanwhile, tourism forms an important source of income.