Love and Sexuality Among Shia Students at the Lebanese University

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Love and Sexuality Among Shia Students at the Lebanese University Love and Sexuality among Shia Students at the Lebanese University: An Exploration of the Interconnectedness with Religiosity and Nuclear Family Relations. 1 Suzanne Lugthart Thesis within the master Middle-Eastern Studies University of Amsterdam Student number: 10878564 Supervisor: Dr. Robbert Woltering Second reader: Dr. Marina De Regt (VU) Word count: 21269 1 Joseph Eid, A Lebanese Couple on Beirut’s Ramlet al-Bayda Beach, November 8, 2016. AFP, https://www.lebanoninapicture.com/pictures/a-lebanese-couple-were-kissing-on-ramlet-elbayda-beach. Table of Contents Acknowledgements 2. Abstract 3. 1. Introduction 4. 2. Theoretical framework 14. 2.1 Love 14. 2.2 Sexuality 16. 2.3 Interconnections of the Nuclear Family 17. 2.4 Religion, Religiosity and Shia religion 19. 2.5 Love and Sexuality in the Muslim world 21. 2.6 Love and Sexuality in Lebanon. 23. 2.7 Politics, Social Movements and Mass Media 24. 3. Religion, Love, and Sexuality 29. 3.1 Changing Religiosities 29.. 3.2 What is Love? 32. 3.3 Love and Religion 33. 3.4 Physical Contact and Religion 34. 3.5 Mut’a 38. 3.6 Interim Conclusion 39. 4. Family, Love and Sexuality 40. 4.1 Bad parental relations and 3ib shuma elik! 40. 4.2 Let’s talk about love, but not about everything 42. 4.3 Marriage 44. 4.4 Siblings 46. 4.5 Interim Conclusion 48. 5. Discussion and Conclusion 50. 5.1 Love and Sexuality 50. 5.2 Intersectionality of Shia Religion 52. 5.3 Intersections of the Nuclear Family 53. 5.4 Final Conclusion 56. Bibliography 57. Appendix; Table of informants. 61. 1 Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank all my informants for sharing their thoughts, ideas and experiences. Without their kindness, trust and openness, this research would not have been possible. Especially, I would like to thank Rhanim and Hassan, who both always helped me and tried to connect me with other students for interviews. The next person I would like to thank is my supervisor for this thesis, Robbert Woltering. I would like to thank him for being patient when I switched the topic of this thesis, for his critical, constructive feedback, for helping me with analytical doubts, guiding me in narrowing down my topic and advising me in my role as a researcher. Additionally, I would like to thank Marina de Regt for her feedback on my research proposal and for giving me advice in the field. Her critical feedback on the proposal helped me to improve the theoretical framework of this thesis and to strengthen my methodologies. With her advice, she helped me to be a better anthropologist. In addition, I would like to thank Joseph Alagha, for his wise counsel about my research, but also concerning the practical problems of living in Beirut. Furthermore, he gave me very motivating feedback, when I felt that the research was going too slow. Furthermore, I could not have written this proposal without the support of my family and my friends. I would like to especially thank my mother for her moral support when I needed it the most. Also, I would like to thank Wietske Boskma and Judith van Uden for their moral and intellectual support. I am grateful to Nancy Mouawad and Issa Haddad for their moral support, good company in my spare time in Lebanon, and for checking parts of my thesis from a Lebanese perspective. Finally, I am thankful to my uncle, Paul Thuilliez, who helped me to improve the level of English of this thesis. 2 Abstract In no society sexuality is left unregulated. Family and religion are two important factors that mostly come with rules, expectations and advice for sexual activity, but also for love, a feeling or experience that could lead to sexual activity. A sect of religion who has extraordinary thoughts about the regulations of love and sexuality are the Shia Muslims, because an essential part of these Muslims accepts short-term marriages, mut’a marriages. This thesis is an exploration of the interconnections between the nuclear family and religiosity with experiences of love and sexuality among Shia students at the Lebanese University in Beirut. This study is based on eleven weeks of fieldwork in Beirut in which nineteen in-depth interviews were done with students who spoke openly about their experiences of love and sexuality. The main question is: How do Shia students of the Lebanese University in Beirut experience love and sexuality before the permanent marriage in relation to ideas, rules and expectations of religion and the nuclear family? This research aims towards a deeper understanding of the interaction of family, religion and gender on experiences of love and sexuality for Shia students of the Lebanese University. This research shows that family and religion are tightly connected factors, because differences or similarities with parents in religion affect family bonds, communication and the way in which students deal with parental advices, rules and expectations. When there are great differences between religious ideas of parents and students it is less likely that students follow parental advice and talk with their parents. Women who shared the same religious beliefs as their parents were likely to follow the rules of their parents and have abstinence from sexual activity before marriage, however this was not the case for the men. Physical borders were however also apparent for men, but less strict. Furthermore, male sexual experiences were less likely to be in a religious context, were female first sexual experiences were always in a mut’a context or for one woman in a forced context, being raped. This research explores the interconnections of gender, religiosity and family by looking at experiences of love and sexuality of Shia students. Keywords: Shia, Students, Religiosity, Religion, Nuclear Family, Love, Sexuality, Mut’a. 3 1. Introduction “When I was eighteen years old, I got confused between myself and religion. I had met a boy, and he seemed really religious, so I thought he could help me, but it turned out to be the upside down. I lost my virginity-card with him. I thought to be with him forever, and he said that we were going to get married. I believed him. A week after this happened, I discovered that he not only did the mut’a (short-term marriage) with me, but also with two other women and that he was still talking to his ex. I was so angry and never talked to him again, even though he tried hard to see me. We did mut’a because he did not want to do the haram, but it is wrong! Mut’a should not be done by just two persons like we did it. It needs a sheik and should not just be done for sex. After this situation, I started to doubt religion even more. I believe in God and that he is by our side, but I did not seem to find a religion. A year ago, I also removed my hijab. It was a war between my parents and me.” Ghada (21 years old) This story of Ghada shows how religiosity can relate to love and sexuality. Later in this interview, it was also to be seen how the difference in religiosity had affected the interaction between her and her parents concerning love and sexuality. I asked her whether she could tell her parents about what happened with this man and she answered: ‘No! I am sexually active, but they cannot know! It is the biggest sin ever. If they knew this happened, they would be really mad and treat me bad. They have strict rules. You cannot touch or give a man a handshake.’ The interaction of religiosity, family, love and sexuality is the central topic of this research. The story of Ghada is just one example of this interaction, and this research will show that these interactions vary for each student depending on their gender, religiosity, bond with their parents and sexual activity. The main goal of this thesis is to explore how students’ experiences of love and sexual activity are affected by their religiosity and nuclear family communication, rules and advice. Baydoun states that young adults in Lebanon are subjects to the hegemony of the familial/private sphere in Lebanon, which is regulated by various religious sects in Lebanon 4 with legal jurisdiction about marriage and the family.2 These are mostly groups who promote sexual activity only inside marriage. Statistics, however, show that Lebanese youth have sex at a young age and that this occurs in most cases outside of marriage.3 These results of Baydoun show a significant interaction of family, religion, love and sexuality in the lives of young adults in the entire Lebanese society. This thesis aims to explore this interaction for a smaller group of these Lebanese young adults, which are Shia students at the Lebanese University. The focus is on Shia students to eliminate the influence of sectarian differences, plus it makes this research more reliable since it makes the research group more focused. This study is focused on Shia since it takes essential differences between Shia and Sunni in Lebanon into consideration. The most significant difference, relevant for this research is the existence of mut’a, which was also an important aspect of the story of Ghada. Mut’a is a temporary marriage, that is only approved in Shi’ism.4 It is a contract for a certain pre- determined period, and something should be given to the woman. The story of Ghada illustrates that the rules of mut’a vary widely, but there are also differences in ideas on whether mut’a should be accepted.
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