The meditation known in Arabic as naẓar ila'l-murd (Arabic: النظر إلى المرد), "contemplation of the beardless" or Shahidbaazi (Persian: شهید بازی / شاهدبزى) is a Sufi practice of spiritual realization.
Peter Lamborn Wilson claims this as the use of "imaginal yoga" to transmute erotic desire into spiritual consciousness.
In particular, the Terminal Essay in volume 10 of The Arabian Nights contained a 14,000 word essay entitled "Pederasty" (Volume 10, section IV, D) in which Burton speculated and opined that male homosexuality was prevalent in an area of the southern latitudes named by him the "Sotadic zone".
Conservative Islamic theologians condemned the custom of contemplating the beauty of boys.
Nazar was denounced and deemed a heretic by Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328).