LOL.
I googled Ghaznavi on google images and there is some homo erotic Turk love going on here.
@
Charon
BWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!
Mahmud of Ghazni was culturally Persianzied. Persian poets made many poems about handsome Turkish slave soliders. Turks were known for their beautiness in Islamic empires and many Persian poets have made poems about Turkish men. I don't want to say that all Persians are gay but we have also Bacha Bazi today.
THE BELOVED AS A SLAVE SOLDIER
In early and mid-classical poetry, particularly in the lyrical preludes (nasibs, tabibs) to panegyric odes, the beloved is sometimes a youth who serves as a page, but more often a young Turkish soldier. From early in the Abbasid period the caliphs instituted a tradition of forming army contingents composed of slaves, mostly taken as captives in the course of frontier wars and raids into Central Asia, the Caucasus, and India, among other regions. There were also slave markets where young male slaves, along with female ones, captured as booty or procured by other means, were sold (see Yarshater, 1960, and BARDA AND BARDADĀRI iii. and v.). The preferred slaves were Turkic ones, admired for their handsome features, their valor, and their martial gifts. The Samanids, who originated from Sogdiana and were neighbors to the Turkic khanates of Central Asia, adopted the practice of enlisting slaves in their armya practice which continued under the succeeding dynasties, chiefly the Ghaznavids, the Seljuks, and theKʷārazmāhs.
Young slaves also were bought by the wealthy for agricultural work, domestic chores, or running errands, and by rulers to serve at their courts and in their armies. Those who were fit to fight were specially trained for military service and were placed in the slave contingents of the army, as is abundantly evident from the sources and the poetry of the Samanid, Ghaznavid, and Seljuk periods. Some of them, if talented, were also taught other skills; for instance, they learned to play music and served as boon companions (Yarshater, 1960, p. 49). The love poetry of these periods is generally addressed to such adolescent soldiers or pages, as the following examples demonstrate:
Put down your weapons boy! Bring me kisses! / All this trouble and strife serves no purpose at all! (Ey pesar jang beneh busa biār / In hama jang o doroti begoḏār;Farroḵi, Divān, p. 141).
Take off and throw aside, O Turk, this battle raiment / Take up the lyre and put down your shield and sword (Barke ey Tork o be yek su fekan in jāma-ye jang / Čang bargir o beneh darqa o amir az čang; Farroḵi, Divan, p. 206).
The army left and that army-breaking idol left (with it) / May it not happen to anyone to lose his heart to a soldier! (Lakar beraft o ān bot-e lakar-ekan beraft / Hargez mabād kas ke dahad del be lakari;Farroḵi, Divan, p. 382).
The following line attests to the musical skill of the beloved:
Do you see that when that Turk takes the lyre in hand / Self-restraint flees a hundred parasang from the hearts of saints! (Bini ān Torki ke u čun barzand bar čang, čang / Az del-e abdāl bogrizad be sad farsang sang; Manučehri [d. 1041], Divān, p. 50).
Selecting Turkish beauties for love affairs became so prevalent that in Persian poetry that Turk became a poetic synonym for a male beauty or the beloved:
O my Turk, you wont say where you are today / Unless we send someone and call you you wont come! (Ey Tork-e man, emruz naguʾi be kojāʾi / Tā kas naferestim o naḵᵛānim nayāʾi! Manučehri, Divān, p. 95).
William Jones has made the term familiar through his elegant but free translation of a ghazal of Hafez (d. 1389), beginning with:
If that Turk of Shiraz should gain my heart / I bestow upon him Samarkand and Bukhara for his black beauty spot (Agar ān Tork-e irāzi be dast ārad del-e mā rā / Be ḵāl-e henduya baḵam Samarqand o Boḵārā rā; Divān, no. 3; see Browne, Lit. Hist. Persia III, p. 304).
We find a fairly comprehensive description of such youths, who combined military tasks with a beloveds part, in the lyric prelude of a qasida in praise of the Seljuk Malekāh by Kāfi Ẓafar of Hamadān, cited by ʿAwfi in his Lobāb al-albāb (pp. 210-13), of which a few lines are cited here:
These jolly riders who ravish peoples hearts / One wonders whose progeny they are and after whom they take in beauty (In uḵ-savārān ke del-e ḵalq setānand / Guʿi ze ke zādand o be ḵubi be ke mānand).
They are Turks by race, no doubt, but / In beauty and loveliness are like idols (Torkand be aṣl andar ak nist walikan / Az ḵubi o zibāʾi mānand-e botānand).
They are troop leaders and (yet) brides of chambers / They are world paladins and furious lions (Mirān-e sepāhand o ʿarusān-e weṯāqand / Gordān-e jahānand o hobarān-e damānand).
They are of musky facial hair, sweet of speech, with perfumed tresses / Silver-bodied, gold-girded, and narrow-waisted (Mekin ḵaṭ o irin soḵan o ḡālia zolfand / Simin bar o zarrin kamar o muy-mīyānand).
In battle they think of nothing but attack by sword / In festive gatherings they have no pleasure but ravishing hearts (Dar razm bejoz tiḡ zadan ray nabinand / Dar bazm bejoz del setādan kām nadānand).
I hope that by the good fortune of my lord I shall find / A sweetheart from among them, even though their price is high (Arju ke be eqbāl-e ḵodāvand biābam / Ziān ṣanami gar bebahā nik gerānand).
Of course there were slaves of other origins as well, e.g., Indian and Slav (generally termed bolḡār Bulgarian, known for their fair skin). In a poem Farroḵi compares the Turkish and Indian partners (Divān, p. 435), showing preference for the latter (perhaps with tongue in cheek) on account of their docility:
By the time a Turkish sweetheart has given you three furtive kisses / You can take an Indian one and consummate the affair with him (Tā to rā Torki se busa-ye dozdida dahad / Hendui rā betavān bord o bepardāḵt ze kār;Farroḵi, Divān, p. 435).
Anvari (d. ca. 1190) has a qasida which begins with an account of his love for an Indian sweetheart bought from a slave-seller (Divān, p. 165; see also Sanāʾi [d. ca. 1141], Divān, p. 68).
As women were totally secluded and were socially excluded from mens gatherings, wine was handed around in the feasts by youths, serving as so many Ganymedes. Such gatherings provided an occasion for the participants to admire and fall in love with the wine servers (sāqis) so frequently that notions of the beloved and the sāqi are intertwined and fused together in many ghazals; and the sāqi and the beloved become one, e.g.,
Pardon me if the thread of my rosary came undone / My hand was in the arm of the silver-calved sāqi (Reta-ye tasbiḥ agar begsast maʿḏuram bedār / Dastam andar sāʿed-e sāqi-ye simin sāq bud; Hafez, Divān, no. 202).
HOMOSEXUALITY iii. IN PERSIAN LITERATURE ? Encyclopaedia Iranica
Lets talk about scientific facts instead of theory. In coming years there will be more studies like that with more samples.
