Page "LGBT in Islam" Paragraph 19

Whatever the legal strictures on sexual activity, the positive expression of male homeoerotic sentiment in literature was accepted, and assiduously cultivated, from the late eighth century until modern times.

First in Arabic, but later also in Persian, Turkish and Urdu, love poetry by men about boys more than competed with that about women, it overwhelmed it.

Anecdotal literature reinforces this impression of general societal acceptance of the public celebration of male-male love ( which hostile Western caricatures of Islamic societies in medieval and early modern times simply exaggerate ).