Abu Nuwas: Islam's First Shock Jock

Even by today's standards, popular media and censors would likely explode at the notion of prose whose starting verse was "O sodomy!" or the declaration that "masturbation was not as good as pederasty, but better than marriage".

This is the stuff of only the most controversial of late night cable shows or videos/DVDs hidden away behind the ominous red beads in the video store signifying the adult section. Imagine, however, that these things were spoken very possibly in full seriousness not in just a private format, but at a presidential correspondence dinner.

Then you've got Abu Nuwas al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Hakami - a man invited to the court of the morally upright Caliph, where he espoused his pro-pederast, anti-marital pro-alcoholic poetry.

Today he is celebrated as among the greatest poets of the Orient. However at the time he would often generate an uproar at his outright blasphemy. Which was exactly what he'd hoped for.

While historians cannot agree exactly when Abu Nuwas was born, it is was clearly in the mid 7th century, most likely in Persia. He was born to a Persian mother named Golban and an Arab soldier named Hani. He never received the chance to know his father, as he immediately marched off to Damascus. When a Yemeni shopkeeper came to Persia, Golban sold her son as a slave, who made his next stop in Basra, Iraq. As he aided in the shop he made it a point to practice his prose and educate himself further on the Quran and grammar. Eventually he was noticed by Walibah ibn al-Hubab, his older cousin.

The man was fascinated by Abu Nuwas (who received the name as something of a nickname for his long curly hair). His poetic talent, wit, and knowledge of grammar resulted in an instant friendship and it is said that he bought the boy's freedom. If not with his previous master, this is likely the first place he was introduced to an adult-adolescent homosexual relationship, as it has been noted that Walibah and Abu Nuwas maintained a strong, sexual relationship. Meanwhile, he continued to focus on enhancing Abu Nuwas's education - which later continued under a man named Khalaf al-Anmar.

Khalaf specialized in pre-Islamic poetry, which likely ignited a flame of curiousity in Abu Nuwas, who later joined a tribe of Bedouins for some time to enhance his knowledge of original Arabic. Due to their limited exposure to non-Bedouins, the dialect they spoke is widely regarded as unadulterated.

Abu Nuwas was not all that thrilled by the idea of Bedouin life however - considering it primitive and disdainful compared to the lavish living of city life.

Later in life, the eccentric poet developed something of a reputation for his prose inside the various cities he would inhabit. He did not try to hide the licentiousness of his verse and often found friendship or enemies based on this profligacy. Despite the rather hard topics - going into graphic detail of how much he loved wine and how he enjoyed sodomy with young boys - he was an undeniably talented author and was invited to the court of the Caliph.

Initially the Islamic lord was amused, thinking these topics to be the anomalies, not the norms. When the man refused to desist, he would find himself thrown in prison, where he was often the lament of the guards as he would continue to try to delight his compulsory audiences with tales of pederasty. When he was let out of prison, he would immediately set back into his tales and poetry - resulting in his exile.

When he proved unrelenting in his antics, he was finally driven into flight towards Egypt. The man lived through four Caliphs - all of which appeared amused at first but grew increasingly intolerant of his flamboyant, heretical emphasis on sin. Among his most popular poems, for example, states:

For young boys, the girls I've left behind
And for old wine set clear water out of mind.
Far from the striaght road, I took without conceit
The winging way of sin, because [their horse]
Has cut the reins without remorse,
and carried away the bridle and the bit.

Abu Nuwas continued these until the day of his death, rocking the strict Islamic world to its very foundation with his brazen and provocative preference towards sin.