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This text examines the importance of masculine homosexual allusion in classical Arabic literature. It explores the underlying meanings of masculine motifs in classical texts. The fawn, for example, was often a symbol for the ethereally beautiful male youth, while the stallion represented masculine bravery and valour. For the most part such symbols do not represent homosexual intention, but are a reflection of sublime erotic ideals intertwined with religious beliefs. This text does not so much locate homosexuality in Arabic literature as it explores the use of male motifs, masculine allusion and phallic symbols as expressions of meanings that have often been misinterpreted throughout the centuries. It also connects Arabic literature with political conventions, social mores and theology.

Claims that the litterateur Badic al-ZamAn al-HamadhAni was a Shicite are based on misinterpretations of the available evidence. Information from al-HamadhAni's own works makes it clear that he was throughout his life an anti-Shicite Shaficl, and probably an Ashcarite as well. His religious affiliation served him well in his career, as the Shafic! elite of Jurjan, Nishapur, and probably other cities offered him their support. Nowhere was this support more crucial for him than in the celebrated literary contest in which he bested the famed poet and prose stylist Abel Bakr al-Khwarazmi, an ardent Shirite. Al-HamadhAni's account of the events of this debate, and its audience, provides useful evidence for the effect of political and religious affiliation on the literary history of this period.

C ONGRESSMAN WALTER went recently to Camp Kilmer for a firsthand check on the maverick migrants from Hungary. Maverick is the word for the mobile-unbranded cattle, calves of unknown maternity. Are they our kind of people? "These are men and women of the same character and integrity as their and our ancestors who, generation upon generation, have come to America to find peace and work, to build for themselves new homes in freedom." So said the President in commenting on the Refugee Relief Act of 1953. Or do they carry the hidden virus of Communism, as Congressman Walter suspects; and as, mirabile dictu, Scott McLeod denies? The alien has always posed problems. Sometimes they seem insuperable; or so formidable as to outweigh any advantages accruing from immigration. The American Indians, apparently, had little confidence in their ability to assimilate the newcomers from Europe. Nor did the "native" Americans who resisted successive waves of migrants, shifting their animus from one ethnic group to another. (A fine study of this resistance is found in Barbara Solomon's recent book, ancestors and Immigrants.) Resistance to the migrant is neither new nor distinctively American. Wop or dago, Mick or cross-back, kike or sheeny, Okie, Arkie and briar-hopper all have their parallels among peoples elsewhere. Consider "White Australia" or more precisely, as Warren Thompson suggests, "British Australia." Or the view and treatment of Indians in Durban, South Africa; or Burmese reaction to the Chinese (the "Jews of the Orient"). Such resistance has a venerable history: the Greek view of the barbarian, the English settlement acts of the i6oo's aimed at restricting mobility; and the supercilious rejection of western overtures by the Chinese in the nineteenth century.