Int. J. Middle East Stud., page 1 of 17, 2013 doi:10.1017/S0020743812001614 Michael Allan QUEER COUPLINGS: FORMATIONS OF RELIGION AND SEXUALITY IN ALA  AL-ASWANI’S IMARAT YA QUBYAN Abstract Faced with the possible censoring of the film adaptation of Imarat Yaqubyan, the book’s author, Ala al-Aswani, responded, “Why aren’t Italy, France, or the United States defamed by movies dealing with homosexuality?” Implicit in his defensive question is a perceived distinction between First World gay rights and social conservatism in the Third World. My paper considers this con- ventional coupling of gay rights and civilizational discourse in the global reception of Imarat Yaqubyan. Against the author’s remarks, I argue that the story is remarkable for staging an inter- play between the putatively opposed characters of Hatim Rashid, an openly gay newspaper editor, and Taha al-Shazli, a young man lured into a terrorist group. By uniting these two characters along parallel tracks, Imarat Yaqubyan queerly couples the seemingly antagonistic forces endemic to the civilizational discourse of gay rights and offers us a means for imagining new constellations of queer politics. When the film version of Ala al-Aswani’s novel Imarat Yaqubyan (The Yacoubian Building) was initially screened in the summer of 2006, 112 members of the Egyptian parliament banded together to demand that profane scenes depicting homosexuality be censored. 1 Mustafa Bakri, an independent parliamentarian and the editor of the Egyptian paper al-Usbu, rallied many of his fellow representatives and delivered a fiery speech on the parliamentary floor, incensed by what he saw as debauchery “totally against Egyptian moral values.” 2 Bakri’s widely reported speech helped to frame media coverage of the Egyptian film for international newspapers just months prior to its release at film festivals across the world. The story appealed directly to Western news outlets, which focused on the potential censorship of homosexuality in an Arab land: “Call to Censor ‘Immoral’ Egyptian Film” read the headline from The Guardian 3 ; “Sa sortie au Caire a choqu´ e ou ravi” (Its Opening in Cairo Shocked or Delighted) was the headline in Lib´ eration 4 ; the BBC led with “Egypt Debates Controversial Film” 5 ; and Le Monde included an interview with the film’s director, Marwan Hamed (“Si le gouvernement et la censure m’autorisent ` a sortir le film de quel droit le parlement intervient-il?” [If the government and the censor authorize me to release the film, what right does parliament Michael Allan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, Eugene, Ore.; e-mail: mallan@uoregon.edu © Cambridge University Press 2013 0020-7438/13 $15.00